I have a lot of screenwriting friends on various social media platforms and it seems like every day at least one of them, usually more than one, announces that they just became a semi-finalist, finalist or the winner in a screenwriting contest. Of course, I congratulate them. Then I check out the contests. Usually, they are associated with obscure film festivals. Usually, I have never heard of them.
Am I happy my friends won the competitions? Yes, of course. Do I think their wins will forward their careers or help get their screenplay produced? Absolutely not.
The heads of the studios and the top agents at CAA and WME aren't monitoring the results of the screenplay competition at the Muncie Indie Film Fest. Trust me, if you won that award and boasted about it in a query letter to one of those power brokers, their first thought will be at most: "Muncie? Hmmm. Is that in Illinois or Indiana?" It definitely will not be: "I must read this script IMMEDIATELY!"
I remember taking my first produced feature 21 Eyes to its first film festival. We were up against another film that had won first prize in a film festival a few weeks earlier. I wasn't intimidated because I was familiar with the other festival. It was very small. It wouldn't be totally inaccurate to say it was eight guys watching DVDs in a club room. Still, it was a recognized film festival and that legitimized the award. I am certain when that writer/director dies, the first paragraph of his obituary will include the words "award-winning filmmaker."
The film itself was never professionally released.
But he'll be an award-winning filmmaker forever.
Trust me. That's the true value of 99% of all screenwriting competitions. They are simply ego strokes.* There are literally hundreds of screenwriting contests but less than twenty have any industry value whatsoever.
Before I go any further, let me tell you about my experiences with film festivals. When I began writing there were very few competitions. In retrospect, I wish I had submitted to The Nicholls Fellowship when I was still qualified to do so. That's one of the few competitions that actually enhances careers. I hear all of the winners and finalists end up with agents or managers. I could have done well there with my early scripts because they fell into the kind of subject matter the Fellowship seems to favor.
The first screenplay competition I entered was the Slamdance Horror Competition. As a prize, the winning script would be produced. I was a semi-finalist. I checked out my fellow semi-finalists. I was surprised to see that many of them were produced screenwriters, like myself. I felt like I was in good company. But I didn't win.
The second contest I entered was MovieGuide's Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays. I wouldn't have entered it if a friend of mine hadn't suggested it a few times. That said, the contest was appealing to me. Based on the produced films in the genre, I didn't think the competition would be too great or too intimidating. Plus, they were giving out $50,000. That's real money. I entered and I was one of the winners -- 2nd runner up. I got a check for $10,000 and an all expense paid trip for my wife and myself to Hollywood for the awards ceremony. It was an absolutely fantastic experience. Read about it here: Winning The Kairos Prize.
The awards show was actually televised on the Hallmark Channel, but they cut out awarding the screenwriting prize for time. (Get used to that, screenwriters!) Here's a video of the screenplay winners winning their awards:
Finally, I entered The Baltimore Film Office Screenplay Competition. Twice. Why not? It's my hometown contest. The first year I entered my script that had already been a semi-finalist in the much more competitive Slamdance Horror Competition. I thought I was a shoo-in since the script was set in Baltimore and had already garnered professional interest. I lost. I wasn't even a finalist. Why? The judge dismissed it as needlessly violent. Gosh, who'd want to see a violent horror film? The following year I sent them a script about the founding of one of the most famous Italian restaurants in Baltimore's Little Italy. The script was filled with local color, romance and food, and even benefited from an uncredited polish by the Academy Award winning writer/director Barry Levinson. This was a truly viable script. The producers had already blew three separate opportunities at financing. It lost too. Why? Because the judge thought the May/December romance at the heart of the tale was "unbelievable" -- despite the fact it was based on a TRUE STORY.
Idiots.
The funny thing is that I later became one of those idiots myself. I was invited to become a second tier judge on that contest, but that's another story. You can read about it Here. It will give you an inside view of a screenwriting competition.
If you noticed, all of the competitions I entered had a very narrow focus. I have a real problem with the apples and oranges nature of general competitions. I have a certain "wheelhouse" as a writer. It's drama with comedy. Therefore, none of my non-genre scripts could ever win a contest. My scripts are too light to win against serious dramas and too serious to win against outright comedies. That's why I have only entered competitions with a narrow focus like faith and horror. That mitigates the apples versus oranges problem.
But here's the main reason I don't enter contests: They're bullshit.
I didn't become a screenwriter to win writing contests. I became a screenwriter to make movies!
I'll take one yes from a producer over fifty wins in podunk screenwriting contests any day of the week. You can win one hundred awards from the Chattanooga Micro Cine and Brew Fest without getting one single step closer to making a film.
Don't get distracted! If you want your work to be judged in document form, write a book. If you call yourself a screenwriter, you're not in the word business. You're in the picture business. Your screenplay isn't completed until it is translated into images on a screen.
Keep your eyes on the prize, folks!
To get your first film made within the system, you are probably going to have to get hundreds of nos from agents, managers and producers. Why would you want to compound that negativity with dozens or hundreds of nos from screenplay competitions? To make matters worse, you're going to be paying $35, $50 or $75 per shot for the privilege of being rejected. Forget that. Rejections from producers are free of charge! Collect them all!
"But, Sean," you say, "I want my obituary to read award-winning writer."
Okay, if all you want is an award here's what you do. Go on FilmFreeway.com and find the newest and smallest screenwriting contests. That's where you'll find the least competition. Enter enough of them and you'll eventually get your award. Or, better yet, just enter the WorldFest at the Houston International Film Festival. They have so many filmmaking categories (924!) and they give three awards -- gold, silver and bronze -- in each of them that you're bound to win something.
Then stop entering contests and get back to the business of making movies.
*Okay, okay. I am going to concede a point in favor of contests. Some screenwriters outside of major markets work in isolation. They don't have friends or colleagues knowledgeable in the arcane craft of screenwriting. They enter these contests specifically to get feedback from the readers. I understand that. That makes sense. And it is considerably cheaper than what most professional readers would charge. That said, however, you would have more give and take with a professional reader instead.... (You can find my thoughts on readers on Writing Tip #19.)
Keep writing!
Chapel Street - Prologue - My Mother
Chapel Street - Chapter 1 - RestingPlace.com
Chapel Street - Chapter 2 - Elisabetta
Chapel Street - Chapter 3 - The Upload
Chapel Street - Chapter 4 - The Kobayashi Maru
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