Description
Have you got a great idea for a movie?
This is it! The Live!Ammunition! pitching competition returns with a special Raindance Film Festival 2020 edition!
This is your chance to pitch your movie idea directly to a panel of film industry executives and the toughest critics of all, a Live Online Audience.
The people on our Panel are the people who matter. They decide what gets made.
Pitching skills are the one skill often overlooked by writers, directors and producers. Learn how it’s done by watching the rest and hone your pitching skills by getting instant feedback. Who knows, your pitch could be taken up by one of our panel. Â Past Pitches that have gone into production include Meet The Parents (1994), 51st State (1995), Siamese Cop (1996) and White Bhaji (2001).
The panel can, and will, gong you off if they get bored. But they have to give two good reasons why.
The Prizes!
The winner will get a £100 Raindance Voucher to use on any of our courses or membership.
How to Pitch
Sign up to the zoom link above. Twenty places guaranteed to pitch will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Once the first 20 places have been filled we will keep a waiting list.
Please note, the demand to pitch is high and admission does not guarantee you a slot to pitch. We will accommodate as many pitches as possible but he best way to ensure your place is to arrive early and choose an early slot.
Not ready to pitch? Then just come, watch, learn and network.
Discover Be Discovered.
Raindance Film Festival Special Live Ammo Panellists:
Sandy Lieberson
Sandy Lieberson has been a major figure in the film industry in Europe and America since the 1960s, having acted as agent for among others, Sergio Leone, Peter Sellers, Lindsay Anderson and the Rolling Stones. After producing Performance and Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus, he formed Goodtime/VPS with David Puttnam in 1970, going on to produce some of the most significant films of the 1970s and 1980s. From 1977 Sandy was first vice president of International Pictures and Marketing and later president of production at 20th Century Fox, supervising the international launches of, among others, the early Star Wars films, and supervising the production of films by Herzog, Roeg, Bertolucci, Zinneman, Kurosawa and Ridley Scott. Founder and Chair of Film London, Sandy launched the ground breaking Microwave Fund, Artists Moving Image and Production Finance Market. One of the founders of The Berlin Talent Campus and originator of the Producers Course at the NFTS, Sandy is currently an advisor and contributor to a wide range of organisations and projects dedicated to the development of talent and skill in the film and media industries.
Kim Hudson
Kim Hudson is a pioneer in personal growth stories. She’s the originator of the ‘Virgin’ story structure.
After studying Writing for Film and Television at Vancouver Film School in 2006, Kim became fascinated with the Hero’s Journey. More particularly, she wondered what the feminine counterpart looked like. After studying Jungian theories, mythology, fairy tales, and many movies that did not follow the hero’s journey, Kim produced an archetypal structure for writing story of learning who you are, despite what everyone expects from you. Her ground-breaking book The Virgin’s Promise: Writing Stories of Creative, Spiritual and Sexual Awakening has become the go-to handbook for personal growth storytellers.
This universal story trope crosses genre, age, and gender. The pattern can be found in a broad range of movies such as Billy Elliot, Her, Moonlight, Lady Bird, About a Boy, An Education, Another Earth, A Quiet Place, The Post, Jojo Rabbit, Avatar, and Joker.
Kim regularly offers weekend workshops at Raindance Film School, London, and Writer Jump, Vancouver. She speaks on the Virgin’s Promise regularly including LA Script Festivals, David Lynch MFA Writing Class, Romance Writers of Australia Annual Gathering, BC Student Film Festival, Women in Film Vancouver, and Yukon Available Light Film Festival.
Kim lives in Whitehorse, Yukon with her two daughters and sheepdog and enjoys hiking and skiing during her free time.
Read articles by Kim Hudson
Rachel Carter
Rachel’s background is as a film producer, working with BFI, Creative England, UKFC and Tiger Aspect Productions on film and prime-time TV drama. Rachel has been commissioned by the UK Film Council for award-winning short films, and has co-produced a feature film with a BAFTA nominated director.
Alongside producing, Rachel also worked as a freelance script reader and consultant for clients including iFeatures and Creative England. Rachel has trained in producing with the BBC, and in script development with The Script Factory. Rachel has been awarded two Royal Television Society awards for Production Craft as a Producer, and Best Short Film. Rachel is now Programme Director for the MA in International Film Production at De Montfort University, where she teaches development and production craft skills as a Senior Lecturer.
Weiko Lim
Recipient of a Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award and a finalist of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship, Lin has written projects for The Mark Gordon Company, Don Mischer Productions, The Walt Disney Company, Ivanhoe Pictures, The Unison Company (Taiwan), and Wanda Pictures (China).
Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Lin produced and wrote the original story for The Unison Company’s Chinese romance film 100 Days directed by primetime Emmy winner Henry Chan (Fresh Off the Boat, Scrubs). The film world premiered at the Hawaii International Film Festival and released theatrically nationwide in Taiwan. It won the Audience Award at 2014 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and was an official selection at the prestigious 2014 Golden Rooster Hundred Flowers Film Festival in China.
As original story writer and producer, Lin’s Chinese language feature action thriller Retroactive is set up at Wanda Pictures (SouthPaw, The Great Wall). In television, Lin was the head writer for the 2014 Huading Global Film Awards hosted by Lucy Liu. It was produced by veteran Oscars and Emmy Awards producer Don Mischer. Honorees included Orlando Bloom, Halle Berry, Hans Zimmer, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. He also wrote for the 2016 Shanghai Disney Grand Opening Ceremony.
Recently, he wrote a TV pilot for Super Deluxe (former digital studio of Turner/Warner Media) and adapted New York Times’ Best Seller River Town by Peter Hessler for Fugitive Films and acclaimed director Lu Chuan (City of Life and Death, Disney’s Born in China).
From the publisher of Save the Cat! and The Writers Journey, his book CRAZY SCREENWRITING SECRETS: How to Capture a Global Audience is available wherever books are sold with the Chinese edition to be published in Mainland China in 2020.
Represented by Anonymous Content and United Talent Agency, he is a member of Writers Guild of America West and Dramatist Guild of America.
Dean Cross
As the Film Content Manager for Vue entertainment with 20 years experience in the business, Dean has an appreciation for films across the whole spectrum, from the smallest art house and independent films to the biggest of Hollywood’s blockbusters, he can usually spot a hit.
Tony Lee
Previous Life Ammo Panellists include:
Denise Parkinson
Denise Parkinson is Head of Entertainment at Future Media and former entertainment director, global and UK, for the Telegraph Media Group. She has more than 20 years’ experience in all aspects of marketing and distribution in the British and international film distribution industry. She began her career at the legendary Palace Pictures, followed by roles at United Pictures and more than a decade as head of film at Emap. Other recent roles include director of international marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Disney, ABC and ESPN, and global entertainment director for Yahoo!
Louise Salter
Stéphanie Joalland
Originally from France, Stéphanie holds a Masters in Business from Audencia Nantes. She began her career in story development at TF1 International and Canal Plus. She worked as a story editor on TF1 animated series such as Emmy-nominated Pet Aliens, wrote live-action TV scripts, created a Sci-Fi animated series for Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp for Canal Plus: Valerian & Laureline based on the comics. After directing short films in France she moved to Los Angeles to study filmmaking at UCLA, She then then set up a UK-based production company Frenzy Films with fellow UCLA alumnus Sean McConville. She wrote, directed and produced her first feature The Quiet Hour starring Dakota Blue Richards and Karl Davies which premiered at Galway Film Fleadh, was nominated for Best British Film at Raindance, Best International Film at Sofia Film Festival, won Best Feature at Kansas City Filmfest, showcased at Newport Beach, premiered on Sky Cinema in the UK in 2016. The Quiet Hour sold to multiple territories including the U.S. She is currently pre- producing Sean McConville’s upcoming thriller The Last Moon and developing her sophomore film, Ice, a contained science-driven sci-fi thriller, which was selected for the 2019 JETS Co-Production Initiative during Berlinale where it was voted Best UK Project. ICE was also one of 6 projects selected as part of the Second Film section of the 2020 Sofia Meetings Co-production market during the Sofia International Film Festival and has made the Top 50 in the 2020 ISA Fast Track Fellowship Competition in the U.S. She is an alumna of Berlinale Talents and IFP Emerging Narrative in NYC.
Rick HarveyÂ
Rick has been the Programme Director of the Raindance Postgraduate Degree since January 2018. He is a Cambridge-based screenwriter, story design consultant, lecturer and mentor. Rick earned a MA Screenwriting & Research qualification from the London College of Communication in 2001. Since then he has storylined for ‘Family Affairs’ (Talkback Thames/Channel 5), developed projects for Hewland International and Frenzy Films, He’s written a slate of short films and spec features, mentored on First Light, Media Box and BFI projects and written and developed feature screenplays for EON Productions. He has been trained by the UK Film Council to devise, develop and deliver industry-standard courses on screenwriting and cross-platform story design. He lectures regularly on various aspects of the writing process
Rick is currently adapting one of his screenplays, Shadowplay, into a six-part serial for TV, and writing and developing a web-based Thriller, Heretic[s].
Deborah Sheppard
Deborah was the Marketing Director for 10 years at United International Pictures (international distribution network set up by Universal, Paramount and MGM). UIP included such diverse titles as Tomorrow Never Dies, The Thomas Crown Affair, Inside Man, Shrek, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Love Actually, The Ring, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit, Jarhead, United 93, The Bourne Identity, Nanny McPhee,The Rugrats Movie and many more.
Kate Shenton
Nominated for the Screen International Rising Horror Star Award Kate Shenton is a London based Writer and Director in the Horror Genre. Her feature film Egomaniac had its World Premiere Fright Fest and went onto screen at festival is all around the world including BIFFF and Dublin Horror. Egomaniac enjoyed a successful limited theatrical run in London which ended at The Prince Charles Cinema and is now available on iTunes, Amazon Prime and YouTube.
Her shorts film (Gimp, Bon Appetite and Send in the Clowns) have screen it over 80 International film festivals including Fright Fest, Raindance, Slamdance, BiFan and Encounters.  Recently she has released the first season of her web series NETFL!X AND KILL The pilot episode has reached over 10,000 views and she is currently working on Season Two.  She also had a number of television projects in development.
Claire Jones, producer
As an independent producer, Claire has produced numerous British feature films. She began her career in a city law firm but left the law to enter the world of production, starting out producing numerous shorts, commercials and music videos. Her first short was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy.
Claire’s first film, Ben Wheatley’s KILL LIST, selected for numerous film festivals and winning multiple awards, was released theatrically to critical acclaim. She followed her debut film with producing Wheatley’s next films, SIGHTSEERS and A FIELD IN ENGLAND with Rook Films.Â
In 2017 and in collaboration with Warp Films, Claire produced the British horror GHOST STORIES. The film starring Andy Nyman, Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther and Martin Freeman premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and had its theatrical release that year.Â
Working once again with Film4, Claire produced THE FESTIVAL, a comedy film starring Joe Thomas, Claudia O’Doherty, Hammed Animashaun and Jemaine Clement directed by Iain Morris for Fudge Park, Film4 and Entertainment Film Distribution. It had its UK theatrical release in August 2018.
Currently she is producing the feature film of the Bafta award winning sitcom, People Just do Nothing. The film, PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING – BIG IN JAPAN follows the Kurrupt FM crew to Tokyo in search of international stardom. The film was developed by BBC Films and BBC Comedy. Universal Pictures International are distributing and is slated for an August 2020 release.
Jonathan Sadler
Over a period spanning 20 years, Jonathan has been releasing film and TV content from within major studios (Universal Pictures), mini-majors (Momentum Pictures), and top independents (Revolver Entertainment and more recently Arrow Films), across every available platform, model and format, from wide theatrical releasing to direct to DVD.
Additional resources for the pitching competition
The Jury has spoken at past events!
Here is the event on October 1st at the Raindance Film Festival
June 29th 2020 Event Winners
Winner: Catherine Halder: Brushwork
2nd Place:: Tippy Watson: The Real Greatest Showman
Honorable Mention:Â Sierra Fallaghan: Wednesday
Honourable Mention: Nadejda Kolpacoff: Diamond in the Rough
Honourable Mention: Roxanne Rapp: Wildcatch
Panel on June 4th 2018: Elliot Grove, Dean Cross, John Croker, Kira-Anne Pelican, Chee Keong Cheung, Zack Winfield, Michael Graf
Did you know?
- Raindance members attend this event for FREE? You can join online >HERE< and start saving immediately
- This event is FREE for our HND and postgraduate/MA students
- The Raindance Guarantee: If this event fails to meet your expectations, let us know at the break and we will make a full, 100% no-questions-asked refund.
- Since 1993 Raindance makes filmmakers
You want to pitch? Sign up today!
Ask a question about Live Ammunition
The History of Live!Ammunition! Pitching Competition
The first Live!Ammunition! was held in Leicester Square in what is now the VUE West End Cinema in Leicester Square in October 1994 at the 2nd Raindance Film Festival. I invited the comic Emo Phillips to pitch his new film screening two days later during the festival. It was my attempt to rustle up interest in his quirky and amusing low budget comedy. I didn’t realise an acquisitions executive from Universal Studios was in the room who saw and bought world rights for the movie two days later. The film languished in the vaults for five long years when it was remade: Meet The Parents.
The original Meet The Parents has a fascinating Wiki post here.
There’s been dozens of fascinating stories over the years. Many films have started their route to completion at this event including Stel Pavlov’s 51st State.
The Live!Ammunition! pitching competition has been staged over 150 times in New York, Toronto, Berlin and at the Cannes Film Festival and of course in London.
Hope to see you there!
Elliot Grove, founder
MR LEE ANDREW HAWKES –
I’ve been to the last three…
It’s worth a go…
You never know…
Got to be in it to win it…
Barbara Vonau –
My first Pitch competition. Nerve wrecking, but good fun and I learned a lot. For me it was not about the winning, more about seeing what other people do and how. And the feedback of course. The after networking, feed back discussions were just as valuable as a one to one. Thank you very much to the facilitators and panel members for giving up their time. Much appreciated!
I find the timing the worst aspect I have to say. But I suppose this is good practice for elevators-lets hope its a high rise building pitch when I get to it-destination top floor!
lewis_cromwell (verified owner) –
Loved it, a lot of fun, very welcoming and a great experience. Will be pitching next time!
MR LEE A HAWKES –
Open nick…
Perseverance, Perseverance, Perseverance, Perseverance, and more Perseverance is the Golden key…
I can see the light…..
☆☆☆☆☆
Lee
Pete –
I quite fancy this!
John Parker –
Live Ammo’s a great event really enjoyed it! I’ve won it a few times and it’s a really useful way to get things out a date meet people
th.jaermann (verified owner) –
Great event, good location! Entertaining and the host kept everything well under control.
Dianne Pegler (verified owner) –
Great experience. Each member of the panel critiqued with invaluable insight from their own area of expertise however with kindness, good humour and respect.
Aidy –
Good fun, good venue, feedback/panel, crowd etc… I think it could be held more often. Denise is a great help!
Helen Ducal –
London and public speaking. That’s two areas out of my comfort zone but when you are passionate enough about something, you can do anything…I told myself. The venue is ideal and Elliot runs a tight ship with ease and is encouraging all the way through. Writing can be a lonely business but getting immediate feedback from your peers and professionals is certainly worth overcoming any fears you may have. Give it a go!
Callum McKay (verified owner) –
This is a fantastic opportunity for any aspiring writer to get their work in front of figures in the industry, and get feedback that can make all the difference. I know this to be true because I attended my first pitch in January and received useful comments on how to improve, and came back in June and won. But not only is it a great place to gauge how your story might be received, it’s the perfect opportunity to hone speaking in front of an audience, and then networking with those same people afterwards. For anyone eager to put themselves out there, it’s a great place to test the water.
Dave Mac (verified owner) –
Brilliant night pitching at the Raindance Live Pitch Session,
Century Club, London.
Thank you to the fantastic Panel for their kind time and comments.
And to Elliott Grove and all at Raindance for organising such a wonderful event.
opennick (verified owner) –
OPEN NICK…it’s all in the eye
I’ve been going there for a while now and I really need to up my game…
I’ve managed an honourable mention…
Text to speech robot voices through a bluetooth speaker ain’t cutting it…
If like me, a first time filmmaker…
It’s well worth a shot…
Get yourself to the next one…
I’ve come to far to quit and I will not stop going until I win the top slot…
I’LL NEVER QUIT, I’M JUST STRUGGLING TO GET MY FILM ACROSS AT THE MOMENT…
I BELIEVE IN WHAT I’M DOING HERE, LONDON IS THE CCTV CAMERA CAPITAL OF THE WORLD AND MY FILM IS SHOT THROUGH IT’S VAST CCTV CAMERA SYSTEM ALL INSIDE LONDON’S INFAMOUS RING ROAD TO HELL… THE M25 MOTORWAY!!!
ALL BASED ON THE STRUGGLES OF A WORKING CLASS 30 YEAR OLD MAN WHO NEEDS TO ESCAPE HIS REPETITIVE MUNDANE AND EXTREMELY STRESSFUL DANGEROUS LIFESTYLE INSIDE LONDON’S INFAMOUS RING ROAD TO HELL…M25
But with no money, nick is trapped in tight…
Nick smashes the money van, in and out quick…
Don’t miss the movie…
It’s called…OPEN NICK
Venue ☆☆☆☆☆
Organisers ☆☆☆☆☆
Host Elliott ☆☆☆☆☆
The panel ☆☆☆☆☆
OPENNICK ☆☆☆☆☆
Anyway, enough of this, I’m off to practice for the next one…
See all you lovely people there…
ONE LAST THING TO WHO EVER HAS HEARD ME AND PUT UP WITH ME…
THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND I WON’T LET YOU DOWN…
Lee Hawkes
John Parker (verified owner) –
It’s a great way to learn pitching skills and you meet interesting people
Ulrika (verified owner) –
I came, I jumped in at the deep end, and I pitched! Valuable feedback from the panellists, lots of support from the audience, really stretched my awareness of how many wild and wonderful film ideas my fellow creatives are working on. The event and experience of pitching gave me a great insight into the differences between a written synopsis and the adrenaline rush of a verbal pitch. I have already restructured my pitch, ready to return and pitch again for success! I thoroughly recommend Live! Ammunition! pitching competition to all budding screenwriters and creatives who want to work on getting their project off the ground.
Lee HAWKES (verified owner) –
If you are a first time filmmaker…
Get yourself up there…
Great venue…
Great people…
Great event…
Practice makes perfect…
About Time I started to take my own advice…
Lee
Henry (verified owner) –
Live Ammunition was great. What a fantastic idea.
The Panel which Eliot and Raindance managed to pull in were impressive and full of useful advice. I learned so much just from observing!
Eliot was full of warm and welcoming energy. He can read a room and crack a joke too which is important.
The let down for me was that I found myself getting annoyed and angry at times because of the length of people’s pitches. Some people had designed their pitches to fit within the allocated two minutes and quite obviously taken the time and hard work to prepare properly whereas some others did not.
We were told that if the two minute buzzer went, the audience could decide by clapping or not wheather the pitcher should be able to finish or not.
One of the early pitcher’s experienced this and was not able to continue. Everybody else just kept on going and there was no enforcement on getting the audience to decide. This was unfair on the person who had to sit out and also disrespectful towards the audience, panel and most of all the other pitchers who had prepared their pitch for under two minutes. Some enforcement and consistency in this area I feel is important.
Having said that, I do think that ‘Live Ammunition’ as a whole is fantastic and like I said, I learned a lot. I would highly recommend attending this event next year.
Anjali Alford –
Amazing pitches all with very different themes, great panelists, a really exciting event.
Anon –
Fantastic event, and a “real-world” but welcoming venue for practicing the art of pitching.
Shiva –
Always great to see the gang, even in cyberspace, and much less intimidating than pitching in person.
I’m very grateful to the always enthusiastic and supportive Elliot and Denise for producing the event, when I’m sure they have so much more on their plates, and to the judges, who also are probably swamped.
Always find the feedback extremely useful, and let us see if the nibble turns into a chomp and Elliot can use it as a cite.
Jay William Whittington Barrette (verified owner) –
The pitch session was a great opportunity to get some experience and see what kind of feedback or aspects of a pitch can be improved. It’s a safe place to practice your pitch with honest feedback. I would definitely recommend it.
Ben Elliott –
Inspirational experience and great constructive feedback
Simon Craven (verified owner) –
Let’s face it – pitching your story is hard to do, and not the most natural activity for most people. But we all need to be good at it to succeed in this industry.
This is an invaluable opportunity and every writer, producer and director starting out should give it a try. It’s not just that you will hear a lot of people pitch, it’s also that you’ll hear honest feedback on those pitches from seasoned industry pros. This helps you improve both the content and delivery of your own pitches like nothing else.
And then you have your own chance… Expect to be not very good at first, but that’s okay. No-one in the room (Zoom or real-life) will think badly of you for being nervous at first – everyone is the same when they start out. Practice and experience are your best friends, and you WILL get better if you keep at it.
Georgia Fitch –
Great to have so many pitches delivered from all around the globe presented by such a diverse bunch of people.
ALAN HAMWAN (verified owner) –
Amazing pitches, Thank you, Elliott Grove and all at Raindance for organising such a wonderful event, I will be pitching next time!
Moira Rowan (verified owner) –
Brilliant experience and some very talented people presenting, I got some valuable information from the panel, everyone was very respectful of each others contributions which was very humbling and encouraging
Edward Cowley (verified owner) –
Good panel and their feedback was worthwhile
Elliot Grove –
Thanks for your kind words, Moira. I love this event. The panelists comments plus the plethora of fabulous pitches. The jurors have told me privately told me choosing was very tough.
ALAN HAMWAN (verified owner) –
Brilliant night pitching online and It was a fantastic opportunity for any aspiring writer, producer and all of the filmmakers, Thanks Raindance.
Gregory Fishwick (verified owner) –
Great fun! You go into it a little nervous but everyone is so supportive and Elliot is such a great host that you quickly end up having a good time. A great opportunity to hone your pitching skills, get valuable feedback and get inspired by everybody’s creativity and enthusiasm. Go for it!