Scriptnotes what to pitch

Today on Scriptnotes they talked about the new eligibility requirements that the oscars have made for best picture. They link this to their topic of the day which was “what should you pitch about your film?” This seems to be a good correlation for me. Just like how the academy awards has criteria on what meets their idea of a great movie, the people someone pitches an idea to have their own criteria on what makes an acceptable film. One requirement they talk about is if the film idea respects certain groups of people, such as minority groups. That certainly sounds like a requirement to me because obviously most of the time they don’t want to offend Anybody or group. However they also point out that these requirements can also sometimes intimidate people who want to pitch ideas. I agree with this because if you put out rules saying: it can/can’t be this or it must be that, that can intimidate or discourage people. However I would argue that people shouldn’t be afraid to try. This isn’t easy as the hosts point out, they say that the hardest part isn’t finding the people for the job, it’s getting them to try to be the person for the job. I say people shouldn’t be afraid to try and meet criteria and maybe even do their own thing.