Screen Play Contest Guide

There are lots of success stories but I wanted to touch on an interview from No Film School.  Sam Baron won in 2014 for his film The Science of Love and Laughter.  The first thing that stands out is the pitch.  It's interesting and unique. What happens if your life sucks and realize your in the wrong profession and in the wrong relationship, what do you do?  Then you find out that your wife is dying from cancer. Out of some form of compassion are you supposed to stay or do you start to think about the reasons why you made these decisions in life. In doing so maybe you find love again. I'm sorry if you don't think that is good. This is a film I want to see. It has that interesting twist and I want to know. It finds the good in the bad.  This rings out Manchester By The Sea.  A premise that could make for a classic.

So what happened to the movie?  I did a search on IMDB and I didn't find anything.  I never heard about it before so it's safe to assume it has not been produced.  What Sam did say in the interview was that after the top 10 finalists got announced he got 800 emails.  Then when he won there where another 800 emails of people wanting to setup a meeting and read his script.  He got an American Agent and manager. I pulled up his profile and there are a few shorts that he has written and directed but no features.

I want to make a note about this competition. I personally submitted a script in 2012. At the time we had just finished the first draft and I did something I advise you against and that is submitted it even before giving it a good proof reading. We simply ran out of time. We didn't write it to submit but instead we thought hey for a few bucks we can get coverage from an industry insider. The coverage was done by someone who said and I quote, "my company has a mandate that we only take on projects that we feel could move forward either in the studio system..." This was a no budget horror film project. So I can't attest to the selling point that they offer 31 awards and your script is reviewed by judges interested in that genre. The coverage was helpful in guiding us how to do a rewrite which was what we wanted because we had hit a wall with the project. Looking back on the notes I agree with a lot of what they said. Just that the reader clearly didn't get the genre and wasn't our audience. Some of the suggestions provided are formula Hollywood issues that just don't pertain to what we were trying to do.

I got an email from Screenwritting U from the administrative Director of The 2017 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards. She made a strong case for submitting to them and the main selling point is that the script will be read by a judge who is passionate about one of 31 genres. My assumption is that they recognized this flaw from 5 years ago and made changes. They certainly have one of the best reputations in the industry.

I submitted a project to the Sundance Writers Lab. I actually spent an entire month working on the application. I took a trip to Los Angeles and stayed at a friends house while he was out of town for businesses. Everyday I spent hours at a very cool coffee shop next to the Beverly Center called Alfred Coffee {Melrose Place} and I enjoyed the atmosphere. It allowed me to focus on the task at hand. I rewrote the first five pages 100 times. I had an attorney friend of mine, proofread my stuff for typos. I called my mom in NY and had her double proofread it. I had what I thought was the perfect project. It was about a retiring NYPD detective who finds out his son is gay and has to combat a life time of homophobia for love of family. I added an interesting twist. His rookie year was during the Stonewall Riots and he had done some things during that experience that he isn't so proud of because he hurt men just like his son. The bad news I didn't get accepted.

I spent some time analyzing past Sundance film winners. What I found is a very high percentage of winners deal with immigration or race related stories. Maria Full Of Grace, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Precious and (My Favorite) Fruitville Station. So why not a movie dealing with coming out of the closet and homophobia. The past is not a prediction of the future. What I found disheartening is that you don't get any feedback. I waited for what seemed like such a long time I even forgot about it. The rejection letter was short. I vowed to submit again.

I don't have much experience or past exposure. I keep hearing about it. I listened to a podcast about someone raving about it. And then the typical complaint about the city that it's gotten so popular it has lost some of it's charm. Good things come with popularity especially if you win. More exposure is usually a good thing especially when it relates to media. This means expect it to be more competitive this year. My guess is if last year 2016 they had 9100 scripts this year it's going to be over 10,000. I took to twitter to see if I could find anything. I didn't find a ton of #Hashtags but they do have almost 30,000 followers on Twitter. The reputation is that this festival is known as "The Writers Festival."

The top three winners usually get agents.

The great exposure that this competition offers is fairly impressive. It's focus has always been about getting writers through the Hollywood door. Let's be honest what is really cool here is that they promote all top 100 entries for an entire year. You never know who is looking for your particular type of story. It makes sense and fills avoid. Placing in the top 100 is a great springboard for a writer to launch their career. Out of the thousands of entries the odds of there actually being 100 films worthy of production is realistic. Why limit the process to just one winner and leave other great stories out causing those opportunities to be missed.

I want to point out that basic searching turns up not only a rip off report but also a few negative reviews. The reviews in my opinion have no merit. If the reader couldn't follow the story, maybe you need to fix those issues. More importantly the issue was the timeliness of coverage. All these contests sell coverage as up sells or stand alone services. What they really are in the business of doing is picking winners. Submit a winner. Don't submit something that is less than perfect. If you need coverage go to a professional that specializes in coverage. I'm not saying the coverage will never help or be top quality. I'm saying look for that service from someone who is in the business or providing coverage to help you get ready to submit to a contest.

While I don't want to diminish the potential this contest offers, let me point out that I submitted to it in January. The original email said coverage would be provided before the first round of finalists got announced by the end of February. On February 28 an email arrived that said "We'll be announcing the quarter-finalists on or before March 20. We will announce the semi-finalists on or before April 15. The winners will be announced by the end of April." This means they must have gotten so many submissions they simply couldn't get through them in time. They must have gotten more than they anticipated and with good reason. The annoying thing is that I submitted a first draft script really only because I wanted feedback because I was fishing for some ideas on how to start the next round of rewriting. Don't do what I did. If you want coverage pay a little extra and get someone who is going to be able to provide coverage in a timely manner. From my perspective it was a horrible waste of money to have to wait 3 months for coverage. And lets be honest they have more important screenplays that are farther along the development process that deserve their time. Submitting something that you know isn't worthy of winning is an injustice.

The other issue I want to point out. They have launched a Science Fiction contest. This offers a $2,000 cash prize. It doesn't offer the same set of perks mainly the opportunity to hold meetings in Hollywood. Which got me thinking that the meetings that you are going to have are probably not heavy weights who can greenlight a project. The list of judges on careful re-examination state that they are executives at studios that have produced blah blah and blah. That's great one of them is an assistant at the studio that made Passengers. His LinkedIn says story analyst but was he working as an analyst at the time the Passengers script came in? It does say they three judges love Science Fiction so we can take them at their word. I guess if you had been involved in the production of a Science Fiction film that grossed almost $300 million world wide you wouldn't be working as a judge for a competition that gets thousands of scripts each year. It's great that they are branching out to niche specific projects. I just wonder if this is an example of a contest that won't be able to provide the same benefit as their large competition. You should always wonder and ask these questions when you submit scripts and pay entry fees. Time will tell