Screenwriting Blog
Posted on by Courtney Meznarich

A Former Development Exec Tells You How Screenwriters Can Nail a Perfect General Meeting

If you’re lucky enough to get a meeting with a development executive, we want you to be ready. So, we asked a former development exec what screenwriters should expect. There’s a difference, now, between a general meeting and a pitch meeting.

In a pitch meeting, you’ve most likely already met or spoken with the people you’re pitching to, and you’re trying to get the general flavor of a specific script across in a concise, visual way.

With one click

Export a perfectly formatted traditional script.

Try SoCreate for free!

Write Like This...
...Export To This!
...Then...

A general meeting, however, is “more of a get-to-know-you, really just about selling yourself, much more than it is about selling any story or any pitch,” Danny Manus told us. Manus, who now runs his own business No BullScript Consulting, teaches screenwriters what they need to know from an executive’s perspective. Because screenwriting, after all, is as much about the writing as it is about business sense.

“A general meeting is going to happen once, as an exec, I read your script, I liked your script, I want to meet with you, see what you’re working on, not just talk about the script that I read, which is fine, but I want to see what else you’re working on."

Script Consultant Danny Manus

So, if all goes well, what does a perfect general meeting look like?

“A perfect general meeting – it’s just about being professional, and bringing out your personality, so we know what kind of person we’re going to be getting into business with,” Danny explained. “Maybe I have something that I’d like you to work on. I just want to get to know you, see if you’re someone that I want to work with for the next five years of my life, see if you’re collaborative, see if you’re interesting, see if you have ideas, see if you can relate to our ideas and if we’re on the same page.

Act like a business person. Don’t be afraid to be your true self. And express your ideas!

Seems easy enough, 😉

You may also be interested in...

Former Exec. Danny Manus Names 2 Steps to a Perfect Pitch Meeting for Screenwriters

The pitch. Depending on the type of writer you are, that word just probably inspired either fear or thrill. But in both instances, you’ll need to calm those nervous or excited jitters so you can get your point across to the people who hold power to get your screenplay produced. Danny Manus used to be one of those people. Now, the former development executive has turned his experience into a successful coaching career for aspiring scribes, called No BullScript Consulting. He has a very clear way of describing the perfect pitch meeting, even though, as he puts it, “there’s no one right way, there are just a ...

Disney Writer Ricky Roxburgh’s Guide to Character Development

In my opinion, there are a LOT of things that Disney does well when it comes to storytelling, and few could argue that one of those things isn’t character development. It’s the reason kids and adults like me can’t seem to get enough of Olaf, Princess Tiana, Lilo & Stitch, Moana, and more. So, we could think of no one better to teach us a few Disney tricks of the trade than Ricky Roxburgh, writer for Walt Disney Animation Studios TV shows including “Tangled the Series,” “Big Hero 6 The Series,” “Monsters at Work,” “Mickey Shorts” and more! He’s an expert in character development for ...

Veteran TV Writer Ross Brown Gives Screenwriters This Free Business Advice

Take it from someone who’s written some of the most successful television shows of all time: there are a few surefire ways to succeed and infinitely many more ways to fail in show business. Luckily for you, veteran TV writer Ross Brown is more than willing to share his secrets to the business of screenwriting. In fact, he does it almost every day for his students at Antioch University Santa Barbara, where he’s the program director of the MFA program for writing and contemporary media. You may recognize Ross’s name from the writing and producing credits on TV hits, including “The Cosby Show,” “The ...