Pitch a Film’s Geography, Not Just Its Locations
Pitch a Film’s Geography, Not Just Its Locations
Before you choose the photograph of the apartment, explain what someone can see from its window. Before you describe the workshop as secluded, decide who can reach it without being noticed. A location becomes part of the story through those relationships.
For a pitch, geography means how places connect and what those connections allow. Two attractive interiors do not tell a reader whether their occupants share a wall, face each other across a courtyard, or live on opposite sides of town. That difference may determine who discovers a secret, who can leave an argument, or who has to ask permission to enter.
You do not need to map every street. Start with one encounter whose cause depends on where people are. Explain the relationship that makes it possible; then select images that help the recipient understand it.
Begin with something a character can do
Consider this fictional film, invented here to demonstrate the writing process. Leah lives above a shared courtyard. Her father has a repair workshop on the other side. From an upstairs window, she sees him put a distinctive long-handled cutter back on its rack. Earlier, he told her it had been stolen.
The scene needs more than an apartment and a workshop. It needs a view from the apartment into the open workshop, a recognizable object, and a reason Leah notices it. She used the cutter earlier in the film and knows its shape. Her father is facing the rack rather than looking up at her window.
Seeing him with it establishes that the tool is back in his possession. It does not establish how he got it, when he recovered it, or whether his earlier account was a lie. Those remain questions for the scene. The geography gives Leah information; it should not be made to prove a motive that the action has not established.
She now has a choice. She can go downstairs, cross the courtyard, and ask him about it. Or she can stay upstairs without revealing what she saw. Her father has asked her to stay out of the workshop, but the route is physically open.
That distinction matters. An unlocked route can carry a social prohibition. If you replace the request with a locked gate, you have changed the action available to her: she may need a key, need to call him over, or be unable to confront him at all. “They are close but separated” is not yet specific enough to explain which film you are pitching.
Write the operative relationship before its atmosphere:
Leah's upstairs window faces the open workshop across their shared courtyard. She can see her father return the missing cutter without approaching him. Reaching him would mean coming downstairs and crossing the courtyard to enter the workshop he has told her to stay out of.
Now a photograph has a job. It can help show the exposed crossing, the facing openings, or the view into the work area. The image is no longer carrying an unspecified promise of intimacy or tension.
Draw the connection, not the whole neighborhood
A small plan can distinguish three things that prose or separate photographs might blur: a route someone can travel, a view someone can have, and a boundary someone may be reluctant to cross.
Here is the first arrangement. It is a story diagram, not a measured plan. It flattens two levels to show their relationship; the dotted line represents the intended view, not a path through the air.
PLAN A — SHARED COURTYARD
APARTMENT BLOCK WORKSHOP
Upper-floor window W ..............> Open front / tool rack R
| ^
| stairs |
v |
Ground-floor exit ------> SHARED COURTYARD --------+
Dotted arrow: intended sightline from W to R.
Solid route: stairs, exit, courtyard, workshop entrance.
Social boundary: Leah has been asked not to enter the workshop.
In words: the window looks toward the tool rack through the workshop's open front. The walking route is separate from that view. Leah must leave her room, descend the stairs, and cross the courtyard to reach her father.
The diagram does not guarantee that he cannot see her. In the proposed scene, he is occupied at the rack while she stands back from the window. His attention and her position explain why he has not noticed her at that moment. “She can see him, therefore he cannot see her” would be a faulty inference.
Nor does a sightline establish that she can hear quiet speech across the courtyard. If the scene depends on overhearing, that is another requirement to describe and eventually assess. A plan should not acquire capabilities just because the story would find them convenient.
Keep only the connections that matter here. A street exit may become necessary when Leah later tries to leave without passing the workshop. Until then, adding the bus stop, grocery store, and several neighboring houses supplies more names without explaining this encounter.
There is a practical precedent for letting action determine space. In an American Cinematographer interview about 1917, Roger Deakins describes rehearsing actors' movement and dialogue along a marked trench route to establish the length the set needed before construction.[^1] That is a specific production account, not a requirement that a pitch include technical plans. It shows a relationship worth preserving at this earlier stage: the place has to accommodate the event you say happens there.
Move the workshop and follow the consequence
Now keep both places but change their relationship. The workshop is elsewhere in the neighborhood, with buildings between it and the apartment. There is a walking route, but no view from Leah's window.
PLAN B — SEPARATE STREETS
APARTMENT BLOCK INTERVENING BUILDINGS WORKSHOP
Upper-floor window W [blocked view] Tool rack R
|
| stairs
v
Ground-floor exit ----> STREET ROUTE ----> Workshop entrance
No sightline connects W to R.
The street route is unspecified in length and duration.
This is not a less cinematic arrangement. It produces a different set of opportunities. Leah can still visit her father, but she cannot make the same discovery by happening to look out of her window.
Here are the two scene descriptions side by side in sequence.
With the shared courtyard:
Leah carries a glass to her window and stops. Across the courtyard, her father hangs the cutter on its rack. She stays back until he turns away, then sets the glass down. At her door, she hesitates between going downstairs and returning to the window.
With the separate streets:
Leah goes to the workshop to collect a spare apartment key. Her father sees her arrive and tells her to wait at the entrance. While she waits, he hangs the cutter on its rack. She looks from it to him; he has seen her recognize it.
The second version supplies an errand because the move has removed the accidental sighting. It also changes who knows what. In the first, Leah can conceal her discovery. In the second, her father knows she has noticed. Her next question is no longer whether to reveal her knowledge, but what she is prepared to say while he watches her.
You could preserve a secret discovery in the separated version, but you would need another arrangement: perhaps an entrance he cannot see from his bench. That would be a new spatial requirement, not an automatic property of “a workshop.” Describe it rather than asking the reader to invent it for you.
This is the useful relocation test: keep the event specific and change one connection. Does the event still follow? If not, have you found a necessary relationship, or an opportunity to write a different scene?
The answer can go either way. You may decide the film needs the courtyard because unseen observation and a visible crossing recur throughout it. You may prefer the direct encounter because the father's awareness makes the scene sharper. The pitch should reflect the choice you actually make, rather than retaining the courtyard synopsis beside photographs of a disconnected building.
Give each image one claim to support
For Plan A, a photograph of a workbench supports the character of the work area. It does not, by itself, explain the view from Leah's room. A photograph of an apartment window supplies an opening, but not what lies beyond it.
You could use an orienting view that includes both sides of a suitable courtyard, or pair two images with the small relationship diagram. In either case, caption the connection you need:
Story geography: Leah's window faces the open workshop. The crossing below lets her turn an unobserved discovery into a confrontation. These references indicate the facing arrangement and the exposed route, not a confirmed shooting location.
“Leah's world” would leave the recipient to guess which properties matter. A more elaborate caption about the courtyard as a prison might still omit the physical cause of the scene. Name the connection first; interpretation can follow where it helps.
Also distinguish the pitch recipient's orientation from the film audience's experience. A diagram may explain the whole arrangement to someone evaluating the proposal even if the film reveals it gradually: first Leah at the window, then her father at the rack, then her descent into the courtyard. The plan does not mandate a wide establishing shot or settle the camera positions.
The recipient needs enough knowledge to understand your design. The audience may receive that knowledge in a different order. Confusing those two jobs can turn a useful explanatory page into an unnecessary shot prescription.
Keep the fictional arrangement separate from the available site
At development stage, you might have a photograph of a promising workshop and no corresponding apartment. You can still explain the story's geography, provided you label the gap.
An honest note would say:
The workshop reference supports the open frontage and working atmosphere. An opposing upper-floor viewpoint has not been established. The required window-to-rack view and courtyard crossing remain location requirements.
That note does not weaken an otherwise settled story relationship. It distinguishes a creative requirement from evidence that a particular place can provide it.
Potential shooting sites may also be separate even when the story makes them adjacent. In that case, the pitch still needs a consistent fictional connection. How the production establishes it is a further question; a pair of photographs does not prove that the views, movement, light, sound, or construction will match. Avoid quietly turning “could represent the same courtyard” into “this courtyard is secured and workable.”
A useful geography paragraph can therefore be brief without being vague:
Leah lives above the courtyard facing her father's workshop. The arrangement lets her observe him before deciding whether to make herself visible by crossing to him. Moving the workshop out of view would turn the discovery into a visit and remove her opportunity to conceal what she knows.
That is the reason these locations belong together. Once it is clear, you can judge an image by whether it explains the relationship—and recognize when a beautiful location would ask you to make a different film.
Sources
[^1]: Rachael Bosley, “Lives Under Siege: The Goldfinch and 1917,” American Cinematographer, January 13, 2020. See the question “How did you and Mendes approach shot design?” and Deakins's answer describing marked trench routes, actor rehearsals, and determining the required set length before construction. Inspected September 19, 2026. The courtyard, characters, plans, and scene revisions in this article are original fictional examples, not material from that production.
Frequently asked questions
What does geography mean in a film pitch?
Geography means how places connect and what those connections allow. Two attractive interiors do not say whether occupants share a wall, face a courtyard, or live across town, and that difference can determine who discovers a secret or who must ask permission to enter.
How should a pitch begin describing a story's geography?
Start with a character action or encounter whose cause depends on where people are. Write the operative relationship before its atmosphere—for example, Leah's window faces her father's workshop, so she can see him return the cutter without approaching, while reaching him means crossing the courtyard.
What should a small plan distinguish?
A route someone can travel, a view someone can have, and a boundary someone may be reluctant to cross. A sightline does not establish that the other person cannot see her, and it does not establish that she can hear quiet speech; do not add capabilities because the scene needs them.
How should location images and captions be used?
Give each image one claim to support and caption the connection you need. A workbench photo shows character of the work area, not the view from Leah's room. Separate the pitch recipient's orientation from the audience's experience and from a shot prescription.
What if the fictional geography is not matched by an available site?
Label the gap. Say the workshop reference supports open frontage but an opposing upper-floor viewpoint has not been established, and keep the window-to-rack view and courtyard crossing as location requirements. Do not turn 'could represent the same courtyard' into evidence that the site is secured and workable.