To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Kansas City Film Festival, the Kansas City Film Office lined up several special panels and events for the occasion. One of those events was the first Pitch-A-Thon in partnership with Women in Film and Media Kansas City (WIFM KC).
In past years, WIFM KC has organized a screenplay contest in which screenwriters submit short screenplays for the chance of having a table read at the festival. This year, however, was different.
The Pitch-A-Thon is a competition in which screenwriters submitted the first five pages of their screenplay alongside a logline and a short paragraph discussing the writer's personal connection to their work. Then, six finalists (out of 21 entries) were chosen to give a three minute pitch to a panel of judges and live audience.
The finalists (including myself) were notified on Monday, September 19 of 2026, giving us six days to come up with what we were going to say.
Receiving my "congratulations" email filled me with excitement and a little bit of anxiety. I'd spent the past year on my first draft of my pitch script, Clancy Carillo: Hall Monitor, and while I knew that my logline "When a beloved lunch lady is murdered, a middle school hall monitor decides to crack the case while battling their own self-destructive behavior." certainly draws people in, I wasn't sure how I was going to stretch that into a three minute pitch.
I decided to focus on capturing the vibe of the film. I dressed in the style of a detective and brought a magnifying glass from home. I took a comedic approach that engaged both the audience and judges while linking it to my own personal experience.
I spent the whole week memorizing my pitch. In an acting class I took last year, I found that the best way for me to memorize lines was to write them down several times, then speak the words slowly, before finally practicing the whole pitch. Memorization has always helped me get over the nerves of public speaking as it allows me to enter a headspace that doesn't focus on the audience. I felt that treating the pitch like a performance would work in my favor.
I still felt nervous leading up to and during the pitch. I know many of the other finalists personally, which made it hard to see them as my competition, but also made me feel happy that they were succeeding, too. We were able to share our feelings, which helped me remember that nerves are a normal part of public speaking.
I wasn't expecting to be asked to pitch first, but I took it in stride. I tend to like speaking first in projects to get it over with. I also felt that my silly pitch helped get the audience in the mood to actively listen.
Following my pitch, the judges (all producers) spent seven minutes giving me feedback. I was praised for my enthusiasm and engagement, as well as my fun idea. They also let me know that my script might be hard to market to younger audiences due to some of its content, but it was overall a strong contender.
Feeling triumphant, I happily watched the following pitches. Kansas City has a lot of talented writers with important stories to tell. Jamie Hoyt's Dust Riders, Toni Berrie's Granny's Shot, Lindsey Doolittle's In Your Eyes, Jessica Whitfield's Prepper: Off the Grid, and Julia O'Donnell's Psychosis were all captivating pitches with a lot of passion behind them.
In the end Jamie Hoyt's Dust Riders was the winner and Toni Berrie's Granny's Shot was the runner-up. I think the great thing about the Pitch-A-Thon was how the judges and audience made everyone feel like a winner. I had a lot of people come up to me after the event to let me know how much they loved my pitch. It gives me a lot of hope that this script will get made one day.
Thank you, WIFM KC for putting on such a wonderful event! I hope that the Pitch-A-Thon will continue to showcase the talent of Kansas City's writers for years to come!
