My take on the whole Disciple Program thing

Last week The Disciple Program sold to Universal for big bucks and with Mark Wahlberg attached to star. And the arguing began.

For those of you who have not been obsessing over this particular development, let me 'splain:

A while back, aspiring screenwriter Tyler Marceca entered the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest, in which he was given a vague logline (After waking to find his wife dead in their backyard, a man conducts his own investigation, and uncovers the hidden life of a woman he thought he knew) with which to write the beginning of a screenplay. The top writers were then given guidance from professionals to build an entire screenplay from those initial pages. Tyler won and developed a script called The Disciple Program.

While he was already gaining some traction with his contest win, Tyler submitted this script to Carson Reeves at the Scriptshadow blog for notes. Carson loved the script and generated a lot of buzz for it, and Tyler was signed by WME and Anonymous Content. On Friday, The Disciple Program sold with a director and actor attached. And Tyler is on his way.

I don't know Tyler personally. These are just the facts as I have gleaned them.

This whole series of events has generated some rather aggressive discussion among the screenwriting populace. There are those who are in a kerfuffle over whether or not Carson is responsible for Tyler's success. Carson helped in a big way, no doubt, but let's get one thing straight: Tyler is responsible for Tyler's success.

No matter what you think of the script (I think it was great with pacing and an easy read because I have an English teacher's vocabulary skills, but a bit predictable), you have to respect Tyler's devotion to the craft here. He entered a contest where the prize wasn't money so much as it was hard work under a mentor's supervision. But he didn't stop there. He knew he could do more with the script, so he sought out more help in the form of notes from Carson.

I have my issues with paying for notes. Namely, there are very few screenplay consultants who are worth the price. I can name four, although I personally have never paid for a note in my life. For some people, though, paid notes are a very useful tool. See This Post by the Bitter Script Reader for really good advice on the subject.

Anyway, Tyler worked on this script, and then worked on it, and worked on it again. That much is obvious from his story. And when he hooked up with WME, they gave him notes and he worked on it again. He could have rested on his contest-winning laurels and imagined himself a perfect writer with nothing left to learn, but he didn't.

Honestly, all this fighting people are doing over whether or not Scriptshadow helped Tyler out or not, over whether or not the script is truly amazing, it doesn't matter. That's not the moral of this story. The moral of this story is, this guy worked his ass off to make this the best script he could possibly write, and now he's a professional screenwriter.

Winning

I've had a lot of time to think about what I'd say here today because I've been sitting on this news for weeks, unable to tell anyone. I wrote about four posts already before settling on this one. This must be what it's like to work on Project Runway.

In case you haven't yet heard, I was one of the three finalists in The TrackingB feature script contest.

I entered Nice Girls Don't Kill the first week the contest opened for entries, then I got busy working on my next script, How My Wedding Dress Got This Dirty. It turned out that the contest still had a week to go when I finished the script, so I entered it at the last minute.

Now that I had two low budget commercial scripts completed, I got back to work on my Civil War martial arts story. Things were going swimmingly, moving along at a casual pace. I wrote pages. I graded papers. Ladeda.

Then one night while I was entrenched on the couch, grading essays, lamenting that fact that it was taking me longer to give notes on these essays than it took the kids to write them, when I got a message from The Insider, the guy who runs TrackingB and the contest, asking for my phone number.

This can mean only one thing.

I pretended to be all cool and nonchalant as I answered the phone, and he told me I was one of the finalists with How My Wedding Dress Got This Dirty.

I probably said "That's awesome!" about eighty times during that conversation. Adjectives are not my strong suit.

This was a Sunday night.

Monday I drove straight from work to the Circle of Confusion office, where I met with Ken Freimann. I thought he was just awesome, and even though I knew other managers were reading my script, I signed with him on the spot.

I spent the next couple of days letting people know I'd already found a rep, thank you for your interest. All the while, The Insider let me know who he'd sent the script to, asked how I was doing and what I had decided, and gave me great advice on how to make the best choices in the middle of all this heat.

Tuesday, between grading more essays (I feel like for the past three years, nary a moment has gone by when I did not have an essay to grade), I approved the new cover for my script, complete with COC logo.

Wednesday Ken and I met with Ava Jamshidi at ICM. I loved her. Even though I knew we were waiting for other agents to read the script - agents you would cream your pants to meet with - I decided on the way home that I couldn't do any better than Ava. She's awesome, and she gets shit done. She and Ken had some terrific plans for me.

My team was made official on Thursday morning.

So to recap: Sunday night I was grading papers in front of the TV, watching a marathon of MI5 episodes. Thursday I had a manager, an agent, and my script was already in the hands of three production houses, one of which I'd been trying to get my work to for years.

And now here I am, still grading these fucking essays while my team gets my career started.

It's pretty awesome.

First ten pages at Scriptshadow

Over at Scriptshadow, Carson  has posted links to the first ten pages of each of the top five winners of his recent contest. My pages are from entry number four, Nice Girls Don't Kill. Feel free to download and see what you think. They were all interesting reads, and one script in particular kicked my ass, but I won't elaborate until after Carson posts his own reviews.

I learned quite a bit from reading these pages, particularly how easy it is to do nothing for ten pages when you think your reader is a little slow, and how much better it is when you get to the point as quickly as possible.

Have a read. See what you think.

Win tickets to Psycho at the cemetery!

UPDATE: Congratulations Captain Wow for winning these tickets by entering the contest! Captain Wow, please check your email! If you have no email from me, please email me and I will send you the tickets! Have fun! Thanks for playing!

Hey Los Angeles residents:

Ever been to the Cinespia movie screenings at the Hollywood Cemetery? Want to?

I have two tickets and a parking pass for Saturday night's cemetery screening of Psycho. Right after I bought them, I remembered a prior obligation. I can't go.

I don't want them to go to waste, so I'll make it a contest.

If you'd like two tickets to see Psycho at the cemetery and one parking permit, post a logline for your script in the comments. If only one person posts a logline, congrats! You win! If several people post, I'll give the tickets to the person with the logline I like best.

You have until 3pm Saturday.

Make sure you leave a way for me to  find your email or check back to see if you've won so you can send me your email address.

My Wonder Woman Cold Open

Today my buddy Hamboogul over at Done Deal posted one of his ongoing writing throwdowns. The challenge? Write a cold open for the Wonder Woman TV show you'd like to see. I managed to sneak by without participating in the other throwdowns, but since this one was pretty much aimed directly at me, naturally I have to put up my take.

I felt a lot of pressure on this one because I've talked a lot about how I'd like to write the Wonder Woman film. This is TV so my take is a little different than I'd do it in a feature, but here's what I contributed, written this morning while I gave a state standardized test:

INT. INTERNET CAFE - DAY

This place is wrecked. Two customers lie passed out on the floor, covered in spilled coffee. Computer screens are busted, chairs pulled apart, pretentious artwork smashed on the floor.

THREE GOONS advance on a woman, but not just any woman.

This is DIANA PRINCE, 19, dressed in an equestrian outfit - jeans, red tank top, cowboy boots, a pair of super thick bracelets and a headband. She's olive-skinned with dark, soaking wet hair, and she's astoundingly gorgeous if you can get past her current appearance as a drowned rat backing away from these big muscle-bound dudes.

A guy cowers a bit behind her, a cute sciency type in his late 20s, STEVE TREVOR. There's a welt on his neck. He grabs a broken chair leg and holds it out to Diana.

STEVE

You want this?

DIANA

No!

STEVE

Come on, Diana, don't be-

HEAD GOON punches her in the face. Diana grimaces, yanks the proffered chair leg. Swings it at the Goon-

And SLAMS it into his gut. He FLIES across the room, crashing into a percolator. Coffee splashes everywhere. He is OUT.

STEVE

(to the goons)

We were kind of in the middle of something, guys. You should probably head on home now.

SECONDARY GOON thinks about this, but THIRDARY GOON dives right in, grabs Diana by the waist and POUNDS her into the floor. He's got her pinned.

This gives Secondary Goon the confidence he needed. He rushes Steve, who runs like hell.

While Secondary Goon chases Steve over the obstacle course that is this cafe, Thirdary Goon tries to ground and pound Diana on the floor.

But Diana sweeps her leg around in a lock on Thirdary Goon's leg, and SNAPS it. CRACK!

Thirdary Goon screams. Diana clocks him in the face with one of her bracelets, breaking his nose, then THROWS him off. He lands a few feet away.

She reaches under a table and grabs a LASSO, whips it at him, catches Thirdary Goon around the neck. She yanks. He struggles to breathe.

DIANA

Where is he?

Thirdary Goon just wheezes. Diana loosens the noose.

DIANA

Where?

He grabs the noose and RUNS at her, full force.

Diana whips the headband off her head and flings it like a boomerang. It CRACKS right into his skull. Thirdary Goon drops like a sack of potatoes.

Diana turns to Steve, who races around the room, throwing muffins at Secondary Goon as the big guy nearly catches up to his prey.

Diana kneels over Thirdary Goon, rifles through his wallet.

DIANA

You can't run forever, Steve.

STEVE

Oh yes I can!

DIANA

You're going to have to fight some time.

STEVE

Tomorrow!

He hops over the counter.

Secondary Goon tries to follow him, slips on a coffee puddle, THUNKS to the floor.

Steve stops, spots the Goon, cheers, almost falls off the counter himself.

STEVE

See?

Steve hops down, kicks the Goon on the floor. He pours himself some coffee from one of the unbroken pots. Drinks.

STEVE

Still warm!

He offers her some.

Diana ignores him, reads some info she pulled out of Thirdary Goon's wallet.

DIANA

I've got the address. Shall we?

STEVE

Who's our back up?

Diana grabs the coffee, chugs it.

DIANA

We don't need backup, Steve. We've got moxy.

STEVE

And a gun, right? Please say we have a gun.

DIANA

Just moxy.

STEVE

I never should have pulled you off the island.

DIANA

But then we wouldn't be having so much fun, would we?

ROLL CREDITS

Naturally, this is where we'd cut to her back on the island of the Amazons and show how she got here.

To see the thread and the rest of the entries as they go up in the next couple of days, go HERE.

The winner of the cookies

I'd like to say the fact that I disappeared since Thursday was due to some huge important writing project or a big event in my personal life, or even that I was deeply embroiled in a stack of essays. In fact, I became obsessed with The Tudors thanks to BBCA's season one marathon, and I made time for little else over the weekend.

I did managed to sneak in a rewrite of my script in between episodes.

As a result, my plan to announce the winner of the Cookie Contest got delayed. I do that often: get all excited about an idea and immediately spring into action, then forget to follow up in a timely fashion because I get distracted by something else shiny. It's kind of a miracle I didn't quit my move to LA somewhere in New Mexico.

I LOVED the scenes you guys did. I especially love the way each person took the same idea and ran with their own interpretations. It's a cool way to look at your identity as a writer. And I am THRILLED that Unk showed up.

In the end, although I think all of these scenes are great, as well as the two that were sent to me via email, I had to choose one cookie recipient. And although I enjoyed Unk's brevity and Hamboogul's stylistic drama, and Vanilla Chunk's quiet indie and Atlanta's brilliant Panda transformation, I chose the scene that made me snort out loud.

So congratulations, Jeff! You tapped into my love of absurdist humor and you will be richly rewarded with cookies from the Bitter Baking Company as soon as you email me your address.

Here is Jeff's scene. Still not sure why scrippets is being a dirty whore and I apologize for its stupidity:

EXT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY

Arm in arm, Julie and Stan exit, exchanging snickers
and glances. It's love.

Just then, wheeling in like a comet crashing to Earth,
ARNOLD... muscular, thick-necked, all man. He collides with Julie,
sending her to the ground, her coffee airborne, Stan recoiling in shock.

STAN

Good Christ!

Julie's coffee descends finally and, predictably, uses
her as its landing pad.

JULIE

(to Stan) Do
something!

Stan stares at his right hand and awkwardly curls it
into a fist like it's the first fist he's ever curled.

Eyes scrunched tight, he lets his right fly and
delivers a pathetic punch to Arnold's cheek.

ARNOLD

That was cute Stan.
Let me show you how it's done.

With that, Arnold hauls back and absolutely levels
Stan. He won't be getting up off the sidewalk for some time. Julie
rises, dripping with coffee, tries to get to the fallen Stan.

Arnold stops her, holding her tightly by the wrist.

ARNOLD

Wait Julie....

JULIE

Get off me you
psychotic... you know me?

ARNOLD

I go by Arnold now.
But in the PAST, I was known as...

JULIE

(total reconition)
Stan? How the.... I mean...

ARNOLD

Please listen. You
were going to dump me right after this date right?

JULIE

Well... I... how did
you...

ARNOLD

It's all right. I
don't blame you. That guy on the pavement deserved to be dumped. I'm a
different man now. Believe me.

JULIE

How is any of this
possible?

ARNOLD

A few months at the
gym, a little space/time thingy... these things happen all the time.
Will you give me a second chance?

JULIE

You went through all
that for me?

Arnold nods.

JULIE

Wanna' go get a coffee
with me, we can talk about it?

Smiling, they take each other's hand and enter the
coffee shop.

On the sidewalk, Stan begins to stir...

Cookie Contest judging begins

Yay! I was so happy to see so many participants in my first contest. I got two more scenes submitted by email and Unk even showed up!

I think the neatest thing about something like this, and the reason I wanted to do it in the first place, is that you can see how everybody takes this one simple idea and twists it into whatever their style dictates.

It was all awesome work and I really enjoyed reading your scenes.

Friday I will announce who gets the cookies. It's a tough decision and I can't make it yet. I want to read them all again.

Bamboo Killers Cookie Contest

I decided to have a cookie contest. Twenty Somethings recently sent me some cookies when I won her contest after she won a contest and got some cookies, and I like this whole pay-the-cookie-forward thing.

Here's the deal. I'm going to write a raw, first-draft kind of scene and you are going to rewrite it your way. Those are the only rules.

Either post your version in the comments or email it to me. The person with the coolest scene gets it reposted on the blog and a pack of cookies from The Bitter Baking Company. They are excellent cookies.

You have until Thursday at 5pm.

Here is the original scene. Please forgive the format troubles. I've been having Scrippet troubles. If anyone knows how to solve this scrippet trouble, feel free to email me your solution. This is clearly an ongoing problem.

Anyway, the scene:

Julie and Stan exit the coffee shop, drinks in hand.

ARNOLD, big muscley guy, late teens, CRASHES into Julie.

Hot coffee splashes all over her clothes.

STAN
Yo what the fuck, man!

ARNOLD
Oh you got something to say?

Stan hands Julie his coffee.

He takes a deep breath.

He punches Arnold in the face.

ARNOLD
Bitch!

Arnold grabs Stan's collar and yanks him to the ground.

They roll around, exchanging blows.

JULIE
Stop it!

They ignore her, landing blows left and right.

Julie shrugs.

She throws Stan's coffee on them both.

Both men stop.

ARNOLD
What the hell was that for?

JULIE
Stan, let's go.  NOW.

Stan stands up and follows her down the street.

Arnold grabs a napkin, wipes himself down.



Have fun!

Nicholl again

I'm hoping not to be eligible next year, so this may be my last time trying. Here's this year's rejection letter. Same results as last year with the lovely P.S.

Dear Emily,

If you have been following the comment lines posted on Facebook, you already know that many exceptional scripts were entered in this year’s Nicholl Fellowships competition. Now that scores have been tallied for all 6,304 entries, we have to inform too many writers of scripts featuring intriguing stories, engaging characters and strong craft that they have not advanced into the next round. Regrettably, Burnside was not one of the 326 entries selected as a Quarterfinalist in the 2010 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting.

You should realize that while we strive to make the evaluation of screenplays as objective a process as possible, it is inherently both a personal and an extremely subjective matter. A lack of success here may not have any bearing on your reception in the marketplace where a sale is the ultimate measure of success. I’ll even venture a prediction: several non-advancing writers will become professional screenwriters in the near future.

To tell you a little about the process: each script was read once. After receiving an initial positive evaluation, nearly 2,900 scripts garnered a second read. Over 900 scripts were read a third time. Each read resulted in a numerical score being awarded. Scores for each entrant's script were totaled, and the Quarterfinalists were selected on the basis of highest scores.

Early next year, we'll send you a link to a 2011 application form, which will include a list of the recipients of the 2010 Fellowships. Results will be posted online at www.oscars.org/nicholl in November.

Best of luck with all your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Greg Beal
Director
Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting
www.oscars.org/nicholl
www.facebook.com/nichollfellowships

PS: Your script was among the top 10% of all entries.

Contest Notes

Over the last couple of weeks I was reading scripts for Script Doctor Eric's contest. Eric, if you haven't encountered him, is a script consultant in the reasonably priced category, and he just had his first contest.

I'm always skeptical of new contests, but Eric did this for the right reasons and is a stand-up dude. That much was clear when he and the three other judges got together this weekend to discuss the finalists. I was really glad he asked me to read these and would definitely do it again. There's something really interesting about reading a series of scripts by amateur writers and not having to make any notes other than honest, immediate reaction. I also really enjoyed finding some great writing.

I'm not going to say anything about the scripts in particular because the winners have not been announced, but I thought it might be interesting to post some of the notes I made as I read. I ranked the script from favorite to least favorite. Here's a portion of my notes to myself in order of rank.

1) I love this goddamn screenplay.

2) Great tone, great dialogue, great characters. Okay story, attempt at theme. The theme is pushed largely through dialogue, not through action. This is a good script, not a great one. With another rewrite this could be terrific, but right now it's just short.

3) This is genuinely funny and has great potential. There are a few behavioral inconsistencies, and it would help if the characters were more extreme. They don't feel their emotions enough - there need to be more foils. And in act 2 this thing comes to a dead stop. Fortunately it picks up again, but there are some real gaps in energy level.

4) There are GIGANTIC plot holes in this story and the dialogue is completely on the nose. Why are these people even doing all this? I'm perplexed on the entire premise. The moral dilemma is interesting but never explored to satisfaction. However, the writing is clean and easy to read and there is a clear tone, and action description is exciting. The writer has mastered writing, but not storytelling.

5) Good dialogue. I actually laughed. Yay! This is a really clever idea and the writer could have really played with the themes, but great opportunities were missed. I kept waiting for the characters to figure out what I already knew and it took entirely too long. The story fizzles because our characters keep talking without doing. I could use a ticking clock. I'm sad to say there was potential for a great story here, but it didn't happen.

6) Writing is clean and easy to read. Good action description. However, I am on page 15 and have no idea who the protagonist is. Plus I've seen this in like a million other movies. I mean every single scene is something we've seen before multiple times. And it's exposition heavy - like REALLY heavy. Some scenes aren't too bad, but I had to wade through a lot of garbage to get to them. So all in all, writing pretty good. Story terrible.

7) Too much exposition, not enough action. And isn't romantic comedy supposed to be funny? This is not funny. I feel like the third wheel between two very boring people on their first date. The story gets interesting on page 46. Why did it take 46 pages for something interesting to happen?

8) I'm not particularly opposed to voice over, but this is not used well here. There's a lot of passive voice and odd structure stuff. The protagonist is unlikeable, but not in a fun way. Based on the title I was expecting all kinds of antics, but this falls flat. There's no story.

9) Too much prose. It's written like a novel, which makes the pacing feel slooooow. Once we get going, interesting premise. But the way the story is carried out is just not cool. Not cool at all. I'm confused and unhappy.

10) You can tell the writer desperately stretched this out to make page count. It's difficult to follow. It may have a great story but I don't know because I don't understand what's going on. There's like thirty thousand characters in the first ten pages and I don't understand what any of them is doing.

Nicholl 2010

I decided at the last minute to enter the Nicholl while I still qualify. The only script I've ever entered before was Not Dead Yet. Two years ago it didn't go anywhere, and last year after a number of revisions it almost made the quarterfinals. That script is currently doing what it set out to do, so this year I'm submitting Burnside, my historical martial arts script. I love the script, but I feel like something isn't quite there yet, so I'm hoping to give it one last pass on Thursday and get it in by Friday in case the Saturday rush clogs the servers. The deadline is midnight Pacific time on Saturday. I already decided this is the only contest I'll enter this year.

Are you submitting anything? How do you feel about your chances?

Scriptshadow's logline contest

So as many of you guys already know, Carson picked his top ten loglines.

In case you haven't heard about this yet, Scriptshadow, the guy who reviews a screenplay a day and who's blog you should be reading if you are serious about the craft, put up a contest to select a good screenplay from among his readers. First, you submit your logline and he picks 10 he'd like to read. Then, you submit your first ten pages or a one-page synopsis and he picks 25 of those he'd like to read. Then you submit your whole screenplay and he picks his top three.

Guess whose logline he picked in his top 100? Memememe!

Here is my logline:

Twenty years after the zombie apocalypse wipes out life as they know it, a pair of survivors learns they are not alone, and must fix their issues to protect their warrior children on a dangerous journey by boat to save a woman who may be the key to reviving humanity.

Now here's the thing. I know I don't have the world's most original idea. It's not a high concept script by any means, and up next to all those other loglines it looks really boring.

Take this logline for a script by Josh Eanes called Humans!:

In a world populated by sentient zombies, an outbreak of humans threatens the lives of two ordinary zombie youths, as does an increasingly chaotic military response.

Or this one, by Mike Rinaldi titled In the Heat of the Dead of Night:

A Southern town divided by racism, intolerance, and William Faulkner must come together to survive an invasion of the walking dead and the only man who can unite them is a compulsive necrophiliac.

My heart kind of sunk when I saw those because let's face it, they're more clever than mine. I want to read them. I want to see them on screen.

So that brings up the old discussion about concept vs execution. These two scripts are terrific concepts that announce their potential up front. Mine is a story not unlike some we've seen. So when Carson reads our scripts, I'm curious to see how strongly the idea figures into his decision. It could very well be that all three zombie scripts are strong, but let's say one is not - will the idea save it? I don't know. I'm interested to find out.

I'm not sure I stand much of a chance anyway, since I just discovered that the screenplay I consider the best I ever read, Tonight, He Comes, is one Carson thinks is stupid.

Still, it's a cool exercise and I'm sort of amazed that Carson has taken all this work on himself. I'm also pleased to see not only a pro you probably know already - William Martell - in the list, but also a 19-year-old writer. It doesn't matter who you are, an idea's an idea, and all ideas are welcome. It's going to be pretty neat to see the development of where the clever ideas leave off and the great scripts take over.

CS Open - what have we learned?

Ugh. This week blows. Someone I love almost died - actually did die for a couple of seconds, we lost ANOTHER house - the third one and our favorite yet, and the CS Open was a hot mess.

It was a great idea. It really was. And I'm sure those people who received their scores got some useful feedback. I've read several posts by such people who have no idea why everyone else is in a huff.

It seems that many people followed directions and submitted their scenes, got the "Congratulations!" page that told you it was submitted correctly, and then received no feedback whatsoever.

At least I know why my shit was rejected. It bullshit, but it's a reason. There are a loooot of people who got no explanation at all. As an added bonus, the response from the contest runners was downright insulting to everyone who entered. No apologies, just a bunch of reasons why it's all our fault and they ran out of time, which is also somehow all our fault.

So if you paid, entered and submitted properly and received nothing in return, you're not alone. The only credit I can give them right now is that they did indeed refund my $12 pretty quickly, almost instantaneously. But that makes me wonder. How is it that they had enough people around to refund my money in ten minutes but didn't have enough readers to get the job done in the first place?

THIS JUST IN: Apparently a lot of people who submitted correctly received their scores this morning, a day after round two began. None of these people received the 93 or above necessary to move to round 2. Coincidence? I dunno. Vanilla Chunk has a different perspective.

I love how their primary excuse was "There was just not enough time."

Whose fault was that? Hey, CS, you guys created the deadlines and hired the readers. You knew how many entries you'd have two days before the prompt went out. You also set the second round deadline, a date you could have pushed back when you realized how poorly you had planned.

And then, of course, the team was nice enough to send us all the round 2 prompt and get indignant when people were confused as to whether or not they were supposed to submit an entry. Well, gee, the instructions were so fucking clear this whole time, how on earth could anyone be confused? They've yet to issue one word of apology to all the people they fucked over. Nothing but attitude.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a Clusterfuck. For me this is definitely the nail in the coffin on Creative Screenwriting. I heard there's some other magazine with better articles and not so much bullshit and disorganization. I think I'll try that one for a while.

How the CS Open wasted my time

Well I just wasted a ridiculous amount of my time.

If you went to the long list of instructions for the Cyberspace Open, one of the things it says on the page is to include a cover page. Then weeks after the contest was announced, if you had signed up you got an email with instructions that did not mention a cover page. Then after they realize their system was fucked up you got a second email with completely different instructions that did not mention a cover page. Did they mention a cover page at some point? Yes. Was it in their final submission instructions, either in email form or on the actual submission page? No.

So I forgot the cover page. They wanted your name and your order number on the file name so I did that, thinking that must be how they identified the entries. I followed carefully all the instructions on the actual submission page. I submitted early at 5pm on Sunday.

Then I reread the instructions on the website and realized I was supposed to have a cover page, so I emailed the contact address and asked if this was a problem and was there anything I could do about it - the deadline had still not passed at this point. I should have gone back and read the instructions on the website before I entered, I know that. It's just so confusing when you receive three different sets of instructions. Anyway, I received no response.

Then I never got my feedback. I waited and waited and waited and thought I was just somehow at the bottom of the pile.

This morning, they sent out the list of people who would advance to the next round followed by about a thousand reasons entries were disqualified. I guess they ran out of time and decided disqualifying mass amounts of people was the best way to fix the problem. And guess what one reason for disqualification is? No cover page.

My entry number is not on the list they posted, but they also said it was a partial list. They also say that plenty of people managed to resubmit their scenes, implying that you should have done the same if you screwed up. Yet on the last email and on the submission page, they specifically state not to resubmit or you will be disqualified.

I'm just so super excited about how much time and effort I wasted on this bullshit. I put aside working on my screenplay to make sure I wrote a good contest entry.

You know, every fucking year I sing the praises of the Expo. And every fucking year they pull the same shit - disorganized as hell. Last year's Expo screenplay contest was a mess. They announced the grand prize winner early so everybody left before they announced the other winners and they never did announce two contests winners at all. I've heard even if you do win, the prize pack never goes out. You get your money, but none of the famous exposure they brag so much about.

Then there's the actual Expo, where in years past speakers haven't had the right technical supplies or even white boards to work with, or the rules keep changing to make it harder for you to see the right speakers, but the price keeps going up. Or the fact that the volunteers are treated like shit so they don't show up, which means there is nobody to take tickets, so the people who paid extra for the Gold pass get into the same sessions as the people who didn't pay for a ticket. Every year a different set of problems caused by a lack of proper planning.

Supposedly disqualified entries will get a refund. Sure. I'm sure an organization that has this much trouble getting its shit together will be all over giving me back my $12.

Over at Done Deal some people are saying they followed all instructions to the letter and still didn't receive a score, and received no explanation as to why.

Hey Creative Screenwriting, get your shit together.

Fuck this. I'm done.

Stuff and other stuff

I'm back in America, everybody. Back to booze and television and lots of noise and one very angry cat.

The wife-beating guy decided he'd rather keep sleeping on a mattress on the floor in his dining room than sell his house for a reasonable price, so we continue to search for a place to live. This week I believe we are expanding the search to Pasadena.

In the meantime, if you haven't heard from Creative Screenwriting yet about your Open entry, you're not alone. On their website it still says if you haven't heard by yesterday to check this website. I haven't heard by yesterday but the website still says to check the website. I turned my scene in Sunday evening, but I forgot to include a title page so maybe that's the problem. I know others have also not received their scores yet.

I sort of feel like I ordered a salad but I'm sitting here at the table watching everybody else eat their salads. When that salad finally gets here it better have enough dressing on it.

Montana and house hunting got me stalled out on the script, but I will resume writing immediately, and by the end of the week I should have a first draft.

In the meantime, Zombieland everybody. Zombieland.

Open script: People on a raft

At first I spent like all Friday night and all day Saturday and then all Sunday morning trying to figure out what to write. Since we decided to put an offer on a house we saw Saturday, Beefcake and I decided to delay our trip to Montana by a day and that gave me Sunday to work. I sat down and spent like an hour writing and rewriting the idea I'd spent two days working on.

And not only was it 9 pages, but I hated it.

So I sat down and watched the first ten minutes of Jedi and didn't really think of anything, then suddenly I thought "People on a raft! Of course!"

Somehow Jaba made me think of people on a raft. I dunno. Then I said to myself, "Take advantage of this location." What can happen on a raft? 1 - you can fall off. 2 - it can have a hole in it. 3 - you can be stranded.

And for the really vigilant readers, yes I did use a phrase here that I used in the latest John August contest. It got laughs all around so fuck if I'm not going to use it as often as I can until it no longer works.

So here's what I turned in for round one. I thought it up in one minute, wrote it in about five, and edited it for about five. It ended up naturally coming in at 5 pages, which is always a good sign. And I feel ever so much better about it. Even if it doesn't get me a good enough score, I enjoyed writing it. My only regret is that I forgot to change their ages because I made them too old for their dialogue. Anyway, here's my "people on a raft" story:

[scrippet]
FADE IN:

EXT. LIFE RAFT - DAY

She has a gun to her temple.

She is PENNY, 23, tiny and birdlike and sunburned in her bikini, which could be why she shakes. It could also be the gun.

The finger hovering over the trigger belongs to MILES, 25, scruffy and unshaven and a little sunken in. He also looks more than a little pissed.

They bounce with the waves that roll under their day-glo orange life raft. Land is nowhere in sight.

Leaning out of the raft next to them is GAVIN, 30, hairy and portly. Gavin uses some sort of odd device constructed from his belt and a T-shirt to try to catch fish.

In the raft with them are a neoprene thermos, a beat-up towel with a picture of a bear on it, a broken paddle and a water-logged digital camera.

PENNY
I didn't do it, baby! He's full of shit!

MILES
Then where are they?

GAVIN
Shoot her, Miles. If you shoot her we can eat her.

PENNY
Oh come on. Even you aren't a cannibal.

GAVIN
Out here in the wilderness you never know what will turn you mad. I ate a grasshopper once. Hey maybe if we throw her overboard the fish will eat her and then get fat and slow and then we can catch them and eat them. More omega threes.

PENNY
For fuck's sake, Gavin, I didn't eat the granola bars!

MILES
Then how do you explain this?

Miles lifts up an empty granola bar wrapper.

PENNY
Gavin did it. I mean, he's the one deflecting all the blame to me. He looks fat.

GAVIN
I do not!

Gavin sucks in his stomach.

MILES
Penny. Listen, just tell me the truth because I love you and this gun is really heavy. Did you take the granola bars? I won't be mad. As much. Only a little.

PENNY
You have a gun to my head, Miles.

Miles looks at the gun.

MILES
Yes I do.

PENNY
Why did you even bring the gun?

MILES
I thought we could shoot stuff.

PENNY
Okay, look. Do I even look like I ate anything? Come on. I have a very high metabolism so I'm starving over here.

MILES
That's why I gave you my pesto chicken sandwich.

PENNY
I appreciate that sacrifice, baby. I would have died. That's why I haven't eaten anything else since. That's why I'm hungry now and if we get fish I need some fish.

GAVIN
Oh what a load of shit! You were lying then and you're lying now!

PENNY
Shut it, fatso!

Gavin shouts.

GAVIN
Oh my god you guys! Hold up! I got something!

He pulls up a teeny tiny little nothing of a fish, trapped in his bizarre t-shirt web.

Gavin throws the shirt with the fish inside into the raft.

GAVIN
Look what I did!

PENNY
He's so little.

GAVIN
No need to go there.

MILES
At least he's contributing.

PENNY
I didn't take the granola bars. Can I have some fish? I'm HUNGRY!

MILES AND GAVIN
No.

PENNY
Fuck you guys. I haven't eaten anything the whole time we've been here!

MILES
You ate my sandwich.

PENNY
Oh yeah. Thanks. It saved my life.

Gavin tries to cut the fish with a plastic knife but it's no good as it hops and flops all over the raft. Miles shrugs, grabs it and bites its head off.

PENNY
Oh gross!

GAVIN
That's balls out, dude.

They watch him for a second as he chews. And chews.

GAVIN
Well how is it?

MILES
Scaly.

GAVIN
Can you taste the omega threes?

PENNY
Nobody can taste omega threes.

GAVIN
Shut up, granola thief.

She lunges for him and grabs the plastic knife. She tries to use it as a projectile, which doesn't work because of physics.

Gavin pushes her and she pushes back. Gavin grabs her hair. She screams and grips his goatee.

MILES
Stop it!

PENNY
I didn't eat the granola!

MILES
Stop it! I have a gun!

GAVIN
Fuck you Penny! I wanted the oatmeal raisin!

PENNY
It tasted like shit anyway.

GAVIN
You DID eat it! I knew it!

They pound at each other again and almost rock Miles off the boat with their grappling.

MILES
Seriously, stop it guys!

PENNY
Yes! I ate the oatmeal raisin! I was hungry!

MILES
Penny!

Gavin slaps Penny in the face.

MILES
Gavin!

GAVIN
It had fruit and fiber in it you bitch! I need fruit and fiber!

PENNY
You can't have all the fruit and fiber and omega threes, you greedy dickbag!

She kicks him, knocking him fully out of the raft.

He splashes around frantically.

GAVIN
Help! Shit! Fuck, there's sharks!

He grabs at the raft and attempts to yank himself back in.

Penny kicks him again.

MILES
Penny!

GAVIN
Cut it out, bitch!

Penny leans back and crosses her arms and Gavin climbs back in and immediately lunges for her. They roll around on the raft some more, grabbing at each other's throats.

A SHOT.

Gavin and Penny sit up and stare at Miles, a smoky gun in his hands.

PENNY
Miles, honey, you shot a hole in the raft.

Indeed he did.

GAVIN
Fuck, dude.

MILES
Shitballs.

He pulls his shirt off and shoves it into the hole. He shoves the still wriggling fish body in the hole.

Gavin grabs the towel and starts to bail. As the end of the towel flips up in a graceful dance with the sky, two granola bars fly through the air and land in the water beyond.

GAVIN
Well shit.

FADE OUT.
[/scrippet]

CS Open - round one

CS Open is underway. I like this whole weekend thing. I may end up writing the thing in the car on the way to Montana. I think the people we're staying with have electricity and rumor has it they even have internet. Who knew?

I have a difficult time following directions. Two years ago I missed the first round because I didn't really follow the prompt. Last year I barely met the criteria of the prompt. The reader spent the first three pages commenting on how I didn't properly address the prompt, then crossed all that out and went "Oh" when they got to the last two pages where I finally did what I was supposed to do.

I almost made the same mistake on this one. I read the prompt:

"Your PROTAGONIST is in a jam. He (or she) had been relying on deception in order to further his objective, but his ENEMY has figured out the ruse. Write the scene in which your protagonist’s LOVE INTEREST confronts him with this information acquired from the enemy – while in staging it in a tricky or dangerous situation."

And started working on a story about a character who had already used the deception years ago but wasn't at the moment and was being confronted by the enemy, not the love interest. Typical me. I skim the instructions and then ignore them.

But because we have extra time I didn't screw up. I think I can use the same story and change a few elements to comply with the prompt.

One thing that surprised me was how this ended up being more difficult than I first thought. That prompt lends itself to an action plot so at first I thought - AWESOME! An action story will be easy! But it actually ended up making it more difficult to be creative. It's so action-oriented that the first five or six ideas I thought of have already been done to death.

The idea I ended up going with isn't the most creative story idea, but I think the execution is pretty clever so I hope that will get me past round one. I'm playing on my strengths - strong female protagonists with major insecurities, fight scenes, and really depressing confrontations.

I just hope typing in the car doesn't make me sick the way reading does.

In the comments, please refrain from posting your own story ideas if they're action stories. If they're comedy or romantic that's okay, but I don't want to be influenced by anybody else's take on this prompt. Until Monday, anyway. I'm sending my scene in Sunday night so Monday morning, post whatever you want.

It's hard out there for a zombie

Dear Emily,

Thank you for entering Not Dead Yet into the 16th Annual Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition. I want to thank you for sharing your work with us. I know there are a myriad competitions out there and I value your decision to submit to ours.

The competition received nearly 4,000 entries this year. The quality of the entries was remarkable. Every year we strive to maintain a level playing field which is why we make sure each and every script is read more than once. However, judging art at this level is a very difficult process and one that is, by nature, subjective.

Regretfully, I must inform you that your screenplay did not advance to the Second Round in the Drama category. Don't let this discourage you. Your writing talent and the viability of your script in the marketplace are not subject to the outcome of a competition. I encourage you to continue working to get your script recognized. Competitions are a good start, but don't stop there. This is an industry that demands persistence.

The Austin Film Festival and I wish you all the best in your continued efforts, and we hope that we can continue to be a resource for you in the future.

Thank you,
Alex McPhail
Screenplay and Teleplay Competition Director
Austin Film Festival

To Expo or not to Expo

if you're on Creative Screenwriting's mailing list you've probably been inundated with emails from them of late. Expo is upon us once more, and it's time to make some decisions.

For two years I volunteered at Expo, and the second year I had an awesome time as the volunteer coordinator's gofer, so I got to really see the thing from the inside out in a year when organization at the top was nonexistent. For the next two years I volunteered as Bill Martell's assistant, which was great because I got snuck into a part with free booze and got to sit in on Bill's classes, which are always terrific. Unfortunately Bill is all booked up this year and can't make it, more's the pity. So now I have a decision to make: volunteer again, pay, or don't go?

For new writers the Expo is an absolute must if you can. The interviews with successful writers, the workshops offered by some of the teachers, the networking opportunities - all of these things are a huge benefit to a growing writer who may feel overwhelmed by all the wheels you have to spin to get this career going.

I highly recommend the Expo to new writers. Highly.

But for me, I just don't see the sense in paying for another year at Expo, and volunteering has been handled poorly in the past, so I'm not sure I want to deal with that again. I entered Not Dead Yet in the contest, although now I'm not sure that was a good idea since I've been hearing some negative feedback from last year's winners. Still, the emails coming from CS seem to indicate some of those problems have been solved. Winners last year got their money, it would seem, but none of the promised industry exposure, which is the real prize. So I don't know.

But if you're a finalist you get tickets to the Expo anyway.

Then there's the Open. I almost considered going just for the day to do the Open, but then CS came up with a pretty brilliant new plan for that. You can now enter the Open from anywhere in the world. And I love me some Open.

The Open, for the uninitiated, is a three-part contest that in the past has taken place during the Expo. You pay $10 would go into a very cold room with 100 others and then some volunteer would hand you a prompt. You have an hour and a half to write the best scene possible within the given conditions. You get your scene back a few hours later with coverage and a score. The top 3-5% return the next day and do it again, and the top 3 of those get their scenes produced on stage. Then the audience votes for the winner. It's a terrific exercise. I've done it the past two years, gotten a higher score each year and some good thorough coverage.

This year they're changing things up by making the Open an online task. They'll send you the first prompt before the Expo and you email in your response. Then the second round is done over a weekend. The third is done during the Expo. I like it. Julie Gray and John August have similar contests on a regular basis and it's always a terrific learning experience. And this way you get coverage no matter how high you place.

So I'm just going to stay home Expo weekend and enter the Open contest, unless of course I win with Not Dead Yet.

John August scene challenge

John August is sponsoring a scene challenge again. Action this time, so this one was easier for me than the usual. Here are the requirements:

The only required element is the villain: BRICKHOUSE. He’s big and he’s strong. It’s up to you to decide whether that means he can throw cars or entire skyscrapers.

As the scene opens, Brickhouse has just grabbed an ancient staff from The City Museum of Ubiquities. You can decide whether the staff is merely valuable or has some other attribute. It’s also your choice whether the action takes place in the museum, outside, or some other locale.

I noticed that the thread so far is loaded with testosterone. I injected a little estrogen into the room. Here's my entry, reposted. I changed one word I meant to change before I posted it to the contest and forgot because I'm a dummy.

[scrippet]
INT. MUSEUM GALLERY - DAY

Serene and cold in its emptiness, the room holds many of Town's most interesting artifacts. Plus one giant angry man, and one irritated woman.

BRICKHOUSE, 30, rages in the center of the room, waving around a really tacky but gigantic staff that probably cost about a thousand times what any reasonable human being would pay for it. Brickhouse is the kind of guy you automatically assume is a douche. He's 6'4" and about 300 lbs, most of it muscle that he's currently using to annoy the piss out of his girlfriend.

LILA, considerably smaller and cuter, stands far from the swinging staff with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed.

An OLD WOMAN pokes her head in, sees the rage, and flees.

LILA
Brick, put it down.

BRICKHOUSE
Stop telling me what to do!

LILA
You're being childish.

Brickhouse slams the staff into the wall.

LILA
Great. Now you've cause property damage.

BRICKHOUSE
That's what I do! I'm a madman!

LILA
Yes. Woohoo. Can we go now?

BRICKHOUSE
What? You bitched and moaned for like three weeks about coming to the museum. What's the matter? Museum's not boring enough for you anymore?

LILA
You're going to end up in- AHH!

A skylight smashes, raining down shards of pointy glass. Brickhouse flings the staff to deflect the glass, which doesn't work because of physics.

STRAIGHT ARROW shoots into the room and slams into the floor like a graceful aardvark. He leaps to his feet, puffs out his muscular chest and shakes his well-conditioned mane.

STRAIGHT ARROW
Unhand this lady, Brickhouse!

LILA
Actually I'm okay. We're just having an argument.

STRAIGHT ARROW
No worries, my dear, I'll deal with this monster!

LILA
Totally not necessary.

Brickhouse smirks and whips his staff around at Straight Arrow's head. Straight Arrow catches it and kicks out right into Brickhouse's chest, which knocks him back a millimeter.

BRICKHOUSE
HAH! You suck!

STRAIGHT ARROW
Shut up asshole!

He uses a bench to leap into the air, landing a roundhouse in Brickhouse's face. This causes the big man to stumble back and drop the staff, which rolls a turn or two toward Lila.

LILA
Really, guys. This is just silly.

The two men grab at each other and tumble to the floor, rolling and grabbing at each other's clothes.

BRICKHOUSE
Ow!

STRAIGHT ARROW
Stop grabbing my hair!

Lila picks up the staff and WHACKS them both on the backside.

STRAIGHT ARROW AND BRICKHOUSE
OOOOW!

Lila drops the staff.

LILA
Stop it, both of you. Brick. I'm hungry. I want a taco.

BRICKHOUSE
I don't have any cash.

LILA
Then we'll go by an ATM.

Brickhouse shrugs and they head toward the door. Straight Arrow stands, breathing heavy, hair an absolute mess.

STRAIGHT ARROW
Halt, fiend!

LILA
Dude, let it go.

They walk out of the gallery. Straight Arrow picks up the staff.

STRAIGHT ARROW
This thing is tacky.

FADE OUT.
[/scrippet]