Reading the pitch to an audience

My agent sent me a spec for a call from a company seeking MOW's (in an era where MOW's are dead, this was welcome news!) with very particular specs. (Family comedy suitable for a Disney Channel made for a girl audience and their parents who wouldn't mind watching as well.)

I actually had a spec script written already, (The Wild Swans based on a Hans Christian Anderson tale) which would fit the bill if the company didn't mind fantasy. My agent checked. No go. Strictly present day.

So I had a couple of days to come up with a new pitch in between delivering a 2nd draft on an industrial video I had to turn in on Monday.

By Tuesday I had a 2 page pitch about a budding young archaeologist from the far off, and fictional country of Chandistan, who steals a priceless artifact to protect it from destruction by radicals who think art is unholy.

I read it out loud to my screenwriting students today as an example of a pitch - and they LOVED it. And they're not even the target audience. But, as they pointed out to me, it was written like I try and get them to write--focusing on WHAT HAPPENS. How it happens can wait until you're writing the outline or the script itself. My agent also liked it.

So now it's up to see whether the market will.