There's no contest

Okay maybe there are a lot of contests. Hundreds of them in fact. When you're a screenwriter, you find out about all of them. And at times can feel overwhelmed by which ones are worth entering. So then, I end up not submitting to any. Which maybe isn't the best way to behave either. I never said it was a brilliant plan though.

So today I decided to enter Screenwriting Networks' High Concept Screenplay Competition. They're a great group with lots of strong contacts. So I figured why not? I don't normally tell people that I'm entering them, that way if nothing happens, no one knows I failed. But I also figure since I'm writing a blog on screenwriting, entering a contest makes me have to enter it. So I did. And now you get to share in my humiliation if I don't go far. But, can share in my joy if I do. So now I wait. There's one more entrance deadline for it, Dec 15, but the price goes up. Here's the link in case anyone wants to enter it. http://www.scriptwritersnetwork.org/high_concept_SP_competition.html

So the question begs to answer, are there other contests worth entering? Of course Nicholl's is the top of all of them. If you win that, you definitely get a manager and agent and tons of exposure. I was a quaterfinalist once and instantly got emails from producers and agents. Nothing came of it, but now looking back, that script wasn't ready, so I'm not surprised. But it sure was exciting getting emails early on in my "career" from people who wanted to read my script, instead of me hounding them to read it. It was a taste of being pursued by Hollywood, and I gotta say, I liked it!

I heard from a friend recently and he did well in the Austin Film Festival. He got an agent and manager out of it, and they got his script around town, and now he's on the Black List of Hollywood. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, that means your script is the one everyone wants to read in Hollywood. So yeah, I'd say if that happened from Austin that's one worthy of entering.

One of his good friends swears by Blue Cat, which I know of, but don't know more than that. And my friend swears by UCLA's competition, but you have to be enrolled in their classes to enter. So that limits if you can enter or not. But, the classes are good, if you're considering taking any.

And entering contests can open doors in ways you might not even imagine. You just never know who might read your script. I mean, I was just a judge for a contest and that's how me and my producer friend found a script. Okay no, I'm not saying I'm like the coolest thing ever, and you'd be lucky if I read your script. Hardly! Just saying, you just never know what contacts you can make. There was actually two scripts I read I'd love to produce, but one seemed more feasible. So, that just goes to show, perhaps a lot of contests are just a way to get exposure, even if you don't win the grand prize.

And you never know who is reading your scripts or how much time they're giving your script, in a bad way. I remember one year I found out my actor friend was helping read scripts for his producer friend for Nicholl's. It kind of shocked me that this producer was just casually handing off scripts he was supposed to be judging. To an actor friend, that yes, he was a good friend. But a good judge of a script? Not so sure. It kind of confirmed why my script moved up one year when it wasn't ready. And other years when it hasn't moved up when it's been much stronger of a script.

But you don't want to spend your life savings on entering all these contests. Otherwise it just feels like you're throwing money away. I think the important thing to do is see how far up you get in these contests, and then keep on writing and learning and see if you can move up in each and every contest you do enter. But just pick which ones you think are worth it. Use these contest to open doors, if that happens. But know, just like everything in Hollywood, it's all subjective.