Is the ScreenplayLab Pitch Contest reality?

I got an email complaining that we're "polluting" the ScreenplayLab Pitch Contest and turning it into a reality TV show.

Is ScreenplayLab turning into Project Greenlight? Another objection was that viewers might steal the pitch ideas after seeing the documentary.
These are interesting questions. The argument has four parts:

1.) Cameras = circus

2.) Documentary = reality TV = glib + shallow + mediocrity

3.) Original ideas could be stolen from the documentary

4.) We're like Project Greenlight

Can we have a hundred people in a room trying to pitch without it becoming a circus? I've seen The Inside Pitch many times with and without cameras in the room. Always a circus.

The bad pitches and good pitches were flawed or strong at the concept level before the person stepped into the room. Nothing that happened in the room changed that, unfortunately. It would be possible that someone, having heard from Chris what works and what doesn't work, to dump the prepared loser dark concept and create a new effective pitch based on an upbeat comedy idea developed on the spot in the room. People are too married with what they brought to the room to do that. One writer today scolded the audience repeatedly for laughing at his "serious" idea. Is it his right to tell the audience how to react to his pitch? It's hubris.

The Inside Pitch has been filmed three times I'm aware of. One is an Emmy-nominated documentary. The second was ScreenplayLab Pitch Contest #1. The third is today with Pitch Contest #2. I saw a writer self-destruct today, harming his career by deliberately insulting our distinguished host, me, and everyone in the room. I've never seen this happen at The Inside Pitch before. He said the reason he did this was he "wanted to get his money's worth". It could be that charging $20 for this event is harmful to some writers, that it changes their behavior in an unfavorable way. There's simply no evidence that cameras matter.

You're pitching to a room with 100 competing writers and a senior ICM exec today, but your worry is that viewers of a documentary that won't air until next year are the ones to steal your idea?

Can we agree that worrying about something of no value is pointless? Does an original idea have value at a pitch? Original ideas are uncommercial. Why is that? Because it sounds too weird at a pitch. Sometimes a deeply quirky script is outstanding, but it dies in the pitch. You have to read it. Nobody can steal an original idea from a pitch because nobody can understand it.

Since stealing an original idea is out, how do you keep people from "stealing" an unoriginal idea? A bunch of castaways are stuck on a deserted island. Is it GILLIGAN'S ISLAND or LOST? Since ideas can't be copyrighted, if you want to prevent others from using your idea you need to own something tangible that the idea depends upon. Do you have the life rights to a famous person? Do you have the adaptation rights to a bestselling novel? Do you have a star attached to your project? Those are strong positions. If there's nothing to prevent someone else from executing your idea just as well or better than you then you don't have a marketable idea. If your position is truly weak you have to protect yourself with secrecy, but that means you can't pitch.

Here's a great pitch, "A conceited jerk thinks he's God. Later he discovers, he is." This is one of the best pitches to ever come out of a public pitch event. Nobody stole it. You want it?

Project Greenlight was a reality TV show cast with oddballs who try to independently make a horror feature without the benefit of much experience or the support of the professional Hollywood system. It's about beating the system against the odds.

The ScreenplayLab Pitch Contest is a competition in which writers try to get agents. If successful, the winners will join the Hollywood system. Although there's no genre restriction placed upon our pitch contest, ScreenplayLab has made it quite clear that upbeat comedies are the most popular commercial genre. You can check the stats on our home page at www.ScreenplayLab.com. We're about putting the odds in your favor and working within the system.

Robin