Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 406: Unveiling the Art of Screenwriting A Journey with Kristin Overn

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BPS 406: Unveiling the Art of Screenwriting A Journey with Kristin Overn · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four zero six.
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Speaker 2: Cinema should make you forget You're sitting in a theater.
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Speaker 1: Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of
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Speaker 1: screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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Speaker 2: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
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Speaker 2: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
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Speaker 2: host Alex Ferrari.
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Speaker 3: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
1:36
Speaker 4: My next guest began her career as an assistant in
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Speaker 4: script reader at Davis Entertainment and she's also a Producer's
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Speaker 4: Guild member. She's a Director's Guild member and she's been
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Speaker 4: writing this competition now for about fourteen years now and
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Speaker 4: a record high six three hundred and sixty four scripts
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Speaker 4: were submitted last year. This is a fun episode, especially
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Speaker 4: for you screenwriters out there. This is purely about screenwriting
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Speaker 4: with guests Christ and Overn.
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Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, many moons ago. I was a student at
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Speaker 5: Northwestern University studying theater, and I focused very much on
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Speaker 5: directing and playwriting, and I loved that side of the
2:18
Speaker 5: entertainment industry. But I stayed in Chicago for a couple
2:22
Speaker 5: of years, but then very shortly discovered not only how
2:26
Speaker 5: difficult it is to make a living doing theater, but
2:28
Speaker 5: I was repeatedly encouraged by many friends of mine who
2:31
Speaker 5: had moved out to the West Coast to come out
2:33
Speaker 5: to Los Angeles, and one guy in particular was telling
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Speaker 5: me that I'd make a great what they call a
2:38
Speaker 5: D girl back then. That was the early nineties, and
2:42
Speaker 5: D girl was a development girl. A lot of women
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Speaker 5: were working reading scripts, doing script evaluation at the time
2:49
Speaker 5: and advancing through the ranks in that way, and I
2:54
Speaker 5: was fascinated by that. I love story I love storytelling
2:58
Speaker 5: so and I love the weather out here. It was
3:00
Speaker 5: cold and snowy in Chicago. So I finally made the move,
3:04
Speaker 5: and I started out as an assistant, like so many
3:07
Speaker 5: people do. I worked in television on a show called
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Speaker 5: Chicago Hope. And I also worked at a place called
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Speaker 5: Davis Entertainment, which John Davis's company made some major movies
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Speaker 5: and television at the time as well, and did development
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Speaker 5: for some other companies. Slowly kind of worked my way up,
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Speaker 5: but then took a little detour. I ended up being
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Speaker 5: invited to co produce a feature film, a little independent movie,
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Speaker 5: million dollar feature that a buddy of mine was producing
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Speaker 5: and directing, and he wanted me to work with him.
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Speaker 5: He needed somebody on his side who he could trust
3:43
Speaker 5: and who he felt could help make the movie happen.
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Speaker 5: So I jumped on board, and suddenly I was working
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Speaker 5: in production, in film production, and it was you know,
3:52
Speaker 5: education by trial by fire, but it was a great experience.
3:56
Speaker 5: And so then I started working more in production and
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Speaker 5: learning more and more about that, and I produced theater.
4:03
Speaker 5: But film, of course has its own quirks and problems
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Speaker 5: and issues, and it was a fabulous education. And I
4:11
Speaker 5: did that for several years. But all the while that
4:14
Speaker 5: I was working in production, doing budgets and hiring crews
4:18
Speaker 5: and working on these low budget features, my real passion
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Speaker 5: has always been storytelling, developing scripts, editing, working with writers,
4:28
Speaker 5: and I discovered a real need because one of the
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Speaker 5: things I learned as I was working with all these
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Speaker 5: little independent movies is that there are were and still are,
4:40
Speaker 5: many up and coming new producers and junior agents and
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Speaker 5: new managers, people who are honestly looking for new writers,
4:51
Speaker 5: who have a hard time connecting with them because the
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Speaker 5: new writers don't know to pitch them, they don't know
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Speaker 5: how to get to them because they don't even know
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Speaker 5: in many cases that they exist. But these are the
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Speaker 5: people who are truly open to working with new writers
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Speaker 5: because they're all so new and they're looking for that
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Speaker 5: fresh voice. And I conceived of the idea of the
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Speaker 5: Page Awards at a contest, using a contest as it
5:13
Speaker 5: means to be like a development department. When I was
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Speaker 5: at Davis Entertainment, John had money and they had a
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Speaker 5: big staff, and they had a lot a lot of
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Speaker 5: people reading scripts and evaluating them, moving them up the
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Speaker 5: ranks to the point where they would eventually, hopefully finally
5:29
Speaker 5: get to his desk. So I thought we could use
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Speaker 5: a contest the exact same way. And so that's when
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Speaker 5: I founded the Page Awards. It was back in the
5:38
Speaker 5: fall of two thousand and three, and we've been going
5:42
Speaker 5: hot and heavy ever since. It's been growing and building,
5:44
Speaker 5: and it's actually worked beautifully in the way I hoped,
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Speaker 5: which is that it's connected a lot of new writers
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Speaker 5: with new up and coming managers who are looking for
5:54
Speaker 5: new clients and producers looking for new scripts.
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Speaker 4: You know, Kristen about uh, new writers finding producers and
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Speaker 4: producers sometimes don't know where to look, or maybe you
6:07
Speaker 4: know new screenwriters don't know how to pitch them. And
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Speaker 4: in today's you know marketplace with with where we have
6:14
Speaker 4: all these different you know, websites and you know not
6:18
Speaker 4: meaning like you know, social media and you have all
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Speaker 4: these you know, different contests and stuff like that. Do
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Speaker 4: you think that it's easier now or it's harder now
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Speaker 4: for for that that connection to happen simply because you know,
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Speaker 4: there's so many producers and there's so many writers and that,
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Speaker 4: and and producers are getting hit by so many different directions,
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Speaker 4: you know, is it is it harder for for talent
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Speaker 4: to sort of stand out?
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Speaker 5: Uh, that's a really good point. In some ways, it
6:44
Speaker 5: can be. It's it may be easier for you as
6:47
Speaker 5: the writer to find people who are looking for new
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Speaker 5: material online. However, as you said, they're getting a barrage
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Speaker 5: of material and it's not vetted. And the thing that
6:56
Speaker 5: a contest will do, for example like ours, is that
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Speaker 5: the material for the producer and the reason we have
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Speaker 5: a lot of these people reading the final round of
7:05
Speaker 5: our contest, they'll say, I want to read your top
7:07
Speaker 5: ten thrillers or your top ten TV dramas or whatever
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Speaker 5: it is, and they know that by the time these
7:12
Speaker 5: scripts have advanced to the top ten to the final round,
7:14
Speaker 5: they've been vetted by four or five, six, eight other people,
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Speaker 5: and so they know that the material is really strong.
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Speaker 5: So that's that's the extra sauce that we add to
7:26
Speaker 5: the process at this point.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I always hear about, you know, all
7:31
Speaker 4: the different like different avenues that people could use to
7:33
Speaker 4: to and I know I'm kind of get away from screenwriting,
7:36
Speaker 4: but just use as an example, you know, all of
7:38
Speaker 4: the different avenues that people could use to distribute their film,
7:41
Speaker 4: you know, going onto YouTube or vimeo, et cetera. And
7:45
Speaker 4: you know, as I've told to different guests on here,
7:47
Speaker 4: that's something that we've always come back to, is is
7:49
Speaker 4: you know, how do you you know, get the attention
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Speaker 4: of of you know, buyers, How do you get the
7:54
Speaker 4: attention of certain people that you're looking for, How do
7:56
Speaker 4: you get the attention of your target market? And I
7:59
Speaker 4: remember the as an interview with Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez,
8:02
Speaker 4: and they were kind of talking somewhat similar about that,
8:05
Speaker 4: and you know, Tarantino was very adamant in the fact
8:10
Speaker 4: that you know, the best quality material, whether it be
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Speaker 4: a screenplay or a movie or a piece of music
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Speaker 4: will always rise to the top and will sort of,
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Speaker 4: you know, get above the noise, so to speak.
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Speaker 5: Absolutely I believe that. And so the more people that
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Speaker 5: you have reading it and kind of giving it a
8:27
Speaker 5: stamp of approval, if you will, the more people in
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Speaker 5: the industry can sort of trust that, Yeah, other people
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Speaker 5: like this, So you know, I can take a look
8:35
Speaker 5: and there is you know, there's a certain amount of
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Speaker 5: what everyone else likes I should like as well. There's
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Speaker 5: a Hollywood is any funny place in that regard, you know, opinions.
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Speaker 5: Sometimes people aren't always as sure of their own opinions
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Speaker 5: as they are of other people's opinions, if that makes sense.
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Speaker 5: And so that's when you hear about situations like if
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Speaker 5: one manager want wants to sign you such only three
9:00
Speaker 5: others are chomping at the bid as well because they
9:03
Speaker 5: feel like they don't want to miss out on something good.
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Speaker 5: It's competitive and it can work to your benefit. It
9:10
Speaker 5: could work against you sometimes, but it's just the nature
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Speaker 5: of the beast.
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Speaker 4: I think, yeah, very very true. And uh, you know,
9:17
Speaker 4: I I know we were kind of you know, as
9:19
Speaker 4: we're talking about distribution, I'm kind of getting ahead here,
9:21
Speaker 4: But I wanted to to sort of ask too about
9:24
Speaker 4: about you know, getting started in your career. You know,
9:27
Speaker 4: because you've you've produced a lot of things. You know,
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Speaker 4: you've produced a lot of films. You've worked as a
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Speaker 4: uter production manager, and you worked as a location manager,
9:34
Speaker 4: you worked as a line producer. And I wanted to ask,
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Speaker 4: has has this experience when you when you when you
9:41
Speaker 4: started out and as you have gone through your career,
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Speaker 4: how has this experience sort of helped you out your
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Speaker 4: current position at Page. I mean, have you sort of well,
9:49
Speaker 4: you know, I'm sorry, I should I shouldn't add that question, Chris,
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Speaker 4: and so I'll just keep it at that. You know,
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Speaker 4: how did this, uh, all this experience you know, help
9:57
Speaker 4: you with with Page as we as you are the
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Speaker 4: executive director.
9:59
Speaker 2: Now we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
10:07
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
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Speaker 5: No, it's a great question because it does. I mean
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Speaker 5: a lot of people I think sit in offices reading
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Speaker 5: a lot of scripts, and that's great, that's one thing.
10:19
Speaker 5: But when you've actually been in the trenches on the set,
10:23
Speaker 5: sat there figuring out budgets, seeing what actually happens on
10:26
Speaker 5: the set with certain issues in the script that began
10:30
Speaker 5: day one. When the script was presented, you learn a
10:35
Speaker 5: lot about what works and what doesn't in production, and
10:38
Speaker 5: it is helpful in terms of evaluating material. That said,
10:43
Speaker 5: I will tell you, I mean the projects I did
10:45
Speaker 5: were all small, they were low budget projects, and a
10:48
Speaker 5: lot of the scripts that when the contest in the
10:50
Speaker 5: action adventure category or historical film are big budget movies.
10:54
Speaker 5: So in that sense, you know, it's like, I don't
10:58
Speaker 5: know that the writer should think of limitations always. I mean,
11:02
Speaker 5: you know, especially depending on the type you're writing. You know,
11:04
Speaker 5: I don't be limited if you have a vision for
11:07
Speaker 5: a huge, big movie. I mean, if that's what it
11:09
Speaker 5: wants to be, that's what it wants to be. But
11:12
Speaker 5: if you are trying to write a film that a
11:15
Speaker 5: new producer can do for a million dollars, you know,
11:19
Speaker 5: there are budgetary constraints. There are a certain things you
11:22
Speaker 5: don't You can't usually afford tons of cast of thousands,
11:26
Speaker 5: you know, huge numbers of extras. CEGI is becoming more
11:29
Speaker 5: and more affordable, so that's less and less of a
11:31
Speaker 5: constraint than it used to be, and there will are
11:33
Speaker 5: people who can do it very inexpensively, but still, you know,
11:36
Speaker 5: there are a lot of things you want to keep
11:38
Speaker 5: in mind if you're trying to write something well budget.
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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I think that's a good point, Kristen, and
11:43
Speaker 4: I wanted to just to sort of follow up that question.
11:46
Speaker 4: If somebody did have a script, whether it be a
11:48
Speaker 4: short short screenplay or a future link screenplay, and you
11:53
Speaker 4: know they they said, you know, they wanted to make
11:55
Speaker 4: it themselves. And since you have the producing experience and
11:58
Speaker 4: the screenwriting experience, have you ever do you have you
12:01
Speaker 4: had friends or clients or or people you just met
12:04
Speaker 4: who you know, have you ever heard had anybody who's
12:07
Speaker 4: had a lot of luck. I don't want to say luck,
12:11
Speaker 4: I want to say success than guy I was trying
12:13
Speaker 4: to figure out, trying to find that word. Have you
12:15
Speaker 4: had anyone who has had a lot of success doing
12:17
Speaker 4: something like that? Because the reason I ask is is
12:20
Speaker 4: that also I've seen more and more where somebody, like
12:23
Speaker 4: we were just discussing, is you know, somebody wants to
12:25
Speaker 4: produce their film, somebody wants to produce their screenplay. Well, hey,
12:28
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna you know, I don't want anyone to
12:30
Speaker 4: have to say yes or give me the green light.
12:33
Speaker 4: I'm going to give myself the green light and go
12:35
Speaker 4: out and do it. So I wanted to ask, you know, Christian,
12:38
Speaker 4: have you had any you know, any people that you
12:40
Speaker 4: know have any success in doing this?
12:42
Speaker 5: Absolutely, many of our winners have actually have gone ahead
12:46
Speaker 5: and done that. They had that in mind all along
12:48
Speaker 5: with their project, and they wrote it for themselves to direct,
12:50
Speaker 5: and they have in fact done so a lot of
12:52
Speaker 5: short films. Obviously. We've had a few people who have
12:55
Speaker 5: been maybe grad students at UCLA, USC wherever, and perhaps
13:01
Speaker 5: the script they sent us was their graduate thesis or
13:04
Speaker 5: just a project that they wanted to produce coming out
13:06
Speaker 5: of school. And they're very aware of, you know, what
13:09
Speaker 5: it's going to take and how much it's going to cost.
13:11
Speaker 5: And usually they're putting up the money or their families
13:13
Speaker 5: putting up the money or whatever. So yeah, and they've
13:16
Speaker 5: been very successful shorts. We also had a script that
13:20
Speaker 5: a couple of scripts that won the contests that have
13:22
Speaker 5: been produced by features by the writers themselves and directed
13:28
Speaker 5: by the writers themselves. And one that I can think
13:32
Speaker 5: of right now is Landed Distribution and I think will
13:35
Speaker 5: be coming out on Netflix and a couple of other places.
13:40
Speaker 5: It's been around the festival circuit. One of our winners,
13:44
Speaker 5: Lori Welts, wrote a script called Scout. It was produced
13:47
Speaker 5: by another producer, but she directed it and that has
13:50
Speaker 5: had a really nice distribution in the festivals, and it
13:54
Speaker 5: was on Netflix a few weeks ago. I saw it
13:56
Speaker 5: on Netflix. So yeah, and that's really exciting. We encourage it.
14:00
Speaker 5: We were so excited by writers who are uh willing
14:05
Speaker 5: able to do that because that's you know, that's it's
14:08
Speaker 5: such a a it's it's such a huge learning process
14:11
Speaker 5: and b it it's you know, taking your career into
14:14
Speaker 5: your own hands. And that's wonderful when you can do that.
14:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, very very true. And just to continue with that question,
14:21
Speaker 4: Christian as uh, just as we talk about producing films
14:25
Speaker 4: right now, I wanted to ask if we took it
14:27
Speaker 4: the opposite way, which is meaning that somebody did something
14:31
Speaker 4: that was they aimed way too high, uh and they
14:35
Speaker 4: end for the resources that they had. And honestly, I'm
14:38
Speaker 4: guilty of that as well. I've done that before where
14:42
Speaker 4: I tried to make you know, this action shoot them
14:44
Speaker 4: up a short film and it's and you realize you
14:47
Speaker 4: don't have the crew for it, you don't have the
14:49
Speaker 4: cgi people for it. You don't have, you know, the
14:52
Speaker 4: time to set up all these you know, uh you know, gunplay,
14:56
Speaker 4: uh scenes and stuff like that. So have you seen
14:59
Speaker 4: that to kristin the or uh you know, you've had
15:02
Speaker 4: people who just you know, they want they said, hey, Kristen,
15:05
Speaker 4: can you can you can I show you my movie?
15:07
Speaker 4: And it's just you know, you're it's just you know,
15:10
Speaker 4: you could tell they they fell short.
15:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, well, of course you every once in
15:15
Speaker 5: a while you see a short film or a project
15:17
Speaker 5: that has somebody attempted to shoot and they just ran
15:20
Speaker 5: out of money at some point, and you know that's
15:24
Speaker 5: always too bad when that happens. But again, it's a
15:26
Speaker 5: it's a big it's a big learning experience, and uh,
15:29
Speaker 5: you know, we all we all go through our learning experiences,
15:32
Speaker 5: whatever they are, and uh hopefully come through it and
15:36
Speaker 5: continue despite whatever problems you might have had with your
15:39
Speaker 5: first project.
15:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, and see, that's that's what happened to me. You're
15:44
Speaker 4: just just speaking for my own personal experience. Is what happened?
15:46
Speaker 4: Was I am too high? You know, I I made
15:49
Speaker 4: a student short film and I got you know, very
15:53
Speaker 4: very uh comfortable with you know, you know, making you know,
15:56
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, You make a student film,
15:58
Speaker 4: and then suddenly you know you're like, oh, okay, I
16:00
Speaker 4: got this. I can now I made a very simple
16:02
Speaker 4: student short film. I can now make a John Wood
16:05
Speaker 4: tight movie. Why not right? So then all of a sudden,
16:07
Speaker 4: you know you're falling short. And I think we learn
16:10
Speaker 4: a lot more from our failures and our successes, because,
16:14
Speaker 4: as it's saying goes, sometimes, you know, with successes, you
16:17
Speaker 4: sometimes people get lucky, they really do, as I've learned
16:20
Speaker 4: in life. Sometimes you get lucky and you have the
16:22
Speaker 4: right crew in front of you. Sometimes you get lucky
16:24
Speaker 4: and you find the money. Sometimes you get lucky and
16:26
Speaker 4: the location pops up. But with failures, you realize, oh,
16:30
Speaker 4: wait a minute, this isn't my time to make this
16:32
Speaker 4: film or or and I'll give you another example to
16:35
Speaker 4: Kristen is. I had a friend who was making a
16:38
Speaker 4: time travel movie and she wanted to make it where
16:42
Speaker 4: you know, I think it was like the eighteen hundreds,
16:44
Speaker 4: I think, or the seventeen hundreds, and I was explaining
16:47
Speaker 4: to her, you know, you're gonna have to buy all
16:49
Speaker 4: these you know, or I s are not buy but
16:51
Speaker 4: rent all these time period clothes. You're gonna have to
16:54
Speaker 4: worry about cars and everything like that. You're gonna have
16:56
Speaker 4: to worry about planes. And I said, you know, how
16:59
Speaker 4: are you gonna pull this off? And and she was
17:01
Speaker 4: gung hole about it. And when we saw the final project,
17:06
Speaker 4: she said, oh, now I see what you were talking
17:08
Speaker 4: about because and she admitted too, because you know, you
17:11
Speaker 4: could spend you know, a couple of grand on colonial
17:15
Speaker 4: era clothes in a flashment, you know what I mean,
17:18
Speaker 4: in a blink of an eye, and all of a
17:20
Speaker 4: sudden you're like, well, okay, that's just you know a
17:22
Speaker 4: handful of clothes, and you know, and what else you're
17:24
Speaker 4: going to spend the rest of You don't have any
17:26
Speaker 4: money to spend the rest of to buy anything else
17:28
Speaker 4: with this from the movie, So you know, that's that's
17:31
Speaker 4: another learning experience. So that's just why I mean by
17:33
Speaker 4: by falling short, I well, you know it's you learn
17:36
Speaker 4: a lot from your failures, and sometimes we learn more
17:38
Speaker 4: from our failures than our successes.
17:40
Speaker 5: Absolutely true. God knows that's true for me. And I
17:43
Speaker 5: have to say she had the opportunity to learn from
17:45
Speaker 5: your failures, which is even better because I always say
17:48
Speaker 5: I'd rather learn from someone else's failures. So I listened
17:50
Speaker 5: very closely to other people, and she made the mistake
17:53
Speaker 5: perhaps of not listening to you in that case, but
17:56
Speaker 5: she learned the lesson anyway, and she had to go
17:57
Speaker 5: through it, and I'm sure she got a lot out
17:59
Speaker 5: of it despite whatever happened, you know, because that's what
18:03
Speaker 5: that's what life is all about at the end of
18:05
Speaker 5: the day.
18:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, and trust me, there's there's one thing I know.
18:08
Speaker 4: It's how to fail. So so it's how to fail,
18:12
Speaker 4: how to fail often. But but yeah, you know, you
18:15
Speaker 4: you sort of you meet at different people, you learn
18:18
Speaker 4: that almost everyone has made some kind of mistake like
18:21
Speaker 4: that where they try to do way too much too
18:23
Speaker 4: early as they started making their films. I've learned that
18:26
Speaker 4: from just doing this podcast. You know, they make a
18:29
Speaker 4: simple film to begin, or or they maybe again maybe
18:33
Speaker 4: they got they were in the right place the right
18:35
Speaker 4: time and they got an amazing crew or what have you.
18:38
Speaker 4: And the second film and the third film were like, wait,
18:41
Speaker 4: what happened here? You're taking like, you know, steps backwards,
18:44
Speaker 4: So a.
18:45
Speaker 5: Sophomore curse or something like that, you know, I don't know,
18:48
Speaker 5: but yeah, it's it's that happens a lot. We had
18:50
Speaker 5: that in the contest as well. I've seen situations where
18:53
Speaker 5: writers somewhat rare, but it happens. There's because of their
19:01
Speaker 5: just basic writing talent. Somehow what they piece together almost
19:05
Speaker 5: by intuition, accident, whatever is just really works. But then
19:10
Speaker 5: they try to write that second and third and fourth
19:12
Speaker 5: script and somehow it kind of all dissipates and and
19:16
Speaker 5: you know, you wonder, well, then they have to go
19:19
Speaker 5: back and learn the lessons that they and solidify the
19:22
Speaker 5: understanding of why the first script work, why the first
19:26
Speaker 5: script worked, and you know how they can replicate it,
19:30
Speaker 5: although I hate the word replicate, but replicate the elements
19:33
Speaker 5: of that that worked, you know. So it's it's fascinating.
19:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's actually really interesting. You know if somebody writes,
19:41
Speaker 4: you know, a script, you know, the first one there,
19:44
Speaker 4: let's call it the freshman the freshman script, and they
19:46
Speaker 4: hit it out of the park. It's a home run.
19:49
Speaker 4: It's you know, everyone you know loves it, that people
19:51
Speaker 4: want to read.
19:51
Speaker 2: It will be right back after a word from our sponsor,
19:59
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
20:02
Speaker 4: And the second and third script aren't there, I mean,
20:06
Speaker 4: you know, is it Usually because maybe they were trying
20:10
Speaker 4: a different method. Is it maybe because they just tried
20:13
Speaker 4: to just rush things out too quickly? I mean, is
20:16
Speaker 4: that some of the things that you've seen.
20:18
Speaker 5: I have no you know, I honestly have to say,
20:20
Speaker 5: I have no idea why it doesn't work the second
20:23
Speaker 5: time or the third time. I have no idea what
20:25
Speaker 5: it is that spark first one that just somehow didn't
20:30
Speaker 5: work in the second and third and fourth. It can
20:32
Speaker 5: be probably any one of the things you mentioned, you know,
20:35
Speaker 5: But we have a situation recently. I don't think the
20:41
Speaker 5: right writer would mind, because I think he's talked about
20:43
Speaker 5: it himself. He won the Page Awards in two thousand
20:47
Speaker 5: and seven with his very first screenplay, and he's been
20:50
Speaker 5: working on it ever since, and his subsequent efforts haven't
20:53
Speaker 5: quite worked as well. And he says himself, he's just
20:56
Speaker 5: had to go through a huge learning, kind of relearning
20:58
Speaker 5: process to really understand what it is that makes a
21:02
Speaker 5: screenplay work, even though intuitively he did something wonderful the
21:05
Speaker 5: first time out of the gate and now this year
21:08
Speaker 5: he won another prize with us. He's kept getting notes,
21:12
Speaker 5: he's kept reading, he's gone to conferences. He's just really
21:16
Speaker 5: continued to work and stuck with it, and at the
21:19
Speaker 5: end of the day, that's brought him back to maybe
21:22
Speaker 5: where he began. But now with that basis of really
21:26
Speaker 5: solid understanding of the process, the writing process, is a
21:30
Speaker 5: better understanding of screenplays as a craft. You know.
21:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's interesting too, because you mentioned he wrote
21:39
Speaker 4: his first screenplay and that's what he ended up winning
21:43
Speaker 4: with in two thousand and seven. So does that happen
21:46
Speaker 4: a lot in your experience, No.
21:49
Speaker 5: No, it doesn't. Most of the time. To be honest,
21:51
Speaker 5: people's first screenplays are can be kind of a train wreck.
21:55
Speaker 5: I mean, sometimes they just haven't bothered to really study
21:59
Speaker 5: the form at all all. They sometimes writers think they
22:03
Speaker 5: know how to format a script better than the people
22:07
Speaker 5: who do it every day, you know, or they think
22:09
Speaker 5: they don't have to study know anything about structure or what.
22:13
Speaker 5: I don't know what it is, but they think they've
22:15
Speaker 5: seen a lot I guess what it is. They think
22:17
Speaker 5: they've seen a lot of bad movies and so their
22:19
Speaker 5: movie is bound to be better than all these bad
22:21
Speaker 5: movies they've seen. But most of the time people's first
22:26
Speaker 5: efforts are are not you know, they don't reveal their
22:30
Speaker 5: full potential. It's only after Most people will tell you
22:33
Speaker 5: it takes many scripts before you really achieve something wonderful
22:39
Speaker 5: and special and something that's going to get you signed
22:41
Speaker 5: or something that's going to get produced. But there are exceptions,
22:44
Speaker 5: like I mean, every once in a while that you
22:46
Speaker 5: run across somebody who's very first script is just somehow magic.
22:50
Speaker 5: I don't know what to tell you. There's a little
22:53
Speaker 5: mystery to the whole thing, which is what makes it fun.
22:57
Speaker 4: It reminds me what Shane Black once said. He was
23:00
Speaker 4: doing this this Q and A session and and somebody
23:04
Speaker 4: asked him a question, and he said, all the time
23:06
Speaker 4: he gets, you know, a lot of he'll get an email,
23:10
Speaker 4: or he'll get a note sent to him, sent to
23:11
Speaker 4: him via his agent from from like a you know,
23:14
Speaker 4: a fan or filmmaker, what have you. And it's always
23:17
Speaker 4: you know, hey, Shane, I saw this movie uh in
23:20
Speaker 4: a in a blockbuster on a Netflix or whatever, and
23:24
Speaker 4: I could write better than that, so I decided to write.
23:27
Speaker 4: And then Shane usually goes back with, well, I'm glad
23:29
Speaker 4: that you think your mediocrity is better than some other
23:33
Speaker 4: mediocrety that you saw, And and he said, his advice
23:37
Speaker 4: is instead of you know, using that as saying, oh,
23:39
Speaker 4: I could write better than this, the hell is that
23:41
Speaker 4: a movie? He's like, you should really just want to
23:43
Speaker 4: do it in general, regardless of you know, if you
23:45
Speaker 4: think you could write better than some of the movie
23:48
Speaker 4: that's out there.
23:49
Speaker 5: Exactly, it's got to be at the end of the day,
23:51
Speaker 5: it's got to be a passion that you're willing to
23:52
Speaker 5: stick with. And that's again why I admired this writer
23:55
Speaker 5: who stuck with it all these years, even though his
23:58
Speaker 5: second and third and fourth efforts were not as successful
24:01
Speaker 5: as his first. I mean, his first script did not
24:03
Speaker 5: end up selling, but it got a lot of good
24:05
Speaker 5: attention and it's still a viable movie from my point
24:08
Speaker 5: of view, so you know, but it takes that kind
24:11
Speaker 5: of dedication and passion, and if you've got it, you know,
24:15
Speaker 5: stick with it, keep keep at it, and study and
24:18
Speaker 5: read and talk with other writers and be part of
24:21
Speaker 5: a writer's group and don't be afraid to get notes.
24:24
Speaker 5: A lot of beginning writers are really afraid of getting
24:27
Speaker 5: feedback on their scripts because honestly, they're afraid of what
24:31
Speaker 5: the person reading their script is going to say, and
24:33
Speaker 5: they don't want to hear it. You know, deep down,
24:35
Speaker 5: it's like you don't want to hear that you have
24:36
Speaker 5: cancer something. You know, it's you don't want the bad news.
24:40
Speaker 5: But the truth is that's what's going to help you
24:43
Speaker 5: grow again. It's your mistakes that you know, learning from
24:46
Speaker 5: your mistakes that is going to get you to the
24:48
Speaker 5: next level as a screen record.
24:50
Speaker 4: You know that is one hundred percent true. You know,
24:53
Speaker 4: I actually used to run a screenwriunning group and we
24:56
Speaker 4: would have people who would want to join, you know,
24:58
Speaker 4: every so often somebody would come in and say, hey,
25:00
Speaker 4: I have a friend or I have somebody else who
25:02
Speaker 4: wants to join. And this one time somebody came in.
25:07
Speaker 4: He was a first time screenwriter and he actually had
25:10
Speaker 4: illustrations within his screenplay. Uh and I and and I.
25:14
Speaker 4: You know something, I was a little nicer about it.
25:17
Speaker 4: I was like, hey, you know, I wrote a little
25:18
Speaker 4: note on there. Hey don't put in you know, illustrations
25:21
Speaker 4: of a of a design and a screenplay. Like you know,
25:23
Speaker 4: you're not you know, you're not at like a James
25:26
Speaker 4: Cameron level where he could just do whatever he wants
25:28
Speaker 4: and no one's gonna bat an eye.
25:30
Speaker 5: Uh.
25:30
Speaker 4: You know, if you're using this as a calling card
25:32
Speaker 4: or what have you. It has to follow certain guidelines.
25:36
Speaker 4: Other people just put on the put in the script.
25:38
Speaker 4: They were like, no, an exclamation point and stuff like
25:41
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. It's just it's It is
25:44
Speaker 4: very hard, especially when you know, you put all this
25:47
Speaker 4: effort and time to a screenplay and you get feedback,
25:50
Speaker 4: and you know, people tell you, hey, you know what,
25:52
Speaker 4: it just isn't good or or or somebody will say, hey, look,
25:55
Speaker 4: it just sucks. And I think that what happens is
25:58
Speaker 4: is christ and I think we we kind of view
26:00
Speaker 4: it as an extension of ourselves, so we think, hey,
26:03
Speaker 4: look the screenplay sucks, therefore I suck exactly.
26:06
Speaker 5: You know, it's your baby, and I know that, for example,
26:10
Speaker 5: the folks who read for us, the judges who read
26:12
Speaker 5: for us and write notes, and we talk to them
26:14
Speaker 5: about this a lot. You know, it's critical that they
26:17
Speaker 5: understand that each script is a writer's baby and they
26:20
Speaker 5: believe in it and love it, and our job is
26:23
Speaker 5: to help them make it better and advance as writers.
26:26
Speaker 5: And I think our judges really try to do that.
26:29
Speaker 5: But I have also heard a lot about writing groups
26:33
Speaker 5: where things can get pretty brutal. Sometimes other writers can
26:36
Speaker 5: be you know, your toughest critics. You know, I don't
26:40
Speaker 5: know's it can be really great to be part of
26:43
Speaker 5: a writer's group. I've heard some horror stories too. So
26:45
Speaker 5: it's all about putting together the right group of people
26:48
Speaker 5: that are going to you know, grow together as a group.
26:52
Speaker 4: Yes, very very very true, and about if everybody is
26:55
Speaker 4: really a part of the same goal, which is to
26:58
Speaker 4: be a professional writer, working writer. And uh, you know,
27:01
Speaker 4: I was part of another group where every meeting, every month,
27:04
Speaker 4: we met once a month, and every month we would
27:08
Speaker 4: have a whole new batch of people show up. So
27:10
Speaker 4: we would have to explain like the beginning of screenwriting
27:14
Speaker 4: and you know, be, hey, this is what formatting is. Hey,
27:17
Speaker 4: go buy final draft. Hey, you know, make sure that
27:20
Speaker 4: you're you're all set, you know what I mean, Like
27:22
Speaker 4: it's all it's all these things. And finally we started,
27:24
Speaker 4: you know, meeting the guy who ran it. At that
27:26
Speaker 4: point in time, we said, wait a minute here. You know,
27:28
Speaker 4: we're kind of like spinning our wheels in the mud
27:30
Speaker 4: because every meeting we're just briefing these these new you know,
27:34
Speaker 4: new people, and then they leave, and then we're getting
27:37
Speaker 4: a whole nother group and then we're explaining it to them.
27:39
Speaker 4: So it's like at some somebody once told me that
27:43
Speaker 4: the best way to run run a writer's group is
27:46
Speaker 4: to gain entry, you have to submit a screenplay, a
27:50
Speaker 4: full a feature length screenplay, and every every member sort
27:54
Speaker 4: of you know, takes it and gives our feedback and
27:56
Speaker 4: then you take a vote on it. But that's the
27:58
Speaker 4: key is they have to have written least one screenplay.
28:01
Speaker 5: That's very smart. Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
28:05
Speaker 5: Or if it's a group of people none of whom
28:07
Speaker 5: have written a screenplay, that's fine too. But then you're
28:09
Speaker 5: on the same level and you're learning together, you know.
28:11
Speaker 5: But the commitment is the other part. It sounds like
28:13
Speaker 5: it sounds brutal to be losing people all the time
28:16
Speaker 5: and bringing in new people all the time. That would
28:18
Speaker 5: be really hard.
28:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what I think it was was because
28:23
Speaker 4: the reason we had that that constant flux of people
28:25
Speaker 4: leaving and coming, leaving and coming was because of the
28:29
Speaker 4: the time did change every month. And also I think
28:32
Speaker 4: that a lot of people weren't really ready for like, oh,
28:36
Speaker 4: this is a real writer's group, you know, because like
28:39
Speaker 4: everybody like the about the three or four people who
28:42
Speaker 4: are I would say, we're at this sort of like
28:45
Speaker 4: I guess top of the group, you know, uh, they're
28:48
Speaker 4: I mean we all. I mean it was myself and
28:50
Speaker 4: through the guys and we we all are doing stuff now.
28:53
Speaker 3: You know.
28:53
Speaker 4: I I in in the uh in the business one
28:55
Speaker 4: way or another. But the thing is, like everybody else
28:58
Speaker 4: I think was more long lines. They wanted to start
29:00
Speaker 4: like a beginner's group, you know what I mean, Like, hey,
29:03
Speaker 4: I you know, because it's kind of like, you know,
29:05
Speaker 4: if you want to go play a sport or something,
29:07
Speaker 4: you know, you want to start on a team with
29:09
Speaker 4: other people that are you know, you're like, you know
29:11
Speaker 4: around like your your skill level. You don't want to start,
29:14
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden you're you're playing with people
29:15
Speaker 4: who've been who are veterans playing for years, you know
29:17
Speaker 4: what I mean. It's just kind of you get a
29:19
Speaker 4: little intimidated if you will.
29:21
Speaker 5: Absolutely and it needs to be mutually beneficial for everybody involved,
29:24
Speaker 5: you know, So it's best if you're all kind of
29:26
Speaker 5: on roughly the same level.
29:27
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, exactly. And I'm not saying like I'm
29:31
Speaker 4: some expert either, Christen, I'm not. Oh yes, I'm just
29:34
Speaker 4: saying you know what I mean, It's just like sometimes, uh,
29:37
Speaker 4: you know, in this business, sometimes things can get intimidating. Period.
29:40
Speaker 4: You know, you see you see a film in a
29:43
Speaker 4: film festival you're a part of, and you're like, oh, well, god,
29:45
Speaker 4: damn it, that person's better than me. I have no
29:48
Speaker 4: shot of winning.
29:49
Speaker 3: Uh.
29:50
Speaker 4: So, you know, and it's I think I think it's
29:51
Speaker 4: happened to everybody.
29:54
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
30:00
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
30:03
Speaker 5: Sure. Sure, And it's understandable that people get intimidated, you know,
30:07
Speaker 5: because it's hard, and you know you're vulnerable because it's
30:10
Speaker 5: your baby, and it's that's that's that's what makes it
30:13
Speaker 5: great that you know, when when you have that kind
30:16
Speaker 5: of passion for your project and you care that much,
30:19
Speaker 5: it's it's both a curse and a blessing because you know,
30:24
Speaker 5: it's what it's what is ultimately going to make your
30:27
Speaker 5: writing special and that project special. It's also what's going
30:30
Speaker 5: to make you vulnerable to taking notes personally or you know,
30:36
Speaker 5: driving people away because you're too difficult to deal with
30:39
Speaker 5: or whatever the situation is. So you know, there you go.
30:43
Speaker 5: It's just part and parcel of the business.
30:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, very very true. And I wanted to ask to
30:49
Speaker 4: Kristin as we sort of get into this about about
30:51
Speaker 4: Page in general. Uh, you know, as we were talking
30:54
Speaker 4: the pre interview, there was an impetus for you to
30:57
Speaker 4: start Page and I wanted to ask, you know what
31:00
Speaker 4: that point in time in your life where you decided
31:02
Speaker 4: to actually start the competition.
31:05
Speaker 5: It was a time when I was doing a lot
31:08
Speaker 5: of producing. I was working as a line producer. I
31:11
Speaker 5: was doing a lot of budgets for people, reading a
31:13
Speaker 5: lot of scripts, and I really realized that I just
31:16
Speaker 5: missed the writing aspect, working with writers and evaluating scripts
31:22
Speaker 5: and helping writers develop scripts and all of that. That
31:25
Speaker 5: was more of my passion than all of the work
31:30
Speaker 5: I was doing on movies to get movies made. That's
31:33
Speaker 5: a grueling life, and I have friends who are great
31:36
Speaker 5: at it and who love it, but you're working twenty
31:39
Speaker 5: hour days for weeks at a time, and then suddenly
31:44
Speaker 5: the project is over. You've got to have another gig
31:46
Speaker 5: right away and move on to the next. And it's
31:49
Speaker 5: a tough life. And it wasn't the kind of creative
31:52
Speaker 5: life that I wanted. So I wanted to get back
31:56
Speaker 5: into working with writers and reading scripts and working with
32:01
Speaker 5: people who evaluate scripts, which is what all our judges are,
32:04
Speaker 5: and also being a little bit of a matchmaker. I
32:07
Speaker 5: have to tell you, I love the opportunity to take
32:10
Speaker 5: our winners and introduce them to certain judges. Sometimes I
32:13
Speaker 5: have a hit that a certain judge is really going
32:16
Speaker 5: to love a certain script, and maybe if they even
32:18
Speaker 5: read a different category, it's like, oh, yeah, I know
32:20
Speaker 5: you read the comedies, but I think you're really going
32:22
Speaker 5: to love this family film, and so I slip it
32:24
Speaker 5: to them in the process and sometimes that works out,
32:28
Speaker 5: and it's really exciting when that happens.
32:31
Speaker 4: So when you actually started a page, you know, what
32:34
Speaker 4: was some of the responses that you know you first got.
32:36
Speaker 4: I mean, you know again, like when you start anything,
32:39
Speaker 4: like we were just discussing, you know, it's very nerve wracking.
32:41
Speaker 4: You get very nervous, you know, because use there's always
32:43
Speaker 4: that feeling you know, what if I fail? You know,
32:46
Speaker 4: So what were you feeling when you know when you
32:47
Speaker 4: first started a page?
32:50
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, you're nervous that it's not going to work.
32:52
Speaker 5: Of course, Luckily because we did something unique with page
32:57
Speaker 5: at the time, which has since become pretty common, which
33:00
Speaker 5: is that we split the contest into these different genre categories.
33:04
Speaker 5: Initially we had nine, now we have ten, and we
33:08
Speaker 5: have the judges evaluate scripts only in the genre that
33:11
Speaker 5: they're most interested in reading. Sometimes people like reading several,
33:15
Speaker 5: but we focus We have them focused on one, and
33:19
Speaker 5: so basically they're kind of comparing apples to apples, if
33:22
Speaker 5: you will. Of course, not every drama is like every
33:25
Speaker 5: other drama, but at least you're not comparing a drama
33:28
Speaker 5: to a sci fi film or whatever. So you know,
33:31
Speaker 5: that has been a real help on every level, both
33:37
Speaker 5: in terms of the judging process. The writers love being
33:41
Speaker 5: able to submit to a certain genre knowing that their
33:43
Speaker 5: script is really going to be read by people who
33:46
Speaker 5: love that particular type of script, and that way we
33:50
Speaker 5: can also present awards in the different categories and send
33:53
Speaker 5: out promotions, and so if people are looking for our
33:56
Speaker 5: top ten sci fi scripts or whatever, we can send them.
33:58
Speaker 5: Those ended up working out really well over time, and
34:05
Speaker 5: sort of when you talk about the beginnings of the contest,
34:08
Speaker 5: that was one of the key things that I saw
34:10
Speaker 5: working right away and I felt was really important, and
34:15
Speaker 5: so that's kind of kind of kept me going through
34:17
Speaker 5: the first couple of years, even though, of course the
34:19
Speaker 5: first couple of years we got about a thousand entries,
34:21
Speaker 5: which was pretty good, but you know, it was tough
34:26
Speaker 5: to make ends meet it. We were still operating at
34:28
Speaker 5: a loss, but it was I could see that this
34:31
Speaker 5: could really work and people were starting to find projects
34:34
Speaker 5: that they liked, and that kept me going, you know
34:37
Speaker 5: in the beginning, because I felt like, yeah, this idea
34:41
Speaker 5: is good, this idea will work. We just have to
34:42
Speaker 5: get the word out and it has to become better known.
34:47
Speaker 4: So just to go now to like sort of flash
34:50
Speaker 4: forward to today, you know, twenty seventeen, how many submissions
34:55
Speaker 4: do you get a year? Now?
34:57
Speaker 5: We got about sixty three hundred past couple of years,
35:01
Speaker 5: so that's we're almost peaked out. I think the Nickel
35:05
Speaker 5: receives just over seven thousand lately the past couple of years.
35:09
Speaker 5: I think Austin has received something like nine thousand submissions,
35:12
Speaker 5: which is massive. We our judges, the way we structure things,
35:17
Speaker 5: we would have a hard time handling too much more
35:20
Speaker 5: than we get right now. So we're kind of we're
35:24
Speaker 5: in a good place. I feel. Some people say that
35:27
Speaker 5: you have to read about one hundred even two hundred
35:29
Speaker 5: scripts to find a great one. Well, if we get
35:32
Speaker 5: about six thousand entries and we give thirty prizes, thirty
35:35
Speaker 5: one prizes, that's about right then. I figure.
35:39
Speaker 4: When you get like, you know, you know, six thousand,
35:42
Speaker 4: seven thousand entries, you know, I could just imagine, you
35:46
Speaker 4: know that there's a you know that just all these
35:49
Speaker 4: screenplays sitting in a room and it's like, my god,
35:53
Speaker 4: where do you even start?
35:54
Speaker 3: You know?
35:55
Speaker 4: So, you know, how is the process? I've always been interested,
35:58
Speaker 4: you know, even with the Nicole and the and the
36:02
Speaker 4: Austin Film Festival one, and you know, some of these
36:04
Speaker 4: other screenplay competitions you know that are getting you know,
36:07
Speaker 4: five four digit high four digits submissions. You know, how
36:12
Speaker 4: do you start to sort through them as they come in?
36:14
Speaker 5: Well, it's it's well systematized now. And luckily, because everything's online,
36:18
Speaker 5: there's some things are doable that would not have been
36:21
Speaker 5: doable ten twelve years ago. So as the scripts come in,
36:26
Speaker 5: they come in a certain category. We have certain judges
36:28
Speaker 5: reading certain categories and they get assigned to them online.
36:32
Speaker 5: And everyone's reading everything online now, so it makes it
36:35
Speaker 5: makes it relatively easy. But we do have over ninety
36:37
Speaker 5: judges over the course of the five rounds of competition,
36:40
Speaker 5: So it's a lot of people going through it, but
36:43
Speaker 5: it's it's all it's all handled through a little online
36:45
Speaker 5: system that works pretty well, pretty.
36:49
Speaker 4: Well, so they just just sort of continue with that
36:53
Speaker 4: same question. Do you ever get like so much digital
36:55
Speaker 4: traffic then and you're like, an you start to sort
36:58
Speaker 4: of lose track of things or you know, I mean
37:01
Speaker 4: again again with all the submissions. I mean, I could
37:03
Speaker 4: just imagine with that with again high four digit submissions,
37:07
Speaker 4: It's like, how do you keep track of everything? You know?
37:10
Speaker 4: And I imagine, so do you have like like a
37:13
Speaker 4: whole team behind the scenes sort of like, Okay, this
37:16
Speaker 4: is an action adventure, this is a comedy, this is
37:18
Speaker 4: a horror.
37:19
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, But it's all online too. It's all recorded
37:22
Speaker 5: when the script comes in so that the scripts can
37:25
Speaker 5: be automatically tracked to the right judges. And Zoe and
37:29
Speaker 5: Jennifer are very hands on our team behind the scenes.
37:32
Speaker 5: And Zoe handles all the submissions and she does a
37:35
Speaker 5: fabulous job and she's very much on top of it,
37:37
Speaker 5: watching as things come in and making sure that they're
37:39
Speaker 5: tracking to the right judges and when writers request feedback,
37:43
Speaker 5: she'll be careful to She actually assigns those individually, so
37:48
Speaker 5: she makes sure that it's a script that that particular
37:51
Speaker 5: judge has not read before, it's the type of script
37:53
Speaker 5: that she thinks they'll like based on the log line,
37:55
Speaker 5: you know, that kind of thing. So we're very hands on,
37:58
Speaker 5: but by the same token, we've got it well systematized
38:00
Speaker 5: now so that so that things keep moving, which it
38:03
Speaker 5: has to do. You know, when you as you say,
38:05
Speaker 5: when you have six thousand entries, and you have basically
38:09
Speaker 5: from January through October is the whole process, but the
38:12
Speaker 5: vast majority of them are are read by the middle
38:15
Speaker 5: of July. It's it's it's a lot of scripts to
38:18
Speaker 5: read and a lot of people reading.
38:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I mean having to get you know, and
38:22
Speaker 4: all the feedback and stuff like that. You know. I've
38:26
Speaker 4: had friends who even started, uh you know, I mean
38:29
Speaker 4: their own screwwrinning competitions on a much smaller scale obviously,
38:34
Speaker 4: and even then it was like it was just like,
38:36
Speaker 4: my god, what the hell have we got ourselves into.
38:39
Speaker 5: Well, that's very true, you know. I mean I think
38:41
Speaker 5: a lot of people think, oh, let's start a screenwriting competition.
38:43
Speaker 5: We'll make some money. It'll be easy. We're looking for
38:45
Speaker 5: in some cases, like we're looking for a script, let's
38:47
Speaker 5: start a contest, you know. But it's actually if you're
38:50
Speaker 5: if you're honest about it, and if you do it
38:52
Speaker 5: with integrity. It's a lot, a lot of work, and
38:55
Speaker 5: it takes a lot of you know, kind of carrying
38:57
Speaker 5: people behind the scenes, the administrative team and the judges
39:00
Speaker 5: to make it work well. Otherwise it ends up being
39:04
Speaker 5: pretty much a rip off of the writers. And I've
39:06
Speaker 5: seen and heard a lot of horror stories in that regard.
39:08
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, I mean, because I've entered screwing the
39:15
Speaker 4: competitions before and i haven't entered Page yet, but I'm
39:19
Speaker 4: actually hoping to get something done in time to enter.
39:22
Speaker 5: Uh but uh, you know, I hope will live up
39:26
Speaker 5: to your expectations. But yeah, I mean, your your own experience.
39:29
Speaker 5: I'm sure would be really educational for your listeners, because
39:32
Speaker 5: you know, what's the range of experience you had with contests.
39:36
Speaker 4: Well, I think Page already meets my expectations because, like,
39:40
Speaker 4: honestly my expect because I mean I've heard of the
39:43
Speaker 4: competition before, you know, as I was, you know, just
39:46
Speaker 4: just you know, obviously when we're just discussing this whole conversation.
39:49
Speaker 4: You know, I'm familiar with Paige, you know, Austin the Nickel.
39:54
Speaker 2: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor,
40:00
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
40:03
Speaker 4: But in my experience, by the way, the ones I
40:06
Speaker 4: just mentioned I've not entered before, I entered one, and
40:10
Speaker 4: I got back maybe half a page or a page
40:13
Speaker 4: of like of correspond you know, of like feedback. And
40:16
Speaker 4: that's what I really wanted, was that feedbacks. I wanted
40:19
Speaker 4: to hear where the writer was going. I mean, I'm
40:20
Speaker 4: sorry the reader was going to say. And basically at
40:25
Speaker 4: the end, she admitted that this screenplay wasn't for her
40:28
Speaker 4: and just kind of, you know, let me down easily
40:31
Speaker 4: because she she just didn't know where it fits, so
40:35
Speaker 4: to speak. And I forget what language she used, but
40:38
Speaker 4: you know, I felt like, Okay, I don't really know
40:40
Speaker 4: if this was worth the extra money to pay for
40:42
Speaker 4: the for the for the feedback. But what I did was,
40:46
Speaker 4: and this is a part of the funny story, was
40:48
Speaker 4: I took the screenplay and I knew a producer and
40:52
Speaker 4: he said, hey, you know, if it's if it's a
40:54
Speaker 4: it's a horror comedy, and I sent it to him
40:57
Speaker 4: and he goes, Dave, this is so over the top.
40:59
Speaker 4: He goes, I don't know how to even market this thing,
41:02
Speaker 4: you know, et cetera, et cetera. Well, a couple months
41:04
Speaker 4: later I ended up bumping into him again and he goes,
41:06
Speaker 4: you know what, I should have went with you on
41:09
Speaker 4: that screenplay. He goes, I don't know what the hell
41:11
Speaker 4: I was thinking about. He goes, I've been thinking about
41:14
Speaker 4: that opening, he goes, and the and the funny parts
41:16
Speaker 4: were funny, the horror parts were scary, he goes. But
41:19
Speaker 4: he goes, I just don't know. And he goes, I
41:23
Speaker 4: just don't know how to actually market it. And I
41:25
Speaker 4: said it would be tricky, it would be very tricky,
41:28
Speaker 4: but it could be done. And so I told him
41:32
Speaker 4: that the feedback I got from the Screamrining competition and
41:34
Speaker 4: he said, yeah, he said, you know, we talked about
41:37
Speaker 4: what competition it was, and he said, yeah. They oftentimes
41:40
Speaker 4: either don't give any any feedback or they just sort
41:43
Speaker 4: of give like this very homogenized feedback.
41:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean feedback. What can I say? We
41:53
Speaker 5: work really hard to give our writers great feedback. That's
41:56
Speaker 5: a very important part of our mission because you know,
41:59
Speaker 5: it help writers grow, and that's what our goal is.
42:02
Speaker 5: We'd love to see. We love it when writers enter
42:06
Speaker 5: a few years in a row and they keep doing
42:07
Speaker 5: better and better and they've got more and more scripts
42:09
Speaker 5: and a stronger body of material, and so that finally
42:12
Speaker 5: when they do when they end up getting signed because
42:15
Speaker 5: they have a body of material to show an agent
42:18
Speaker 5: or manager and things are launched from there. That's actually
42:22
Speaker 5: kind of an ideal scenario and we love to be
42:24
Speaker 5: a part of that. We love to help writers do that,
42:27
Speaker 5: and feedback is a huge part of it. I think
42:29
Speaker 5: getting professional feedback is so helpful for writers when you
42:33
Speaker 5: can get it from someplace that's supportive, that's going to
42:37
Speaker 5: really that's where the goal is, to help you improve
42:40
Speaker 5: as a writer rather than just trash you or tell you,
42:43
Speaker 5: you know, why the script doesn't work. So you know,
42:48
Speaker 5: but there's the whole range out there. It's writers, you know.
42:51
Speaker 5: I think as much as you can get. My bottom
42:54
Speaker 5: line advice would we get as much as you can
42:55
Speaker 5: and take it all with a big grain of salt,
42:58
Speaker 5: because that's really at the end of day, when you're
43:00
Speaker 5: working as a professional writer, you're getting notes all the
43:03
Speaker 5: time on everything you do, eight sets of rewrites on
43:06
Speaker 5: a script by the time it gets into production more.
43:08
Speaker 5: I mean, it's it's crazy how much. And you have
43:11
Speaker 5: to be able to take all these opinions from the
43:14
Speaker 5: producers initially and the financiers and then the director and
43:17
Speaker 5: the actors and somehow incorporate that into your script and
43:21
Speaker 5: keep the integrity of your script and keep make sure
43:24
Speaker 5: it continues to work, because often the notes you get
43:26
Speaker 5: aren't even if the person offers a solution, often it's
43:30
Speaker 5: not the right solution, but maybe they have their finger
43:33
Speaker 5: on the pulse of something that's problematic. So you have
43:36
Speaker 5: to as the writer, interpret it, interpret that and make
43:38
Speaker 5: the note work within your vision of the script. It's
43:42
Speaker 5: very complice, complicated and hard to do. So the more
43:45
Speaker 5: practice you get at taking notes, even if they're bad notes,
43:49
Speaker 5: and just figuring out what was this person really saying,
43:52
Speaker 5: and you know, is it something I want to do,
43:54
Speaker 5: is it something that I want to incorporate in the script,
43:57
Speaker 5: or you know, and when you start hearing a note
43:59
Speaker 5: from more than one person, really pay attention because something's
44:03
Speaker 5: not working.
44:04
Speaker 4: You know, Yeah, I concur and one of the things
44:09
Speaker 4: I wanted to say too was that sometimes you know
44:11
Speaker 4: that note could be that something's not working. And one
44:14
Speaker 4: thing I've noticed too is also something could be working,
44:16
Speaker 4: because one I wrote a screenplay years ago, and I
44:20
Speaker 4: remember the one positive I got out of it was
44:22
Speaker 4: that everyone there was one note I always got. It
44:25
Speaker 4: was like, oh, this is actually working pretty well. This
44:27
Speaker 4: is a really nice way to open that this movie.
44:30
Speaker 4: And only one person out of everyone I let read
44:33
Speaker 4: it was said, oh no, that's too what's over dramatic,
44:36
Speaker 4: don't do it that way, and everybody else disagreed, and
44:38
Speaker 4: I was like, all right, I think I'm gonna go
44:40
Speaker 4: with that with the uh, just gonna keep it in
44:42
Speaker 4: there the majority.
44:42
Speaker 5: And that's again you make my point for me, which
44:44
Speaker 5: is get as many opinions as you can, and ideally
44:48
Speaker 5: professional opinions. But your friends is fine, other as long
44:51
Speaker 5: as they know something about reading a screenplay. If your
44:53
Speaker 5: writer's group is great. But get as many opinions as
44:56
Speaker 5: you can, and get as many professional opinions as you
44:58
Speaker 5: can from wherever, because the more you hear, the more
45:02
Speaker 5: things will start to make sense, and then that one
45:05
Speaker 5: oddball opinion will stand out as like oh, no, No,
45:08
Speaker 5: that was just that person who had a bad dinner
45:11
Speaker 5: that night or whatever, but or just didn't understand something
45:14
Speaker 5: about this, whatever the situation might be. But if you
45:17
Speaker 5: just get notes from one person and you take those
45:19
Speaker 5: as gospel, you know, you could potentially be led astray.
45:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, very true, Kristin, very true. You know, Christian, I
45:29
Speaker 4: know that the Page Screwing Awards opens this year, which
45:34
Speaker 4: is December one, twenty seventeen, which is in about two
45:37
Speaker 4: weeks give or take, and probably about a week from
45:41
Speaker 4: when this podcast actually is going up. But I just
45:43
Speaker 4: wanted to, you know, ask just well, you know why
45:46
Speaker 4: I have you on here, because I've always heard this
45:48
Speaker 4: about screening competitions. I heard that the the the better,
45:52
Speaker 4: the chance to sort of win or to even just
45:58
Speaker 4: to get noticed, is to get your screenplay earlier. And
46:00
Speaker 4: the reason the reason they say this is because they say,
46:04
Speaker 4: you know, judges and everybody has to read so many
46:06
Speaker 4: screenplays that they end up, you know, pulling their favorites
46:09
Speaker 4: out first, you know what I mean, Like they'll have
46:11
Speaker 4: that in their meaning in their mind, you know, they
46:12
Speaker 4: have like, oh, man, I remember reading this script and
46:16
Speaker 4: if you know, and it really stood out and then
46:18
Speaker 4: versus handing it in later, and you know, you have
46:21
Speaker 4: less of a chance to sort of stand out, you
46:23
Speaker 4: know what I mean. Like we were talking about earlier
46:24
Speaker 4: on where the where the top always goes to the
46:26
Speaker 4: cream always rises at the top. So is there any
46:28
Speaker 4: truth to that in your experience? No?
46:33
Speaker 5: No, So you know that's one of the myths. And
46:36
Speaker 5: you know, I do think that the judges have less
46:39
Speaker 5: to read early on, and they're pressure if you like,
46:45
Speaker 5: in a sense, although most of these people, keep in mind,
46:47
Speaker 5: are reading for their companies all the time anyway. It's
46:52
Speaker 5: so this is just something they incorporate into their schedule
46:55
Speaker 5: over time. But but here's here's the thing. Like for us,
47:00
Speaker 5: we have five different rounds of competition, So your first
47:02
Speaker 5: round judge will read your script pretty much soon after
47:05
Speaker 5: it comes in, right, and then we also have the
47:08
Speaker 5: second round that starts right about in March, once there's
47:11
Speaker 5: enough build up of stuff moving forward from the first round.
47:14
Speaker 5: So those people start reading in March and they read
47:17
Speaker 5: through the middle of the summer. But once you get
47:19
Speaker 5: to the third round and fourth round, they're kind of
47:22
Speaker 5: reading things all at the same time and not necessarily
47:24
Speaker 5: in order that it was submitted, so basically what we
47:29
Speaker 5: have found it. I've tracked this because people have asked
47:31
Speaker 5: this question a lot. We've had scripts with over the
47:36
Speaker 5: you know, with the thirty one prizes we give, usually
47:39
Speaker 5: one of them will have been submitted on the very
47:41
Speaker 5: first day of the contest, and one or two of
47:43
Speaker 5: them will have been submitted on the last day, and
47:45
Speaker 5: they pretty much are scattered all throughout. So it really
47:50
Speaker 5: that is not it saves you money to enter early.
47:53
Speaker 5: We push you to end early because we want to
47:55
Speaker 5: get scripts in for the judges to read. We want
47:57
Speaker 5: to give them enough time to read everything. We don't
48:00
Speaker 5: want everything coming in in May, at which point, you know,
48:04
Speaker 5: we wouldn't be able to get everything read in time
48:06
Speaker 5: to make our announcements. So that's why we give you know,
48:09
Speaker 5: all kinds of incentives to enter as early as possible,
48:12
Speaker 5: but it does not affect your chances of winning.
48:16
Speaker 4: That's another sort of false myth out there put down.
48:19
Speaker 4: I'm glad. I'm glad I asked that question because you know,
48:21
Speaker 4: you see all these false myths online about a screenwriting
48:24
Speaker 4: in general, and I'm just glad that that.
48:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I think at least in our experience that's
48:30
Speaker 5: one of them. I mean, maybe other contests. I can
48:32
Speaker 5: only speak for us, but but that's that's the way
48:34
Speaker 5: things run here. And I honestly have seen a lot
48:37
Speaker 5: of the scripts that are submitted in the last couple
48:41
Speaker 5: of rounds of competition win as well as some that
48:43
Speaker 5: are submitted early on. So it's it's pretty well spread
48:47
Speaker 5: out throughout.
48:49
Speaker 4: And you know, Christy, we've been talking for about, you know,
48:51
Speaker 4: fifty minutes now, and I just wanted to ask, you know,
48:54
Speaker 4: is there anything that we can get a chance to
48:56
Speaker 4: talk about that maybe we want to discuss right now,
48:58
Speaker 4: or just even anything you want to say to put
49:00
Speaker 4: a periods the end of this whole conversation.
49:03
Speaker 5: I think the only thing is, you know, people ask
49:05
Speaker 5: me a lot what does it take to make a
49:07
Speaker 5: winning script? What is it that puts the winners over
49:10
Speaker 5: the top? And it's a very very hard question to answer,
49:15
Speaker 5: and I've tried to sort of distill it down over
49:17
Speaker 5: the years, but I would say that for us, the
49:21
Speaker 5: scripts that advance up to the semi final and final round,
49:24
Speaker 5: they're all really strong. They're strong writers, they're interesting ideas
49:28
Speaker 5: they have The scripts have a lot of strengths, but
49:31
Speaker 5: every script has certain what somebody would call a weakness.
49:35
Speaker 5: You know, if one judge read it, they might say, oh,
49:37
Speaker 5: I love this character privative to me, you know, so everyone,
49:41
Speaker 5: I mean opinions differ in that regard. But at the
49:45
Speaker 5: end of the day, what I hear over and over
49:47
Speaker 5: when we're down to the final final decisions is people
49:51
Speaker 5: saying this script. The thing that's so special about it
49:55
Speaker 5: is this is a character that I know ten actors
50:00
Speaker 5: who would love to play this.
50:01
Speaker 2: Role will be right back after a word from our
50:05
Speaker 2: sponsor and now back to the show.
50:12
Speaker 5: It's so compelling and so story moved me and it
50:16
Speaker 5: will move an actor. So the script has a real
50:19
Speaker 5: shot of getting made, and it the voice of the
50:23
Speaker 5: writer is just so clear and so specific and so
50:29
Speaker 5: special that they feel like they've read something that is
50:35
Speaker 5: unique and will stand out from the crowd. So whatever
50:40
Speaker 5: its other flaws might potentially be in terms of that,
50:43
Speaker 5: they can work on in development, which, as I said,
50:46
Speaker 5: it'll end up probably going through, however, many rewrites and
50:50
Speaker 5: the course of development and into production. But that the
50:54
Speaker 5: true thing that's there, that the core of an idea
50:57
Speaker 5: that's really special, a role for an actor that's really unique.
51:02
Speaker 5: And compelling and and something that's really going to make
51:05
Speaker 5: an actor sit up and take notice, and just something
51:09
Speaker 5: in the voice of the writing that makes it stand
51:13
Speaker 5: out from the from the crowd. Whatever that is.
51:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's very true too, because whatever gets you
51:22
Speaker 4: to stand out from the crowd. And you've seen examples,
51:24
Speaker 4: you know, all throughout even in the in the like
51:27
Speaker 4: the nineties, for example, when Shane Black wrote, uh, Lethal Weapon,
51:31
Speaker 4: Quentin Tarantino, you can really tell what he really enjoys
51:34
Speaker 4: writing his scripts because they just sort of pot their
51:36
Speaker 4: own style of popping out at you. And then you know,
51:39
Speaker 4: even some of the the screenplay competitions, the award winners
51:43
Speaker 4: like uh, they just released the screenplay from mud Bound,
51:46
Speaker 4: they released a couple of other screenplays that you know,
51:50
Speaker 4: how the you know you can you and and you
51:52
Speaker 4: when you read them, you can kind of see how
51:54
Speaker 4: you know they did what they did with their screenplays,
51:56
Speaker 4: how what what causes them to be unique?
51:58
Speaker 5: Absolutely, when Juno came out, that was such a special
52:01
Speaker 5: script and movie because she had such a strong voice
52:05
Speaker 5: on the same sort of note. But the flip side
52:08
Speaker 5: of it is that please do not try to copy
52:12
Speaker 5: Quentin Tarantino or David Mammott or somebody else who has
52:16
Speaker 5: a really strong voice, because really, the judges roll their
52:19
Speaker 5: eyes at that. Industry readers roll their eyes at that.
52:21
Speaker 5: You know, they've seen a lot of copycat scripts. It's
52:24
Speaker 5: really about finding your own vision, your own voice, your
52:26
Speaker 5: own approach to the world and to your story that
52:33
Speaker 5: is unexpected and fresh. And that's where you hear the
52:36
Speaker 5: phrase familiar but fresh. You know, it's like an idea
52:40
Speaker 5: that perhaps people in the industry can understand and say, oh, yeah,
52:44
Speaker 5: I know, we did we know about movie some movie
52:47
Speaker 5: like that. But this particular script has such a fresh
52:51
Speaker 5: twist on the idea, and that's the writer's voice, the
52:54
Speaker 5: writer's point of view that makes it stand out.
52:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's a really good point, by the way,
53:00
Speaker 4: Kristin about not trying to copy anybody else. I once
53:03
Speaker 4: had a friend of mine who who started before me
53:06
Speaker 4: in the film business, and he started before me, and
53:07
Speaker 4: he he ended up calling himself the next Quentin Tarantino,
53:11
Speaker 4: and he kept labeling himself as that, and finally I
53:14
Speaker 4: think he bumped into a manager or agent and they said,
53:17
Speaker 4: why are you marketing yourself as the next Quentin Tarantino.
53:20
Speaker 4: They were like, do you think Quentin Tarantino went around
53:22
Speaker 4: and said he was the next whatever? They're like, he
53:25
Speaker 4: just wanted to be Quentin Tarantino, that was it. Like
53:27
Speaker 4: you should be focused on that and not trying to
53:29
Speaker 4: be somebody else. And I think I'm.
53:32
Speaker 5: Sorry, absolutely, I'm just agreeing arded because it's yeah, it's
53:36
Speaker 5: so important. You have no idea. I mean, I can't
53:38
Speaker 5: tell you how many times oh that's another Guy Ricie
53:40
Speaker 5: script you know, or something they they they're just and
53:43
Speaker 5: people do it. So you have no idea. How many
53:45
Speaker 5: other writers are trying to copy some of these iconic
53:49
Speaker 5: writers and it just doesn't It doesn't work. So find
53:54
Speaker 5: your voice, find your own voice. Oh but you know,
53:57
Speaker 5: one good exercise if writers want play with it, and
54:00
Speaker 5: this is a fun thing to do, is write a
54:02
Speaker 5: script in the style up just for fun as you're learning,
54:06
Speaker 5: maybe a short film, even just as you're learning, as
54:08
Speaker 5: you're growing, just to to kind of strengthen your chops,
54:11
Speaker 5: you know, write a script in the style of Quant
54:13
Speaker 5: Tarantinow or Diatto, Coodi or whoever, you know, just to
54:17
Speaker 5: see how different writers might approach a different subject, a
54:20
Speaker 5: different basic storyline. That's a really fun thing to do
54:23
Speaker 5: and it teaches you a lot doing something like that.
54:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know what you exactly what you mean and
54:31
Speaker 4: I've seen but I do like the idea too, is
54:33
Speaker 4: just to be unique and be yourself because you know,
54:36
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, you know you have
54:38
Speaker 4: to be yourself, right, Kristen.
54:39
Speaker 5: Absolutely, you know, absolutely so. I think that's a great,
54:45
Speaker 5: a great sort of sign off. It's like, be yourself.
54:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just want to ask in closing though, is work.
54:50
Speaker 4: We will find you out online.
54:52
Speaker 5: Page Awards dot com is our website, Kristin.
54:55
Speaker 4: I just want to say thank you so much for
54:57
Speaker 4: coming on.
54:58
Speaker 5: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having.
55:00
Speaker 4: Oh my pleasure. Christen.
55:02
Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
55:04
Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
55:06
Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
55:08
Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
55:12
Speaker 2: Forward slash for zero six. Thank you so much for
55:14
Speaker 2: listening to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what.
55:18
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you soon.
55:19
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
55:24
Speaker 1: dot tv.