Turning early ideas into clear, pitchable concepts takes more than just a good deck. I’ve seen how the right approach can help teams land their clients, secure partnerships, or unlock funding. Here are a few examples from recent work with Narwhal Studios and Arctic7, and some lessons I’ve picked up along the way.

*A peek at some of the more recent examples, on a Miro board where I tend to manage deck buildouts and visuals with the team.*

Pulling the Right People Into the Meeting

Before Starting on a Pitch, I talk to the folks who’ll actually do the work.

Whether it’s supporting a co-development team, an art studio, or a creative director with a vision, my first job is to listen and make sure the right people are involved from the start. I’ll ask a lot of questions, budget ranges, timeline, goals, team structure, and begin piecing together a proposal that’s honest about what’s possible, and clear about what’s needed.

For Arctic7 game-pitches, we mapped the team, tools, genre, mechanics, and industry analysis. For studio ideas, we’ve gone further: full budgets, cross-platform rollouts, and timelines built with consultation from industry experts.

The best pitches aren’t just inspiring, they’re executable.

Figuring Out Where the Value Is

A good pitch shows what others gain by saying yes, emotionally, practically, or strategically.

*Highlights from a pitch deck for an idea we pitched to Capcom, outlining Narwhal Studios’ strategy, budget, and rollout plan for a transmedia revival of Lost Planet.*

When I help a team shape a pitch, it usually starts with a feeling, a hook, a style, or a story they can’t shake. Our job together is to turn that spark into a structure.

Sometimes that’s about showing ROI in the traditional sense (like cost savings through virtual production or game service scalability). Other times, it’s about making the emotional or creative value crystal clear, helping a potential client or investor see what this does for them, not just what it means to you.

In every strong deck I’ve worked on, from service work to a pitch for a multi-platform slate fund, we framed value across three lanes:

Creative potential (What’s exciting here?)
Executional plan (How would we pull this off?)
Strategic fit (Why now, and why with this team?)

Understand the Landscape

Ground your pitch in real-world context: Who else is doing something similar? Why is this different?

*Co-Development Capabilities Deck - An overview of services, process, and past work, built to support studios across games, and film.*

I spend a good chunk of time on competitive research — not to copy others, but to understand how a pitch fits into the broader conversation.

Whether it’s a vertical slice for a tv-series, or a pitch for a game engine services team, we need to know:

What’s already out there?
What’s working?
What’s missing?
And how big is the actual opportunity?

For example, when we shaped the Arctic7 services, we identified their crossover capacity between game dev and virtual production as a differentiator. Their ability to provide full dev and co-dev for games, while also supporting film/TV made them stand out in a crowded market.

Keep It Open (But Focused)

The best pitches are flexible, built to work across games, film, animation, and more.

Modular deck template lets the biz dev and production team update content easily, keeping things tailored without extra design work. A strong, inviting design makes it feel specific, and gets people to lean in.

You want your pitch to speak clearly to one kind of buyer, but also leave room for other opportunities. In today’s world, a film & TV creative artist can also work across video games. The same team might end up hiring you for your services, or greenlighting your pilot idea.

That’s why many of the decks I help shape include multiple versions:

One tailored to film / tv production buyers
One for game publishers
One for technical co-dev teams

But they all share the same core, just framed to match what each audience cares about.

Make It Feel Real

People rarely buy a concept, they buy what they can see, feel, or imagine themselves inside of.

*This SIGGRAPH talk helped build credibility around the concept and team. We went deeper than a typical biz dev pitch, and it led to real conversations with producers.*

A polished deck is great, but breaking down how things were made, and spotlighting the talent behind them at events like GDC or SIGGRAPH, helps makes it real. People need to see it, whether it’s a sizzle reel, flythrough, or demo. That’s why we always anchor pitches with something visual.

For past transmedia pitches, we’ve built entire strategies around execution, real timelines, asset reuse, and a three-year rollout across game, film, and tv-series. When people see how it all fits, the opportunity becomes clear.

Share It Thoughtfully

A pitch isn’t a one-time performance, it’s part of a broader communication strategy.

Once the pitch is together, we don’t just fire off a PDF and hope for the best. We build a rhythm around it, a light campaign. That usually means figuring out:

Who we’re sending it to, and what we’re actually saying
How and when we’ll follow up
What kind of content we’re sharing alongside it, maybe some BTS, a reel, a blog post
And what questions we think we’ll hear back

Then we watch how people respond, over 30, 60, sometimes 90 days. If it clicks, great. If it doesn’t, we tweak it, create new material, and we follow-up again. Sometimes it’s just a reel. Then it’s a few calls. Then you’re building a whole thing together. That’s how most of the good stuff starts.

Although not always possible, this is the kind of rhythm I try to work in. If you’ve got a spark and just need a path forward, I’m around. Shout-out to Samitra Borhanpour and Safari Sosebee for being my partners in crime on most, if not all of these. And Brand Engine | Creative Branding Agency for initial templates.

Who’s Behind the Pitch: Turning Creative Ideas Into Something You Can Sell | Article