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Story for
Pitch Decks

The training

You’ve got a great idea and a script you think commissioners and industry people should read. But how do you convince them?

Take your pitching to the next level with this live professional development training.

Our tutors pitch their own drama scripts and factual ideas day-in day-out and will guide you through the process. You’ll walk away with a template you can tweak to fit all your ideas, no matter the genre or format. Plus the reassurance that producers and commissioners will see your vision in the way you do.

This practical training is designed for anyone with a drama script or factual/documentary idea looking to deliver a memorable, professional industry pitch for their story. It’s taught live and online to UK time, but everything’s embedded and archived in our online classroom – so you can join us from anywhere.

Our team

Meet the experts

John Yorke

Course Director

John is one of the world’s leading experts in narrative, and his first book Into the Woods has sold more than 250,000 copies across the globe. John has worked on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama, from EastEnders to Shameless, Life on Mars to Wolf Hall. His teaching has produced a generation of successful storytellers – with nominations and wins for BAFTA, RTS, Golden Globe, Emmy and Oscar Awards. 

More about John

Maria Carranza

Course Moderator

Maria Carranza is a Mexican writer, script consultant, development executive, historian, and translator with 12+ years of international experience in film and TV. She’s worked as a script and book reader for Original Film Netflix UK, Austin Film Festival, and the Athens Film Office, amongst many others, as well as a script consultant for dozens of projects in the UK, USA and Mexico.

More about Maria

Bursaries & Funding

See our full list of UK-based funding opportunities with application guidance. As this counts as CPD training, you may also be able to get funding from your employer to do it.

ScreenSkills

This course has been made possible by the support of ScreenSkills, and has been approved as part of an informal or formal continuing professional development (CPD) programme. You may be eligible for a training bursary for this course. Apply direct to ScreenSkills here, at least four weeks before the course start date.

Things to know

Story for Pitch Decks is for anyone who has to pitch ideas, including screenwriters, documentary makers, and those working in development for film or TV.

The workshop is suitable if you:

  • Want to craft a compelling pitch that prompts industry insiders to ask to see your work
  • Have found it tough to get responses from enquiry emails
  • Know you need to learn to make decks, but don’t know how
  • Want to discover why your pitches aren’t hitting home – and how to fix them
  • Want to learn the underlying framework behind successful pitches, and how to apply it
  • Have access to and a basic knowledge of Powerpoint, Canva, Keynote, or equivalent presentation software as this cannot be taught during the sessions
  • Can dedicate 2 days to the learning

This professional training allows you to:

  • Perfect your pitching skills and learn how to communicate your story in a more effective way
  • Move forward with a template that can be applied to future ideas
  • Refresh your story skills and use the principles of narrative to explain your idea to others
  • Distill your thoughts, and exert greater control over the drama of your pitch
  • Gain greater understanding of industry expectations and processes
  • Practise giving effective feedback and receiving critical notes
  • Network with others in the industry, and with the tutor team and guests

Day 1 Zoom Workshop – 10am – 4pm (UK time)

Discover a structure that works for selling any story idea, drilling down into the narrative framework that underpins every successful story. Then explore effective visual ways to engage people in your project, using Canva, PowerPoint or your preferred equivalent.

From the ‘must includes’ to the ‘don’t do’s’, we’ll guide you through the process with practical tips and exercises to get you exploring and making alongside a peer group of creatives all looking to develop their skillsets.

After the first day, apply the template to your story idea in your own time, with support from your peers.

Day 2 Zoom Workshop – 10am – 2pm (UK time)

Live pitch session. Pitch your idea to our panel of Scripted and Unscripted experts for live feedback.
We’ll recap key tips and tricks to stress-test and build up aspects of your pitch that could work even better, thinking in particular detail about answering the Why this idea? Why now? Why me? Why you? aspects of your pitch.

Join our alumni – After your course, you can join our online alumni community where you’ll meet our growing network of past participants. You’ll be able to.

  • Rejoin your classmates in a private forum
  • Continue to access an archived version of your course materials
  • Meet alumni from other courses and share work for feedback
  • Join discussions about screenwriting, script editing and the industry
  • Attend live chats with guest writers and industry folk

Mentoring and one-to-one feedback – Our team offer mentoring, script reads and reports. We are happy to quote by job or script, or to arrange a longer mentoring scheme as you work on a specific story idea. We’ll create a package to suit you, so please email [email protected].

How it Works

Our training is 100% online, taught in small groups with a designated tutor and moderator on-hand throughout.

This course is taught live at UK time, but everything is embedded and archived in our online classroom – so you can join us from anywhere.

It’s an active learning experience where you watch, reflect and practise exercises on Zoom and in our online classroom before submitting assignments for peer and tutor feedback. You’ll then refine your work as you improve.

It’s both flexible and structured. Social yet gives you space. Find out more about how we teach.

Book now Ask us anything
John Yorke Storycon
Our Alumni

What people say

Julian Unthank

Screenwriter

I attended the Story for Pitch Decks course as I was keen to update my skillset, and I’m so glad I did. I brought a live commission with me and developed a deck in tandem with the course, receiving fantastic feedback from Emma and the other attendees in the process. The result is a new set of skills and a deck that has gone down a storm with my Development Producer and will hopefully lead to a script commission. Watch this space!

Ryan Hooker

Script Consultant

I want to thank [Emma Millions] for running the Story for Pitch Decks course. I enjoyed working on my pitch deck, and felt that I learned more than I had planned! More than anything, it helped me reinforce many of the storytelling tenets that I learned during the Story for Script Development course, and I’m hoping to start using these new skills with writers soon.

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