I work in film, I’ve taught film, and I talk about film for a living… and for some reason this is one of the most commonly misused terms I hear people use. It can be difficult to grasp and easy to get wrong.
In this video I talk about the phrase ‘high concept’, a marketing term coined in Hollywood that became popular in the 80s. It describes a movie pitch that basically sells itself… where a short 1-2 sentence description can inform all kinds of other aspects of the film, including things like: genre, tone, casting decisions, and target audience. It’s not just a premise that’s easy to explain, it’s a premise that tells you how you’re going to sell the movie. A premise that carries additional connotations! And it most certainly shouldn’t be used to mean ‘complex’ or ‘cerebral’, because it applies to hundreds of popcorn movies of every budget and genre.
NOTE: ‘high concept’ is often treated as a scale, not a strict binary. Parts of a film pitch might be high concept whilst others might not be. And it’s also just one of many ways the business talks about movies! It can be very useful shorthand for development but these things are never set in stone…