This is the year that contest deadlines are just whizzing by me. At this rate I think I may only do Austin because I really want to go to check out the festival, and it would be nice to go as a second rounder or finalist. Plus it's got one of the later deadlines.But each other contest I had in my cross hairs (yes, even the Nicholl) I'm abandoning as the due date approaches. I'm finding I just don't have the time to do the intended polish of "problem child" script in the midst of trying to get crazy movie musical made.
As recently as last year I'd have been getting my "submission" on with Withoutabox, checking my meager writing budget for how many contests I was going to enter, memorizing notification dates so I could anxiously check my e-mail around said date. Not this year. This year I'm knee-deep in a business plan. I am, however, not filled with that much remorse, though I am struck occasionally by the irony that it is a contest that gave crazy Bollywood movie musical whatever traction it has.
Pulsing through my brain is this from Scott @ Go Into the Story:
Students ask me all the time about screenplay competitions. Apart from the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, unless you really need something like that to motivate you to write, I don't recommend them. In part because some of them... are of spurious value. But the bigger thing is there is a much better screenplay competition that really pays off: It's called Hollywood! Write a great script and win that sucker!And the thing is, about winning "Hollywood", you don't even have to write a great script. I mean it helps, but overall the project just has to be marketable and appealing to a sizable enough audience (this is where writing the good script helps) to make a bunch of important people say yes.
Oh my God, do I sound like a producer or what? Maybe next month the writer in me will fight back when I finally finish the draft of the little "doesn't fall neatly into any box" movie I want to direct.
Photo by angst
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