high-concept pitch

Robert Altman's The Player, a 1992 crime drama that at the same time skewers Hollywood as an industry (the main character is a Hollywood producer), famously opens with a long shot listening to several people talking, including screenwriters pitching their movie to the main character, played by Tim Robbins. After trying to describe their film, one pair of screenwriters finally summarize it as "Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman". This type of summary, called a high-concept pitch, is a short easily-understood summary, usually based on a comparison to something well-known. Some people credit Barry Diller (later CEO of Paramount, Fox, and IAC/InterActiveCorp) and Michael Eisner (later CEO of Disney) with coming up with the high-concept pitch, when they both worked at ABC in the 1960s, and needed a way to draw attention to their programs from the brief descriptions allowed in TV Guide. This carries over not only to the description of movie or TV show, but the very concept – i.e. that the movie or show's concept be simple and easy to summarize quickly. The high-concept pitch is the sound-bite of the entertainment world. Ash Maurya in his Running Lean book, suggests using the high-concept pitch to distill one's company down to a…