Opening
Pitch and selection
A project that has been through development is pitched to a panel. What a pitch actually is, what the panel weighs, and how the room is kept fair.
A pitch is a conversation about a film that does not exist yet.
If you have never done one, this is exactly what it is.
You sit down with a panel and talk for a short while about the project: who it is about, what happens, why it has to be made now, and how you would go about making it. The panel asks questions. Then it ends.
Nothing is memorised and nothing is performed. Reading from your notes is normal, and bringing the outline, the draft and the deck that development produced is the point of having made them. Everyone on the panel has sat on the other side of that table.
Opening. The first round is published with its criteria, its panel and its closing date together.
What happens in the room
In order, so none of it is a surprise on the day.
01 · Before
You are told who is on the panel, how long you have and what the criteria are, ahead of the day.
02 · You talk
The project in your own words. Notes, a deck, pictures, whichever helps you say it.
03 · They ask
Questions about the story, the people in it and how it would be made. Saying you do not know yet is a good answer.
04 · Afterwards
Written feedback to every project that pitches, selected or not.
What the panel weighs
Published before a round opens, so you can work towards them.
- Story. Would somebody who knows nothing about the subject want to watch it?
- Social impact relevance. What it speaks to, and why that matters now.
- Originality. What this version has that the others do not.
- Feasibility. Whether it can be made properly at the scale the Lab supports.
- Readiness. How far development has carried it, and what is still open.
- Contributor care. Real people, lived experience, trauma and faith sensitivities, and how they would be handled.
- The person, not only the project. Whether the programme can genuinely develop you as well as the film.
Transparent criteria, and conflicts declared
Most schemes never say this out loud.
Criteria are published before a round opens and the panel scores against them. Nothing is weighed that was not published.
Conflicts of interest are declared and recorded. Anybody on the panel with a personal, professional or financial connection to a project says so, and takes no part in discussing or scoring it.
The panel is writers, producers, directors and community representatives, and a community representative's score carries the same weight as anyone else's. Members are named to everyone registered when a round opens.
Before you pitch
Safeguarding and access information stays separate from creative material and never goes to a panel. Terms are agreed with each selected project in writing before work starts.
Where the Lab runs
The Story-to-Screen Lab is a joint programme with Futures in Film CIC, and it is co-run across 3 Mills Studios and Pinewood Studios.
Sessions run online as well, and in other spaces we can reach, so that taking part does not depend on living near one building. Writers, filmmakers and community organisations work together across all of them.