\u201cHigh concept\u201d is an expression within the entertainment industry that basically boils down to meaning \u2018highly commercial.\u2019 <\/p>\n

But what does it really mean? \u201cHigh concept\u201d indicates a few things:<\/p>\n

1. A universal concept, whereupon every person hearing the idea will have a specific common point of reference. Successful universal concepts can be based on tropes, urban myth, social generalizations, or adages. <\/p>\n

2. The totality of the idea can be communicated in a 10 second or less verbal pitch (i.e., one or 2 sentences)<\/p>\n

3. An idea that is primarily concept driven, so the concept can be easily pitched and understood and the listener will have a fairly clear idea of that story\u2019s trajectory simply based on the concept (as opposed to a story that is primarily character-driven or very obscure and difficult to pitch).<\/p>\n

4. The genre and tone should be abundantly clear within the pitch. <\/p>\n

I always use the example that in film school when we were confused about what was high concept and not, a manager came in and said the best high concept pitch he\u2019d ever heard was:<\/p>\n

\u201cChick grows a c**k.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay, a little vulgar, but in 4 words we all know what this movie is going to be \u2013 we know it\u2019ll be a broad comedy, gross-out chick comedy, and generally what the tone and thrust of the story will be. Four words and you know what this concept is. You\u2019re either on board or not. <\/p>\n

Many comedies are concept driven. Something like \u201cEvan Almighty\u201d was probably pitched with a, \u201cWhat if Noah, like of Noah\u2019s ark, happened today?\u201d It\u2019s a contemporary take on something we\u2019re all familiar with. <\/p>\n

It is the universal appeal here that is key \u2013 taking advantage of a concept with which the average person has a point of reference and tweaking it in a way that is fresh, smart and interesting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHigh concept\u201d is an expression within the entertainment industry that basically boils down to meaning \u2018highly commercial.\u2019 But what does it really mean? \u201cHigh concept\u201d indicates a few things: 1. A universal concept, whereupon every person hearing the idea will have a specific common point of reference. Successful universal concepts can be based on tropes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,7,62,6,50,42,44,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":793,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions\/793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}