The Movie Pitch Icebreaker

A fun and creative icebreaker where teams or individuals pitch a fictional movie based on a random theme, encouraging quick thinking, collaboration, and plenty of laughter.

Duration: 15m - 25m
Participants: 3 - 20
Difficulty:  Low
James Smartby 

Goal

Break the ice and energize the group with humor and imaginative storytelling.

Instructions

Step 1: Set the Scene

  • Explain that each participant or team will create and pitch an original movie idea based on a random prompt.
  • Emphasize that pitches can be as wild, serious, or funny as they like—creativity is key!

Step 2: Form Teams (Optional)

  • For larger groups, divide participants into small teams of 2–5 people.
  • For smaller groups, individuals can pitch solo.

Step 3: Assign Prompts

  • Give each team or person a random prompt and combine it with a unifying statement such as "about meetings" or "about your training topic". This random prompt element can include:
    • A genre (e.g., sci-fi, horror, romantic comedy, action thriller)
    • A theme (e.g., time travel, mistaken identity, an office under attack by robots)
    • A funny twist (e.g., "A superhero with a fear of heights" or "A cat who wants to become CEO")
  • You can assign prompts randomly or let teams pick from a list.
  • The unifying element can be modified to your needs, but try having it be relevant to your session on a meta-level (a film about meetings if you're in a meeting) or be related to the topic (strategic planning, team building, time management skills. etc) 
  • If working with a product or service team, it can also be effective to give a prompt that includes your product. For example, "pitch a horror film where SessionLab is used to save the day!" 

Step 4: Prepare the Pitch

  • Give teams 5–7 minutes to brainstorm and prepare their movie pitch.
  • Encourage them to include:
    • The movie title
    • Plot summary (what’s the story?)
    • Main characters
    • A catchy tagline
    • (Optional) Who would star in the movie

Step 5: Pitch Time!

  • Each team or individual has 1–2 minutes to deliver their pitch to the group.
  • They can be as dramatic, persuasive, or funny as they like—imagine they’re convincing Hollywood producers to fund their film!

Step 6: Voting & Celebration

  • After all pitches are presented, hold a quick vote for categories like:
    • Most Creative Pitch
    • Funniest Idea
    • Movie We'd Actually Watch
  • Voting can be done by show of hands, chat reactions (for virtual teams), or a simple poll.

Variation of The Movie Pitch

  • For a fast, collective variation, start by explaining that the group will collectively create a movie pitch for a film about meetings (or your chosen training topic) by each contributing an answer to the questions below.
  • The first person will answer the first question and then read out the next before selecting a chosen person to answer.
  • Questions
    • What genre is our film?
    • What actor will play the hero/heroine? 
    • What actor will play the villain?
    • Who will direct the film?
    • What happens at the beginning of the film?
    • What happens at the middle of the film?
    • What happens at the end of the film? 
    • If there was a big twist, what would it be?
    • What is the name of our film?
    • What is the tagline of our film?
    • What is the moral or main lesson of our film?

Attachments

  • movie pitch icebreaker.jpg

Author

James Smart is Head of Content at SessionLab. He’s facilitated workshops and designed elearning experiences for places including the University of East Anglia and the National Centre for Writing.

More about author

0 Ratings 

No ratings yet.

0 Comments

Please Log in or Sign up for a FREE SessionLab account to continue.