The Adaptation Journey: High Rollers
The three elements of a great television pitch according to Campside Co-founder Adam Hoff
This is part of Inside the Tent, a series going behind the scenes of Campside’s award winning podcasts.
All episodes of High Rollers are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
There is an urgent, pressing show at Campside at the moment –– a show released all the way back in 2021. But how can that be? If you have read my past Inside the Tent articles, you may know the answer: It’s because we are dealing with the television adaptation.
And for this particular show – High Rollers – the time has come to see if anyone wants said adaptation. That’s right, we are “out with” our pitch for a rollicking, madcap, Vegas television series that anyone in their right mind should want to put on the air!
Adam previously wrote about the adaptation journeys of The Bering and The Michigan Plot.
High Rollers was the second season of our franchise Chameleon. It tells the story of a “reluctant” money launderer who is, uh, “encouraged” by a roving band of FBI agents and informants to look the part of a kingpin that they can take down in order to justify a litany of illicit expenses.
Their target – Emile Bouari – is a hard-charging entrepreneur with a temper who has found himself embroiled in a love triangle with a litigator. It would seem (important legal note: we never say for sure!) that this love triangle played a role in Emile being handpicked as the FBI’s target. And so off he goes on a journey worthy of Dante (the famous author, not the con man Dante, for you Chameleon diehards).
Among Campside projects, High Rollers is one where the adaptation hews pretty closely to the true story. But that’s not the same as saying it’s just a cut and paste from the podcast. Writer Mark Stasenko and director Tony Yacenda have developed an elaborate 7-episode concept that resembles a perfect puzzle, with each singular hour of TV conveying a new character POV that also starts to solve the overall mystery. Future seasons would stay with the Vegas field office of the FBI and continue to use the same format to tell stranger-than-fiction cases in the neon-lit city.
So how do you pitch something like this?
On its face, the process is pretty formulaic. You decide what you want to say about the project, set all the meetings, and then give the same pitch over and over. However, as with most things, the magic (or lack thereof) is in the nuanced details.
Pitching is an art, like any other part of the process, and the best pitches seem to take on a life of their own – a combination of three elements: good storytelling, good listening from the executives and a shared expectation that “hey, this could actually work!” among everyone in the room (or, as is often the case these days, on the Zoom).
Let’s unpack all three.
Element #1 of a great pitch: good storytelling
Note that I didn’t say “good pitching.” Pitching the show well is not the same thing as telling a great story. I’ve been guilty of this very thing: I tell the right jokes, make the right self-deprecating remarks, and even weave a whole 20-minute presentation together without breaking a sweat… but leave my audience unsure of what story we are all trying to tell.
There have been other times where I’ve seen writers stub their toe a few times, look nervous, and even read right off a piece of paper, but still effectively get their story across. What is the show? What do I see in my mind’s eye? What are the executives seeing in their mind’s eye? If a writer is imagining The Wire and the exec is thinking the show is CSI, how can we bridge that gap?
It might be setting the perfect scene, it might be drawing a complex, memorable lead character, it could be the perfect comps (“it’s Jaws with paws!” said one producer about his killer dog pitch, according to L.A. lore). The art of the pitch is in knowing where your story lives and dies and then inviting your audience into the world.
With High Rollers, Mark and Tony know the pitch rests on the characters – and the Rashomon style of storytelling that brings them each to life while heightening the absurdity and tragedy of their ill-fated collision.
They have fused structure, tone, and plot with character in order to paint a perfect picture of the show they want to make.
Element #2: good listening
It’s not up to Mark and Tony. It’s not up to me or Campside’s VP of Television Anthony Pucillo, or CBS Studios, or our producing partners Jay Ellis and Aaron Bergman. And that is because a great pitch is like a tennis match. The writers (and, to a far lesser extent, the producers) have to serve, but the executives from the network have to return it. The best pitches I’ve ever been in, without fail, have featured an exec who is engaged, listening in an active way, firing in great questions, and generally acting like a participant in the meeting.
If the executive hearing the pitch just sits there, staring back at the writers, there’s really nothing anyone can do to make magic happen.
Element #3: “This could actually work”
This is the hardest to know, but you just … know. It’s the shared expectation between the sellers and the buyers that this thing could actually happen. Maybe it’s because the tone of the show feels perfect for that network, or the format is just what they are looking for, or they want to be in business with that creator. Maybe it’s just meant to be, but in any event, you can sort of feel it in the room. It’s the rising sense that this particular show could really work at this particular network.
It’s the one part of the process most out of everyone’s control (even the execs hearing the pitch), but it’s the ingredient you need to go from a solid meeting to a magical pitch.
So how will High Rollers fare? We know we have Element #1 nailed. Element #2 is up to each executive we meet with, but from looking at the list of names, it seems like a great crowd lined up to hear it. So that just leaves Element #3. Are any networks out there looking – truly, meaningfully – for our version of American Hustle set in Vegas? Is this show in the right time and right place to get on the air? Only the great algorithm in the sky knows that.
Standby to find out.
Thanks for reading. For more on High Rollers and our podcasts’ adaptation journeys, subscribe now.
Adam