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Dear Screenwriter:
All screenwriters imagine an audience watching their movie, yet they sometimes balk at the idea of an audience reading their screenplay.
Just as movies need audiences to succeed, screenwriters need feedback to succeed.
No one can tell you how to write your screenplay; but they can tell you if they connect with your characters and care about what happens to them.
Each person who reads your script is an audience of one. Smart writers learn to recognize legitimate feedback and use it to help them focus and polish their scripts.
This issue deals with SCRIPT FEEDBACK so on with the show...
SCRIPT
MARKET
NEWS
June 10, 2002
IN THIS ISSUE...
SUBMISSION OPP => ABC/Disney Fellowship
TUTORIAL => Generating Script Feedback
MARKET TIP => Contests with Feedback
First, a word from a friend...
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SUBMISSION
OPPORTUNITY: ABC/DISNEY WRITING FELLOWSHIPS
How would you like to be paid to learn how to write screenplays?
Hallelujah!
For more than a decade Disney Studios and ABC Entertainment have offered year-long fellowships ($961.54 per week for a year = $50,000.) to a dozen writers each year so they can work full-time to develop their craft at Walt Disney Studios and at ABC Entertainment.
The screenwriting and TV writing mentors who work with the fellows include distinguished Disney and ABC executives and producers. This program is open to ALL writers - with or without credits.
YOU GOTTA HUSTLE!! => This window of opportunity is only open June 1, 2002 to June 22, 2002.
INFO => www.abcnewtalent.disney.com/html/write.htm
TUTORIAL
SCRIPT
FEEDBACK: Why Screenwriters Need It,
How to Get It
Copyright © 2002, Lenore Wright
Writers dread receiving feedback on their scripts for many reasons. Here are some popular (yet bogus) reasons:
- They want to believe they're so talented they do not have to rewrite. Feedback interferes with that delusion.
- They want to believe the story they've written works as a movie – just the way it is.
- They want to be finished, and feedback sometimes (Almost always, sigh!) reveals that more work needs to be done.
Professional screenwriters know that script feedback is part of the process. They learn how to deal with it effectively. Sometimes they even embrace this opportunity to polish their script.
WHY SCREENWRITERS NEED FEEDBACK
Writing is a solitary profession; but screenwriting is a collaborative job. Here are three of the main reasons screenwriters – even aspiring ones - need feedback on their scripts.
1) Aspiring screenwriters need to know how to evaluate and integrate feedback – it is part of the screenwriter’s job description.
All professional screenwriting jobs involve feedback. Writers attend story meetings before, during and after the writing of the script. If a writer stays attached to a project, these meetings continue all the way to the last day of shooting and sometimes through the editing process and the marketing of the finished film.
Feedback comes in all sizes and flavors -- helpful and destructive, professional and amateurish, insightful and dismissable. Sifting out useful feedback from useless dreck is an important skill that all working screenwriters must develop.
2) Feedback puts the writer in touch with the audience.
Movies need audiences to succeed. Produced screenwriters benefit from the give and take an audience provides. Unproduced writers can also benefit from audience feedback whether this audience reads your screenplay privately or attends a staged reading of your script. Their feedback from this experience will answer these vital questions: Does your script connect with the audience? Have you fully realized your story, your characters, your conflicts?
3) Working screenwriters automatically generate feedback on their scripts; unproduced writers have to generate their own feedback.
Professional screenwriters have agents and managers who read their original scripts and give them feedback. When writers are hired to write a screenplay, the producer or studio executive provides a staff of development people to read and evaluate the script at every stage of the writing process. This feedback comes in the form of notes, conference calls and story meetings.
Sometimes this process can be annoying or even counter-productive; but sometimes it can be very helpful to the project. One thing is certain -- all working screenwriters learn how to manage these situations so their script survives and thrives.
By generating feedback on their scripts, aspiring screenwriters can start developing this vital skill BEFORE they are thrown into a professional working environment.
HOW WRITERS GENERATE FEEDBACK
You don't have to sign a five picture deal with Paramount Pictures to generate feedback on your scripts. There are many ways unproduced writers can instigate opportunities for script feedback. Here are some suggestions:
<<:>> WRITERS GROUPS
Many writers belong to a writing group whose members read each other’s work and comment on it. This can be done in person or online. If the group you join does not work for you, do not suffer in silence; find a group that does work.
You can find active screenwriting groups through writer’s callboards. Here is a list of reliable writers callboards =>
www.breakingin.net/tswboards.htm
<<:>> FILM INDUSTRY PALS
If you love movies, you probably know others who are trying to establish themselves as writers, actors, directors, producers and editors. These colleagues each know a part of the film process but nobody knows everything. While their feedback might not be complete, it should be helpful to you because they are familiar with a vital part of the filmmaking process.
<<:>> SCRIPT COACHES OR PROFESSORS
Professional script coaches and film professors can help you raise your script to a new level. For a list of reliable ones, try this tutorial =>
www.breakingin.net/tswcoaches.htm
<<:>> SCRIPT READINGS
Unproduced writers can benefit enormously from a public reading of their script. Contact an acting class at a nearby college and volunteer some scenes for the students to use. Offer your script to a community theatre group for a staged reading. Or gather a group of friends who are interested in movies and assign the roles yourself. Do not read one of the roles, listen and learn.
<<:>> CONTESTS WITH FEEDBACK
Many screenplay contests offer feedback as part of the prize. The following contests offer feedback to ALL participants:
---> SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: www.slamdance.com/screencomp
----> RED INK WORKS SCRIPT COMPETITION: www.redinkworks.com/script_competition.htm
----> FRESHLY WRITTEN: www.freshlywritten.com
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MARKET
TIP: Contests with Feedback
---> SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
The Slamdance Film Festival in Utah began as an alternative to the popular Sundance Film Festival. They offer five genre-specific categories: Big Budget, No-Low Budget, Sci Fi, Comedy, and Shorts. Writers are encouraged to call for FEEDBACK on their submissions. BONUS: All entrants get FREE COVERAGE.
DEADLINE: June 15, 2002
INFO => www.slamdance.com/screencomp
----> RED INK WORKS SCRIPT COMPETITION
The sponsor of the Red Ink Works competition -- Voyageur Film Capital -- is an emerging force in the Western Canadian film and television marketplace. They develop, produce, distribute and finance theatrical films, Movies of the Week and television entertainment.
They don't offer cash prizes or free trips to Hollywood; but ALL WRITERS receive feedback and notes. The top screenplays chosen will be posted on THE WRITERS SCRIPT NETWORK for one term, plus exposure on their site for a year.
DEADLINE: August 31, 2002
INFO => www.redinkworks.com/script_competition.htm
----> FRESHLY WRITTEN
Freshly Written is a new screenwriting contest to encourage quality undiscovered screenwriting talent under supervision of Entertainment Attorney Alan S. Clarke of Clarke & Anderson Law Firm of Marietta, Georgia.
Awards: Cash, representation, Scriptware software, Web exposure, free screenplay typing service.
BONUS: All contestants receive feedback.
DEADLINE: July 15, 2002
INFO => www.freshlywritten.com
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Hey, speaking of FEEDBACK, let me hear from YOU!
We need:
- Article ideas?
- Kudos?
- Complaints?
Writer's Digest publishes a list of the best sites for writers. If you would like to nominate Break into Screenwriting, I would be honored and grateful. Send your nomination =>
mailto:wd-tools@fwpubs.com
with "Best Writer's Site" in the subject line. The top 10 sites will be listed in October's issue of Writers Digest. Deadline: June 19th!
Then get working on your submission to the ABC-Disney Fellowship competition.
Deadline: June 22, 2002!
Lenore Wright, Editor
Script Market News
+++++++++++++
Jumpstart YOUR writing career!
www.breakingin.net/benefits.htm
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