Pitching Hopjockey

I've been staring at the screen for a few minutes, trying to figure out the best way to intro this one. And it's a long one. I ran enough sample openings in my head, basically different versions of "Everyone has that project they've wanted to do forever," but grammatically correct. It's because I want a good entry for this one, a strong and memorable one, because this is the project I've wanted to do forever. And though it's admittedly a long shot that it will ever get made, it's never been closer to actually happening.
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Okay, before I go any further: you can find the most up-to-date version of Hopjockey -- with info on the show and a rockin' teaser trailer -- on its website, www.hopjockey.com. Click on the couch if you dare. Also: I've had to be deliberately vague with names and places we've pitched. That's out of respect for the people we're working with. But I assure you it's all true.
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Okay, on with things.
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Hopjockey's roots go back to when I was an undergraduate. It was born out of mono and insomnia, a quirky science-fantasy comedy adventure with a skewed version of the hero's journey. It started with a college student much like myself waking up drunk and naked on another planet, with no idea how he got there. I wrote a couple of short stories for the Dead Gentlemen website, and tried working it into a screenplay, but couldn't figure out how to make it work. There was no ending, see. Just an ever-expanding, dimension-hopping adventure with increasingly odd characters and settings. The only way it could work, I discovered, would be as a comic book (I can't draw for shit), a series of novels (I suck at prose), or a TV show (which I didn't know how to write. Yet).

The logo from the old DG Hopjockey page
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When I found out I'd been accepted to AFI, I set a goal for myself. By the time I graduated, I determined, I will have written a Hopjockey screenplay, whether as a feature or a pilot. In my first year, I wrote a pseudo-pilot, Hungover in Paradise, and submitted it as an AFI thesis film. It was resoundingly rejected. Nobody understood the story, what was going on. But the script did attract the attention of a couple producing fellows from my year, Sean Hoessli and David Freid. They both liked what they saw in the that script and wanted to produce the project. Except there was no project at the time, since it didn't make the cut.

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In my second year, I took another stab at scripting the story. I was taking Writing for Television at the time from the incomparable D.C. Fontana. So I attempted a 2-hour TV pilot, with D.C.'s help. And under her mentorship, the story finally came together. She showed me how to take the fantasy and adventure I loved and make it sing in a weekly format. She showed me how to make Hopjockey work. And with her help, I met my goal -- I finished AFI with a complete Hopjockey pilot.

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BELOW: The cover of the original Hopjockey bible

I optioned the pilot to Sean and Dave, my producer buddies. And literally two weeks after graduation, Sean had somehow gotten us a pitch meeting at Sci-Fi with a VP of Original Programming. We went in and clumsily but enthusiastically pitched Hopjockey to a very polite and bemused Exec. And to our surprise, the Exec asked to see a script and a bible. So we knocked out a bible in a couple weeks, sent both documents over ... and never heard from them again. A pass, which was to be expected. But hey, we'd gotten to pitch, and an Exec thought enough of it to ask for a sample. Though that might have just been a way to get us out of the room.
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Then, about a year ago, we made the connection that led to our current round of pitching -- an Emmy-award winning producer and AFI alumn (and professor) who Sean interned for. This producer, who I'll call the Heavy, is the guy who taught our class how to pitch. So his opinion carries a lot of weight. He thought the project had a lot of potential, if we could extract the true human story out of the heavy, heavy sci-fi surrounding it. We needed to ground the show in reality, he told us, make it accessible to a non-genre audience. Center it in the college experience, make the relationships the focus rather than the sci-fi. We do that, we'll have something that we can sell. So we took his advice and retooled the pilot and bible, and in a few short weeks were ready to hit the pitching scene with an Emmy-winner in our corner.
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And then the WGA strike hit.

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So there was no pitching. Not several more months. But we kept busy. We refined the pilot story again and again, making it ever more grounded. We also shot the teaser for the website. And after the strike finally ended, we were ready to go ... provided we could pitch Hopjockey to the Heavy to his satisfaction. Remember, this is the guy who taught our class how to pitch, a guy with over fifty movies to his name, so he's a bit of an authority on the pitching. It took us two attempts (we faulted on the first one), but after the second we passed. And once we did, the Heavy brought in the final member of our pitching team -- the Agent, one of the Heavy's reps from one of the top Hollywood agencies.

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A month later, our meetings were set. We would be pitching three channels, what the Agent and the Heavy had determined would be our best shots: the Family Channel, the Genre Channel, and the Network. Three shots at one-in-a-million. The Heavy and the Agent would be there with us in the room, but I would be doing the majority of the pitching -- setting out the concept, characters, and story for the show. It's what the writer does. No pressure.
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BELOW: The cover of the brochure prop from the Hopjockey teaser

Up first: the Family Channel. We had a good in there -- the Heavy already had a show in development with them. That's essentially why they were meeting with us. The pitch went well, by all accounts. But ultimately, Hopjockey wasn't right for them -- they wanted shows more grounded in reality, and the sci-fi backdrop was too much. No matter. We had two other places to go. And nobody sells a show on the first try. (Though ALIVE may prove me wrong. More on that as it happens...).

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Next up: the Genre Channel. Should have a better shot there -- if there's any home for Hopjockey, it would be at a channel dedicated to genre shows. Plus, the Agent knew the Exec we were pitching to -- they gave each other a massive hug when we met. Plus, turns out Sean knew her from the Directing Workshop for Women back at AFI. So we had a couple bits of awesome on our side going in. Our confidence was up. This was gonna be good. We met her on the fourteenth floor of the building, went into a conference room with panoramic views of the city, sat down to schmooze ...

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... and then the earthquake hit.

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The whole building shook, swaying lazily from side to side. And we had quite a view of it fourteen stories off the ground. And that's when the pitch unraveled, right before it began. The Exec was gripping the table in wide-eyed panic -- she'd lost her house in the Cal-Northridge quake, and was flashing back in a state of near-PTSD. I was pretty shaken myself (ha). In emergency situations, my dad and I tend to go into slow-motion, to go near catatonic. "You're in danger," said my brain, "have some natural seditives." The world slowed down. I lost my sense of time and space. And now I had to turn around and pitch a show to a traumatized woman.

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Needless to say, it didn't go well. I never recovered from the quake. The pitch was flat and lifeless, devoid of the humor we'd worked into the presentation. And the Exec hit me with questions I was just unprepared for. When those came, I lost my place in the pitch script and couldn't restart. In short, I bombed it. But at least it was memorable. Execs hear hundreds of pitches a year, and few if any of them are accompanied by an act of God.

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Afterward, the Heavy told us that you can never really know with pitches. He's had people pass on perfect pitches where he was sure he'd sold them, and had people buy pitches he'd thought he'd bombed. So you never know. Then he and the Agent, very coach-like, told us to shake it off, to put it behind us and focus on the Network pitch ... which was the very next day.

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Now, I have a tendency to internalize and overblow setbacks. So turning around from the worst pitch imaginable in less than a day was a tall order. Also, the Network guy we would be pitching to was apparently Mr. Poker Face. You'll get nothing from this man, the Heavy told us. He's a wall, the Agent told us. He doesn't react to anything in a pitch. Don't let it phase you. Now, my performance history is mostly in improv, which feeds off of audience reaction. Performing to a black hole ain't easy, especially coming off a bombed pitch. I did not sleep well that night.

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The final pitch: the Network. We met with three Execs, with Poker Face in the middle. My goal for the day -- aside from selling the show -- was to get Poker Face to crack. If I could get him to laugh or smile, that would help spin the pitch. And we'd prepped a lot of humor for this presentation, to make sure it wasn't the comedy dead zone of the earthquake pitch. We went in all ammo'ed up and ready to go.

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It could not have gone better. Poker Face and the other Execs laughed early and often. Instant rapport. The energy was up and strong, everyone was jazzed. The execs were even joking with us throughout. It felt like we were sitting around a campfire swapping stories. It was, and I'm not exaggerating, perfect. It was the best pitch of my life. Afterward, the Heavy said he'd pitched Poker Face three times, and had never seen him animated, let alone laughing. We left high and happy, dreaming of a development deal.

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Last week, Wifey and I were up in Washington visiting the family. We were just leaving for dinner when the Agent called. He'd never called before. And he asked me to hold on while he got Dave and Sean on the phone. "This is it," I thought. "We sold it. This is the call."

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Well, it was the call. But not the one we were hoping for. Despite how good our pitch was, the Network had passed. Seems it was too much of a guys' show, and their focus is entirely on the 18-34 female demographic. "You guys learned a lot, and should be proud," the Agent told us. Which was odd language, because it sounds like the pitching is over. And it may be. The places we pitched were the likeliest to buy what we were selling. We asked him what was next. Are the other places we'll be pitching? The Agent told us we'd need to talk to the Heavy about what's next. Which may be nothing.
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But that pitch we bombed? Apparently, it wasn't as bad as I thought. We're still alive at the Genre Network.

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The Agent spoke to the Exec we pitched on Earthquake Day, and she's still noodling on the project. She believes there's something there, but she wants comedy in the project -- we've been selling it as an adventure comedy -- and I was not funny during the pitch. So the Agent sent her my writing samples -- The Gamers: PWNED and the pilot to Fred, Prince of Darkness -- to convince her we could bring the funny. If we're lucky, we get another shot to pitch the Genre Network, maybe with the network's whole development team in attendance. If not, they'll pass. And if they do ...

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I don't know what's next. I can't know what's next. But I do know Hopjockey has legs. The pitching process has showed me that. The Heavy and the Agent (and the Execs who agreed to hear the pitch) wouldn't have been involved otherwise. And it's grown and changed, been retooled, and survived. I'm sure it will in whatever form it eventually winds up in.

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Whatever the case, this is my forever project. I will keep working on it until it finds its place, and until I find mine. I think it will find a home someday, whether it's on a screen for the whole world to see, or just the screen of my word processor. And you know, as long as I get to finish the story, that would be enough. And hey, D.C.'s got some ideas on where to take it as well ...

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A-walkin' a beach, like the one Sandy wakes up on.