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Did you ever tell a joke to someone who didn't get it? A joke so funny that you couldn't stop laughing when it was told to you? A joke you couldn't wait to tell other people because it was so great that you knew they'd love it as much as you?
OK. We've all been there. Same with the hilarious anecdote you couldn't wait to tell people about only to have them look at you with glazed eyes.
The same thing can happen with your script, treatment or pitch. It's not that you've written some super cool thing that goes over the heads of 99% of the populace. It might be something that's a little high concept and unfortunately it's being read or heard by an agent, manager, producer or development executive who just doesn't get it.
I mean, they just don't get it.
And the reason they don't get it is because their frame of reference is too limited. Or they're just square. Or have no awareness of pop culture. It's like this. Go back in time say 10 years, when everybody was watching Seinfeld and talking about each episode the next day. If you wanted to have a conversation about a Seinfeld episode with someone who never watched the show and you tried to explain it, you'd get a stare.
I recently pitched a project to two producers. Partners. One got it. The other didn't. The one who didn't get it didn't get it because her tastes do not lean even remotely to the high concept project. But her partner's tastes were more flexible. He got it. And I found myself at the early stage of a deal.
Not that my idea was all that high concept. I showed the treatment I wrote to a couple friends of mine. They got it. I pitched the logline to a few other people. They got it. But this one producer, who is a smart woman, didn't get it or couldn't see it.
We never know why someone passes on a project. If we're lucky enough to have an audience maybe we find out. If your idea is overly clever and smart and hip and cool--whatever, it just might be turned down because the wrong person is reading it.
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