Presentation: Creating a Video Pitch

Slide 1 of 7 · Settling starter · Design Technology · Year 10

4 minutes

Creating a video pitch: 90 seconds to win the funding

You have 90 seconds to persuade a panel to fund your packaging design for the school enterprise fair. A pitch is not a description: it names the problem, shows the thing, gives real numbers and admits the weakness before somebody else finds it.

While the register is called: write your name, class and date on your worksheet, read the brief and the timing rule, and decide the 1 sentence you most want the panel to remember.

Starter question: At a clear speaking pace of 150 words a minute, how many words of script fit into 90 seconds?

DCF: Producing → Creating digital content School devices only · nothing is uploaded anywhere

Supply teacher script (no subject knowledge needed)

Hand out: one worksheet per pupil. One school tablet or camera between 3 is plenty. If there is no device, pupils complete Parts A to C on paper and rehearse the pitch to their group, which is the assessed part anyway. Do not ask pupils to use their own phones or accounts, and nobody films anybody who does not want to be filmed; hands, the product and the drawings are enough.

Say aloud: “Name, class and date at the top. While I take the register, read the brief and the timing rule on your worksheet and decide the 1 sentence you most want the panel to remember. Answer the starter question in rough.”

Starter answer: 150 words a minute is 2.5 words a second, so 90 seconds is about 225 words. Not 400.

Slide 2 of 7 · Today’s brief and key words · Design Technology · Year 10

2 minutes

Your brief: script, storyboard, film, feedback

You will write a script of about 225 words with at least 2 real numbers and 1 honest weakness (Part A), break it into shots whose durations add up to exactly 90 seconds (Part B), film it in groups of 3 with 1 take per shot (Part C), and give another group 3 pieces of feedback (Part D).

Timing rule

2.5 words a second. An 8-second shot carries about 20 words; a 15-second shot about 38.

Storyboard

A shot-by-shot plan: framing, duration, dialogue and on-screen text, so somebody else could film it.

Framing

What the camera sees: close-up, mid shot, overhead, two-shot or wide shot.

DCF: Producing → Creating digital content Your shot durations must add up to exactly 90 seconds

Slide 3 of 7 · Part A: the script · Design Technology · Year 10

11 minutes

Part A: write what will actually be said, then count the words

Full sentences. At least 2 real numbers from your design and 1 honest weakness. Then fill in the table: total word count, word count ÷ 2.5 = seconds, and whether you are over or under 90 seconds and what you are cutting.

Model opening: “Six Welsh cakes, still warm, in a box that costs two and a half pence and leaves nothing behind. We are Year Ten Enterprise, and we are selling a hundred and twenty boxes of Welsh cakes at the summer fair. The cakes were the easy part. The packaging was not.”

Model weakness: “The honest bit: only one net fits an A3 sheet, so we waste twenty-seven per cent of every sheet.”

Part A on your worksheet · 11 minutes Count the words; do not guess

Supply teacher script (no subject knowledge needed)

Say aloud: “Write the script exactly as it will be spoken. A model opening and a model weakness are on the board. Then count your words, divide by 2.5 to get seconds, and write down what you are cutting if you are over 90.”

Quick check: the model script is 226 words (19 + 31 + 38 + 39 + 31 + 45 + 23), which is 226 ÷ 2.5 = 90.4 seconds. Its first draft was 268 words, 107 seconds, and the pupil cut a whole sentence about the mixed-spice recipe because the panel is funding packaging, not baking. Any script near 225 words with the sum shown is on track; a 400-word script is not.

Walk the room: ask every pupil to point to their 2 numbers and their weakness. Adjectives (“really sustainable”) do not count as numbers.

Slide 4 of 7 · Part B: the storyboard · Design Technology · Year 10

13 minutes

Part B: break the script into shots and make the durations total 90 seconds

Up to 7 shots. For each: framing, duration, dialogue and on-screen text. Total the durations. If the total is not exactly 90 seconds, change the durations now, before anyone films, and write down what you changed.

Shot	What the camera sees (framing)	Duration	Dialogue	On-screen text
1	Close-up, straight down onto the open box. Hands only, no faces. Cakes going in one at a time.	8 s (19 words)	Six Welsh cakes, still warm, in a box that costs two and a half pence and leaves nothing behind.	PICAU AR Y MAEN
2	Mid shot, presenter seated at the bench, closed box in front, talking to camera.	12 s (31 words)	We are Year Ten Enterprise, and we are selling a hundred and twenty boxes of Welsh cakes at the summer fair. The cakes were the easy part. The packaging was not.	120 boxes · summer fair

Part B on your worksheet · 13 minutes Stop and fix the total before you film

Supply teacher script (no subject knowledge needed)

Say aloud: “The first 2 shots of a model storyboard are on the board. Notice the framing says exactly what the camera sees, and the words fit the seconds. Fill in your own 7 rows, total the durations, and stop: if it is not exactly 90, move seconds between shots now and write what you changed.”

Quick check: the model durations are 8 + 12 + 15 + 15 + 12 + 18 + 10 = 90 seconds exactly, 226 words. The model pupil’s first storyboard gave shot 4 twenty seconds and shot 6 twelve, totalling 92; moving 5 seconds from the window argument to the numbers fixed the total and the pacing. To check a pupil’s row: words ÷ 2.5 should be close to the duration (shot 1 needs 7.6 s of its 8; shot 6 needs exactly 18).

Walk the room: no group films until their total column reads 90. Do not show the worked example storyboard until the totals are done.

Slide 5 of 7 · Part C: film it · Design Technology · Year 10

15 minutes

Part C: film it in groups of 3, 1 take per shot, in order

Do not edit; there is no time. Work through the filming checklist before you press record.

Device in landscape, propped against something solid. No hand-held wobble.
Light behind the camera, not behind the speaker. Do not film against the window.
Speaker within a metre of the microphone. Classroom noise ruins more pitches than bad pictures do.
Product and drawings laid out and ready before you press record.
One take per shot, in order, so no editing is needed.
File saved in the class folder as group number, then date, for example group-4-packaging-pitch-2026-03-12.mp4. Nothing uploaded anywhere.

Part C on your worksheet · 15 minutes No device? Rehearse the pitch to your group instead, shot by shot

Supply teacher script (no subject knowledge needed)

Say aloud: “Groups of 3, 1 device per group. Read the checklist on the board before you record. One take per shot, in order. Nobody is filmed who does not want to be; hands and the product are enough. Save the file in the class folder with your group number and today’s date. Nothing goes online.”

Walk the room: the 3 problems the model group hit were filming against the window (presenter a silhouette: turn the bench so light comes from behind the camera), picking up the class next door (move the tablet to within 40 cm of the speaker), and a shot running to 21 seconds instead of 18 (cut the filler sentence from the end). Watch for the same 3.

Safeguarding: films stay in the class folder on the school system. No personal phones, no personal accounts, no uploads.

Slide 6 of 7 · Part D and self check · Design Technology · Year 10

3 minutes

Part D: watch another group’s pitch, then check your own work

Watch 1 other group’s pitch and fill in Part D: the number or fact you remembered, the weakness they admitted and whether it helped, and 1 shot that needed to be longer or shorter. Then tick the success criteria you met and correct 1 thing on your storyboard.

My shot durations add up to exactly 90 seconds, and each shot’s word count fits its duration at 2.5 words a second.
My script states the problem, shows the product and includes at least two real numbers from my own design.
I admit one genuine weakness rather than waiting for the panel to find it.
Each shot has a stated framing, so somebody else could film it without asking me what to point the camera at.
The file is named and stored where the class teacher can find it, and nothing has been published outside school.

Part D on your worksheet · 3 minutes Finished early? Cut your pitch to 45 seconds and say what you lost

Supply teacher script (no subject knowledge needed)

Say aloud: “Swap devices with another group and watch their pitch once. Fill in the 3 boxes in Part D: feedback about timing and evidence, not about how nervous anybody looked. Then tick the success criteria and fix 1 thing on your storyboard.”

Quick check: model feedback to group 2: the fact remembered was corrugated board at 65 p a square metre against 42 p, because both numbers were on screen at once; the weakness admitted was that corrugated board is bulky so fewer flat boxes fit a delivery, and admitting it helped because it was the first question coming; the shot to change was a 14-second opening with no dialogue, cut to 5 with the 9 seconds given to the rushed cost comparison.

Extension answers: cutting to 45 seconds usually means dropping the comparison shot (shot 4) first and losing the argument against the window; the 2 feared panel questions for the model design are about the lost sales from having no window and the 27% sheet waste; of the 3 openings, the model pupil filmed the one that opens on the product and the cost.

Slide 7 of 7 · Plenary review · Design Technology · Year 10

2 minutes

Quick-check answers before handing in

Check your main answers before your worksheets are collected.

Question	Correct answer
How many words fit a 90-second pitch, and how many fit a 15-second shot?	About 225 words in 90 seconds and about 38 words in 15 seconds, at 2.5 words a second.
What must your 7 shot durations add up to?	Exactly 90 seconds; the model is 8 + 12 + 15 + 15 + 12 + 18 + 10.
Where does the video file go, and what is it called?	The class folder on the school system, named with the group number and the date. Nothing is uploaded anywhere.

Check your name and class are on your worksheet Devices back where they came from