Industry Strategy The 10-Slide Killer Pitch Deck: How to Hook Investors

[George]

One producer told me in Cannes this year:

If I can’t sell the project in my head to someone between two elevator rides, the deck probably won’t save it.

Honestly, the more markets I attend, the more I feel how true that is.

Buyers and financiers usually filter projects incredibly fast:

What genre is it?
Which territories could actually buy it?
Streaming or theatrical?
Recognizable cast?
Strong first 10 minutes?
Any pre-sales or MGs already?

But the biggest hidden question is usually this:

Can I trust the people around this project?

Because signing an LOI is easy.
Signing a contract is easy.
Even sales estimates can look great on paper.

The harder part is knowing who actually pays on time, who can really sell a film, and who people still want to work with two years later.

Honestly, I’ve seen weaker films move faster simply because the market trusted the ecosystem around them more.

 

[John]

We once went into investor meetings with a pitch deck that was nearly 25 slides long, and everyone kept saying how professional it looked.

The problem was that afterward almost nobody could explain the actual film in one sentence.

Later we cut it down to around 10 slides, and the conversations immediately became much better.

Since then, I’ve started feeling that overly long decks sometimes hide the project more than they actually sell it.