Announcement: 2016 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Short List
Yesterday the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced the short list for the 2016 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting:
Eleven individual screenwriters and one writing team have been shortlisted for the 2016 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. The Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee will meet later this month to select up to five winners to receive year-long fellowships. A total of 6,915 scripts were submitted for this year’s competition.
The shortlisted writers are (listed alphabetically):
Michele Atkins, “Talking About the Sky” (Seattle, WA)
Josh Barkey, “Marlene the Divine” (Waxhaw, NC)
Beanie Barnes, “Little Toro” (New York, NY)
Todd Condie, “John Wayne Slept Here” (Brooklyn, NY)
Spencer Harvey and Lloyd Harvey, “Photo Booth” (Balgowlah, Australia)
Geeta Malik, “Dinner with Friends” (Los Angeles, CA)
Danielle Ownbey, “The Blast-Off Inn” (Glendale, CA)
Elizabeth Oyebode, “Tween the Ropes” (Sunnyvale, CA)
Justin Piasecki, “Death of an Ortolan” (Los Angeles, CA)
Michael Toner, “Hey Jude” (Van Nyus, CA)
Arun K. Vir, “Suburban Turban” (Los Angeles, CA)
Kirk Weddell, “Alone” (Wimbledon, England)
The fellowship winners will each receive a $35,000 prize, the first installment of which will be distributed at an awards presentation on Thursday, November 3, at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. For the fourth consecutive year, the event also will include a live read of selected scenes from the fellows’ winning scripts.
Of all the screenwriting contests and competitions, the Nicholl is the one which has the most pull in Hollywood. If you win the Nicholl, it’s almost a lock cinch you will get signed by a manager and agent. Even if you make the short list, as these writers listed above have done, there is an excellent chance you will be contacted by a half-dozen or more reps.
It’s a big deal.
So congratulations and good luck to all the writers who made this year’s Nicholl short list. I am especially happy for Elizabeth Oyebode with whom I had the pleasure of working in the 2015 Black List Screenwriter Mini-Lab in San Francisco. Here are some reflections Elizabeth had about the experience:
As one of four writers selected to attend The Black List’s San Francisco Mini-Lab, I suspected I would be in store for quite a productive weekend. I was not disappointed. As a writer, it’s easy to get demoralized, to start to question your voice, to wonder whether the stories you’re so passionate about will be limited to an audience of 1.
This mini-lab weekend was all about reinvigorating our spirit and reminding us that the light that sparked inside us did so for a reason and that our stories are likely to ignite that spark in others. It became apparent very early on in the mini-lab how committed everyone was to seeing us develop the best scripts possible.
The one-on-one mentoring sessions with Matthew Aldrich, Victoria Strouse, and Franklin Leonard were very intensive and eye-opening. First and foremost, each mentor was deeply committed to getting to the heart of the story I had written. Each had a unique perspective on the script, so I ended up getting not just one approach, but several and each had merit. From the art of the biopic, to the unyielding nature of the protagonist’s central conflict, to development-side considerations, each conversation introduced a puzzle piece that made finding the “right” version of the story just that much easier. Their input was incredibly incisive and constructive.
Elizabeth Oyebode
We also were given the opportunity to workshop each other’s scripts with the awesome Scott Myers as our moderator. Scott’s approach was both systematic and personal. Scott asked a series of thought-provoking questions, which later aided us in discussing our personal ties to the scripts at present and to the stories we ultimately wanted to tell with them. Overall, the peer workshop was very collaborative and quite liberating. My fellow participants were gracious, insightful, and eager for feedback. As we dove deep into each of the scripts, it was enlightening to hear what resonated with them and why. We got the opportunity to speak highly about what worked and openly about what we felt could be improved. We even started taking our stories in new directions that had not been considered before.
Over the course of the weekend, the Black List team and mentors were so welcoming and I very much enjoyed all the great grub (Megan Halpern has earned supreme foodie status in my eyes) and trading stories about our journeys to becoming writers.
The takeaways for me were: Trust your instincts as a writer and write the story that most excites you.
I left the mini-lab feeling inspired not just about the workshopped scripts but also about the shift that’s taking place in how scripts are getting introduced to the industry. The Black List team cares so much and is so knowledgeable about today’s films, the history of film, and the state of filmmaking. I’m so grateful to Franklin Leonard and The Black List team for all they’re doing to help advance the careers of emerging writers.
I’m excited to be participating as a mentor in the next Black List Screenwriters Feature Film Lab in Los Angeles the week of October 17. Some fantastic mentors lined up and those names will be announced in the next few weeks. Who knows? Maybe another Nicholl honoree will emerge from it.
For more from the Academy, go here.
I have interviewed every Nicholl winner from the last four years plus Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12). Here are links to those interviews:
2010
2012
Nikole Beckwith
Sean Robert Daniels
James DiLapo
Allan Durand
Michael Werwie
2013
Frank DeJohn & David Alton Hedges
Patty Jones
Alan Roth
Stephanie Shannon
Barbara Stepansky
2014
Sam Baron
Alisha Brophy & Scott Miles
Melissa Iqbal
Sallie West
2015
Elizabeth Chomko
Andrew Friedhof
Anthony Grieco
Sam Regnier
Amy Tofte
Finally a shout out to all of the writers who made this year’s short list. If you’re a fan of Go Into The Story, I’d love to hear from you. Email me here.
Good luck, all!
UPDATE: Turns out Josh Barkey, who wrote “Marlene the Divine”, one of the scripts on this year’s Nicholl short list, is a fan of the blog.
Read about Josh’s reaction when he received a call informing him he’s a finalist for a 2016 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Good luck, Josh!