This KRAZ has nothing to do with the last 1. In fact, nothing ever happened with the last 1, which is why I’m so glad I kept the details privafe.

This 1 is bigger & better & involves someone who may not be famous like E THS famous, but whose films you’ve heard of.

Just a few minutes afo, Jeannie submitted to this person. Initially, she was gonna alert them of TW’s recent placement, but I think we’re foregoing that for now.

This could either turn out.badly, in which case I’m in exactly the same place, or amazingly. Just gotta wait & see.

Maybe more later.

I got this shortly ago:

“The requests come from outside producers calling us.”

But how likely is that, honestly? I’m not gonna ask Mark directly as I don’t want to be a dick, but I was right. The main run,
Scriptapalooza sending scripts and then loglines out, has finished. Any further thing happening with the investment on that front will come from some guy (or gal) randomly calling them.

I won’t hold my breath.

I finally got the word on what scripts the various producers and reps of the contest requested. My script, the investment, was not among them. To be fair, most of the requests were ONLY for the top 13 winners and runners up, but I find myself wondering, Scriptapalooza makes a very bold claim that they actively promote semi-finalists and up for a year. That’s great. I wonder, how?

To my knowledge, the primary technique the contest uses is the 1 I’ve just witnessed. They send out notification of status and loglines of the scripts. The producers and reps decide which ones they want to read. Then, Darwinism runs its course. Since there were no requests for mine, no one was interested. As I was pontificating this, I got the following:

“Anton,

“We still do get calls for scripts, this is not the end for you.

“Sincerely,
“Mark Andrushko”

Now that’s all happy and sunny, but the fact is I heard the same thing from Shriekfest and PAGE. And since hearing those things, I’ve not gotten a single request for those scripts. Not only that, but in both cases, people who were at either my status or lower have already been signed or sold. At Shriekfest, a guy sold his in less than a month after the festival. And he wan’t either of the winners. So it seems to me that yes, it is possible that requests are yet to come, but with the inital heat wave over, not likely. Ah well. I still have my status, right? Right?? Am I right, people??

AAAAA! I can’t fucking deal with this shit! So back in June or whatever, I sent The Investment and The Widower off to the Writer’s Network Competition. This was dead center in the middle of my must-send-TW-eveywhere-’cause-surely-they’ll-love-it phase. This was before I’d gotten any substantial notes on it. This was when I was DELUSIONAL, right? Since then, I’ve of course gotten notes back, among which there’s been some pretty nasty, vitriolic, TW-hate, right? I’d completely resolved to the idea that now is not the time to work on the story considering my dangerous proximity to it, right?

Right.

So, in entering the Fade In Awards this time around with Beyond the Precipice, it crossed my mind that I hadn’t heard my status on Writer’s Network. I’d not memorized the notification dates or anything… so it wasn’t too surprising, just that I’d had this notion that it was coming soon.

And come it did. I just a couple of minutes ago got notification that I made the quarter-finals. Awesome, right? The whole “you’re only 1 of 547 out of over 1,400″ is still pretty cool, right?

Right.

So I read through the thing for reasons that I can’t explain except it’s kinda fun to read through the thing. I notice they say something like “submission” not “submissions”. See, the way they work is you can send in 2 scripts or 1 novel or 2 teleplays or some shit like that. But it’s definitely 2 screenplays. Every time I’ve entered, I’ve placed with 1 and not the other. Also, every time I’ve placed, I’ve been shocked as to what DID place.

This time was no different.

Despite the fact that The Investment made it into the top 25 out of over 4,400 in Scriptapalooza and the fact that TW hasn’t placed in ANYTHING so far, guess which 1 placed?

That’s right.

You know what? I don’t fucking get it. 1st I think TW is my greatest work ever. Then, I calm down and realize that that probably isn’t entirely true. Then, I not only get confirmation that that probably isn’t true, but that it’s probably closer to the worst thing I’ve written in years. Then, I get about accepting that that’s okay. Every script needs to be rewritten and this 1’s no exception. I’m cool with that. It’s all cool. I even send Jeanne a message saying “Let’s not go out with TW. Still gotta work on it.”

Then THIS shit happens!

It’s all bullshit.

I hit the end of Act I last night. It’s technically on page 28, but that’s only 1 line. And who knows how much that’ll fluctuate between now and the time I send it out to anyone. I also realized almost immediately after I’d said good for the night that there was a good detail I could add/change that’d be interesting for the rest of the story. So I have to go back and adapt that. At this point, I’m not really sure what to do next. As before, I have a good idea of the general direction and big points that need to happen, but am not clear at all on how to get there. That and there may be some kind of treasure-hunting aspect for which I have the end point, no start point, and maybe another point. I’ve not done many of these types of storytelling devices, so think I’ll maybe use placeholders of a sort, then figure out the interesting “ah ha!” details later. I’m hoping I can hit the mid-point by a week or a little more.

I’m submitting with several scripts. It’s Beyond the Precipice’s first foray so I sent it to the Fade In Awards and IndieProducer.net’s contest. Of course IndieProducer.net hasn’t seen any of my work, so I’ll probably send the whole kit and kabootle. Definitely Burning Atlanta, Sean’s Brother, and the investment. I’ve taken the hint on the widower, so it’ll sit on the shelf for at least (at the VERY least) another month. I’ll definitely submit to Scriptapalooza with Precipice… maybe even resubmit Sean’s Brother as I’ve rewritten it several times since I submitted it a couple of years ago. Not sure beyond that. Oh, right, Austin. I’ve never, ever submitted to the Austin Heart of Film Festival. Why? I keep missing the fucking deadline! Sundance I submitted to years ago with The Last Heathen (not listed under Projects as it currently sucks). I obviously didn’t make the Sundance cut. Heh. REading over this, I’m already lost. I’ll figure it out. I always do. And to follow Succintrix’s advice, I’m gonna do my best NOT to check web sites close to notification dates.

I got the following from readers at Shriekfest. I can’t know who they are so, at present, can’t follow up. I just told Denise, the director, that I haven’t been disembowled like this since AFI. Let the gutting begin!

“The Story is below average in my opinion. I’d give it a 4 out of 10. It’s too long too, it really needs to be tightened up. I didn’t really enjoy it either…it felt long. Some typos as well.”

“This script hits the same notes over and over in my opinion. There’s a useful piece of advice when it comes to screenwriting/filmmaking, and that is every scene should provide new information. This script spends pages and pages and scene after scene saying the same thing over and over. I feel like we spend way too long just watching our main character train for his revenge. Scene after scene of this does not advance the story. There’s no investigation, there’s no work, there’s no mystery, there’s no tracking down of the cult. When he does begin the search, it happens almost effortlessly.”

“Decent idea, it’s just not executed properly. You need more sluglines and there are all kinds of typos/mistakes. It sometimes drags…very slow…tighten this story up.”

“Just my opinion, but I felt this script was slightly sexist in its depiction of women. It felt maybe a bit self-indulgent with the way women have sex with the main character.”

“Lots of mistakes. Page one opens without a slugline at all. Lots of slugline problems in general. Reads as amateur. Inadequate descriptions. Uses a lot of flashbacks with no indication. Seems to lack a clear timeline.”

“Flashbacks are bad ideas in general and this script has a lot of them. The story is not clear, it’s too much revenge…it just felt like it went on and on. The premise is cool though. I just wanted more. Characters need more developing, conflict needs work, exposition needs work.”

“Didn’t feel very well-thought out in my opinion. For example, Alina (after jumping right in the sack with our main guy) then finds his gun and confronts him about who he is. Later, Alina is suddenly revealed as a government spy looking out for him and more or less should have known exactly who he was. So it makes that confrontation scene suddenly meaningless and without motivation that makes real sense. Some of the dialogue does not work at all. Mostly, the main description I feel could be given about most aspects of this script is “amateur.”"

“Not bad, but not good either. There is a kernal of a story here though…with some work, it could be cool. Really work out everything again…start over if you have to. Too many mistakes to be sending this script out. Very frustrating to read a script with that many mistakes. Characters….don’t really care about them either…they need reworking as well.”

As you can see, some things are pretty valid. The issue of tightening things up, the question of how well thought-out the story is. I have no fucking idea what people are whining about with the slug lines (some call them scene headings: INT. APARTMENT – DAY). I have mixed feelings on the “sexist” comment. But man, oh man, I REALLY didn’t do my job! And I think at some point, my description for TW was “a good work”? Ha! Oops! Well, the awesome thing about every screenplay is they can be rewritten. Now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to work out every problem in 1, 2, or even 3 drafts, but the point is that it’s possible. Not even THAT hard. As I’ve already reported, I’m not gonna do it soon. I’m still too close to it and so won’t be able to do the material justice. But when I get around to it, damn.

Amateur? That smarts!

I’d meant to update this earlier and more frequently, but didn’t get around to it. I’m now on page 19. And I know how the rest of act I is going to go. Not really sure about immediately after that, but that’s okay. I’ll figure it out. I always do. Considering that the end of the month is this weekend, I clearly didn’t make that deadline, but I’ll hopefully have the 1st draft done soon thereafter.

This is a little frustrating. A while back, I’d asked Denise Gossett, the founder/director of the festival if we, the finalists, could get contact info on the judges who read our work so we could follow up, etc. Denise told me (and I’m paraphrasing) that we’d have to wait a couple of weeks as the festival was swamped and all that goodness. I had also asked if we could see the judges’ feedback on our scripts. She had a similar response. I got an unrelated announcement from her today. Considering the date, I thought hey, it’s been a couple of weeks isnce the festival, good time to query about my concerns, right? The answer to the judges’ feedback issue is that in a few days, yes, we’ll get the notes on our work. The answer to contact info on the finalist judges is no.

Huh?

But didn’t Denise say that after the festival was over, after a couple of weeks, we could get contact info on the judges so we could follow up?

Yes.

The answer this time was that she could only give out such info if said judges had requested we contact them.

Now I’m not calling Denise Gossett a liar, but…

I asked her at the post-awards ceremony party if we could get the contact info for the judges so we could follow up, and this is apparently the answer I got:

“Yeah, Denise told me in a couple to three weeks, she should have all that info ready. I think I’ll wait till the penultimate or last weekend in Oct to ask her about contact info.” –Me

This was part of correspondence I’d had with a fellow finalist on the night of the awards ceremony. The interesting thing here is that I have no e-mail with Denise that says the same thing. So, if I were to ask about this, she could easily say that she never communicated that she’d give out judges’ contact info, which, via e-mail, is true. My question then is, why did she give that impression at the party?

The answer is simple. She was being polite and political. She had no incentive to tell me the truth, that if we were not contacted directly by her or a finalist judge that that was it. And I’m not saying that Denise is a conniving woman. I’m sure a good bit of what was going on was that it was a party. But the fact remains that an impression had been made.

The reason I find this frustrating is that it’s exactly the same behavior as what the Fade In Awards and other contests and festivals have done. The Fade In Awards has made a couple of very misleading claims. 1 has been that they have a very A-list advisory board. The implication being that the finalists and winners of their contest will be read by said board. Now, I understood that that was not the case at all, but I corresponded with many finalists who did get that impression. So the information was not communicated clearly enough for all to understand. 2, it says that 1 of the prizes is that you get your script covered by a WGA-credited writer. Technically, this is true. What they don’t tell you is that the writer, Allen B. Ury, is on their staff and only has 1 or 2 credits (And they aren’t Terminator and Terminator II). So they’re not lies with a capital L, but they aren’t exactly straight-forward. Why not? Because if their ad copy read: “All these A-list writers we mention don’t gie a shit about your script because they’re busy A-list writers who have careers to attend to, and that dude who does read your script, yeah, he’s just Allen. He works with us. And there’s a reason you’ve never heard of him.” No one would enter.

“Anton, there will be more people interested…I get contacted all year round and I’ll be sure to send their info your way….” –Denise Gossett

So there we are. The very indicative thing about this is that on Shriekfest’s site, they plaster all over the place the finalist judges. Some of the companies are quite reputable. These companies were 1 of the few reasons I entered the contest. Obviously Denise can’t promise that every script the companies read they’ll want to take on, but it ultimately is a bit of a sale.

Now, maybe no one was interested in my script, but I find it additionally interesting that the only company who requested to read the finalists right after the festival was NOT 1 of the finalist judges. In fact, Denise was a bit surprised by their interest.

“Hey guys! I received this email and thought it might interest you. I don’t know them, so do your due diligence.” –Denise Gossett

The point is that it’s all bullshit. Shriekfest never had any intention on giving out contact info to us finalists. The finalist judges might be interested in us, but since there were about 30 finalists, unless they were really turned on, that’s a bit of a crapshoot. The 1 guy who was interested in us this soon had nothing to do with the festival. And the more time that passes from the actual festival dates, the less relevant our status becomes.

It’s all bullshit.

I reached page 10. Ug, I reworked the exposition over and over. I think it’s now in a state which will allow me at least to move on to the next thing. And I’m not wholly sure what that next thing will be. But pushing forward seems to be working. I got a little giddy thinking about and working on the story, so I think that’s a good sign. It’s been a long time since I felt giddy about a story I was working on.