Reader Question: Are screenplay contests any good or not?
With literally hundreds of script competitions, this is an important question.
Nicholas, I re-framed the question to get at what I suspect is the heart of your inquiry. I tend to have a pretty jaundiced view of most screenplay contests. In my view, there are really only a handful which carry much weight in the real world of Hollywood, the most notable being the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. Sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science, it is the most prestigious and important competition. Winners almost always get representation, even finalists and semifinalists receive attention. I have interviewed 25 Nicholl winning writers including all of the fellowship recipients from 2012 through 2016 and if you read my conversations with them, they all talk about how being selected changed their lives.
The next most influential one is the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition. My sense is this is not as noteworthy as the Nicholl, but it does seem to have grown in significance over the last five years or so.
There are a few others worth exploring, but strictly in terms of serving as a legitimate entry point into Hollywood — and that means obtaining representation and potential option or sale of the material — a vast majority of these contests are largely meaningless.
Think about the underlying logic why the dozens and dozens of these contests exist: To make money for the sponsoring entities. That’s a big reason why they charge the entry fees they do.
There are a few reasons why entering contests may make sense for some writers:
- Having a deadline for a contest can serve as motivation to complete a script. Hey, whatever it takes to finish a writing project!
- Some outfits provide written feedback and notes which can be helpful, however you have to do your research because anybody can claim to have experience as a Hollywood reader, and if what you pay for is in effect the impressions of an intern, probably not worth the expenditure.
- Finally, for some writers, the experience of being a semifinalist in this contest or a top 10% of that contest can be a psychological boost, perhaps even a sign of getting better from script to script.
Bottom line, you are wise to check out any screenwriting contest before entering. It’s not hard to do with Google and various online writing forums.
I will say this: The ultimate contest is with Hollywood buyers. If you want a direct line to them via a reputable organization approved by both the WGA East and WGA West, check out the Black List service. I don’t know specific numbers, but the last time I spoke with Franklin Leonard about this subject, he told me several hundred writers had gotten representation, had scripts optioned or sold, even had movies made from scripts which were uploaded to their website. The script readers are all vetted and have experience working in Hollywood. And in my view, the fees are reasonable. The main thing: It provides direct transparent access to people who have the power to do something with your script.
Note: I do not make a dime from my association with the Black List, so my comments aren’t biased by any profit-making motivation. They are biased by my knowledge of who Franklin is, my personal interactions with the entire Black List team, and my embrace of the Black List vision: To create alternate avenues into Hollywood for writers outside the system.
I’m curious to read what other people have to say on the subject. Please head to comments and let me hear your thoughts. Give us all a chance to get a snapshot of the whole screenwriting contest universe.
UPDATE: I forwarded some comments to this post re the Black List website and script hosting service to Franklin Leonard. Here is his response:
The simple reality is that industry professionals are interested in reading screenplays that they will respond to. Writers who host scripts on the website can indicate that likelihood in a few ways. Loglines and tags are two, but far, far more important are the opinions of others who have previously read their script. In Black List website terms, that means paid evaluation scores and the ratings of other industry professionals.
Though we considered requiring everyone to purchase an evaluation when they uploaded a script (and receive one month of hosting for $75), we designed the website as we did in order to give writers maximum flexibility in using the platform. If you can get industry professionals to download and rate your script without purchasing evaluations, you can do so. If you wish to use purchased evaluations to encourage interest in your script, you can do that too.
The claim that you need an 8/10 or better on a paid evaluation in order to receive any notice for your script on the site is simply false. Off the top of my head, I can say, for example, that the average number of unique industry downloads for scripts whose highest ever paid evaluation is a 7 is 2.8.
Let me add my understanding of the script notes provided by Black List readers is they provide about 2 pages of comments with numeric values attached to key narrative categories (character, plot, etc) to give the writer a broad sense of whether the story is working or not and highlight largest areas of concern. If you want more extensive notes, there are professional readers I can recommend who will do that for you, but for more money than what the Black List service charges.
For more articles in the Go Into The Story Reader Question series, go here.
