[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: How can a writer sabotage themselves in a pitch meeting?
Writer/Professor/Psychologist Peter Desberg: Let’s start with the big ones:
-Taking notes badly
-Arguing
-Being defensive (one of the worst things that you can do)
-A whole bunch of things we can do with preparation that they omit doing
-Not practicing enough for the pitch. We talk a lot about how techniques to practice
There’s a whole bunch of things to know. If I’m a psychologist for a minute. we got kind of anal about all the factors that influence what goes on from something as big as some of those:
-What time of the day you pitch
-How you prepare for the time of day
There’s research that says the earlier in the morning the better. The later, the more you’re stumped. There’s a thing called decision fatigue that people don’t want to make decisions, especially important ones. People start to lose glucose in the brain as the day goes on. We literally recommend bringing some lemonade or some chocolates with you just to get their blood sugar up.
-We talked about eye contact. We could spend the rest of the day easily talking about those
-Research that shows the effects of smiling
Some of the things are so subtle and so powerful. I mean getting people to do this starts to influence how much you can influence them, things you wouldn’t think that would be such a big deal. There’s a whole bunch of stuff we cite. Some interesting research on charisma.
Film Courage: Oh like what? Sorry to interrupt.
Peter: There’s a machine that’s about the size of an iPhone that measures charisma. You’re probably wondering how three factors they use:
-The first is speech. When a speaker is really boring, what’s the word you use? Monotonous. The monotone if you listen.
Linguists have a word prosody that talks to all the extra linguistic features of speech. For example, monotone pitch is important. If you hear a really boring speaker, they stay in the same pitch the whole time and it’s a great way to put you to sleep but after a while…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
CONNECT WITH JEFFREY DAVIS
CONNECT WITH PETER DESBERG
MORE VIDEOS WITH JEFFREY DAVIS and PETER DESBERG
BUY THE BOOK – NOW THAT’S FUNNY!: The Art and Craft of Writing Comedy
BUY THE BOOK – PITCH LIKE HOLLYWOOD: What You Can Learn from the High-Stakes Film Industry
BIO:
Peter Desberg is professor emeritus at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award and Outstanding Professor Award. He is also a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the area of stage fright and performance anxiety. The author of 23 books, he has been quoted by such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today and The New York Times, and has consulted for companies including Apple, Boeing and Toyota in the areas of pitching and persuasion, corporate presentations, and using storytelling and humor in business presentations.
Jeffrey Davis is a professor of screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and served from 2009–2019 as the department chair. Davis has also written and produced trade shows for Dick Clark Productions and counted among his advertising clients Dell Computers, Toyota of America and Honda. His has more than 30 credits to his name, including Night Court, Remington Steele, and documentaries for A&E, Discovery, and The History Channel. As a consultant, his areas have also included writing, pitching, and employing storytelling and humor in business presentations.
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