5/21/2022
It's starting to feel like summer!
Let's get into this. For anyone looking into film festivals or screenplay competitions, there are some things you need to know.
Before 2020 there were some film festival scams out there, but a lot of them on FilmFreeway are pretty legit (besides this one in Hollywood and one in Turkey). If you got accepted you could go to the festival and have a great time. Now, once 2020 happened the excitement for a majority of film festivals is gone. More and more festivals are online. They can screen your film online, where (let's be honest) most people rather not watch your film on their computer when they could go to Netflix to watch something whenever they want. It's not as real as going in person and seeing your film with a bunch of other people. You can't even hear people clapping. That's the best part as an entertainer, to hear the crowd clapping!
I'm getting emails for film festivals saying it's their first year, they're doing their festival online, it's around $30-$60 to enter, aaaaand the winner gets a digital laurel.
That's it! Anyone could make up a film festival and make their own laurel for FREEEE. It's pretty much a scam. They get your money while they do the least amount of work.
I'm also getting emails from bigger festivals where they say, "Your film will do great at our festival. Here is 10% off if you submit today." I click on the links and it's the late deadline (which is when submissions are the most expensive). And the organizers have probably already chose all the films they want to show at the festival.
Here's a story for you.
At the end of April I applied to this screenwriter competition where they give you a prompt on the day of the event, and the writers have to write a 3 page scene for an hour online LIVE, as people watch them work. After that there would be 3 finalists where real actors would do a table reading. I thought this sounded cool, and it was $5. So I applied.
In my head I imagined a few 100 writers writing at once on zoom. I had to submit a script I already wrote so they could see I was serious. The genre they picked for this round was Drama. I never wrote anything that focused on drama, so I thought I needed to practice writing some scenes within an hour. I did it almost every day for two weeks with random prompts I found online (that were mostly focused for novels). At first I went over time, but by the end I ended up having 10-15 minutes left by the time I finished writing.
I then got an email saying I was accepted.
I then had to meet with one of the organizers on their platform to hear the rules and be familiar with their zoom like platform.
After meeting with her, I started clicking on all the virtual rooms they had. They had February's writers up with their photos and their bios. I then noticed there were only 8 of them. It took me a solid 2-3 minutes for things to click that they're only choosing 8 people! Wow!
I continued to practice writing once a day for an hour. The woman asked me for a headshot and for a short bio.
Once they had everyone's photo and bio they told us to spread the word on social media while they would tag us on their social media. Now, a lot of contests do this.
For the not so well known competitions they rely on the selected people to do all the advertising for them. I noticed that on instagram they put the most impressive bios first and the not so impressive ones last within their post. I was like 3rd to last...and the people shown before me have done a lot. I told the organizer a bit about the tiny home stuff that I've done, but they kept that out.
Now, they said that the audience will choose who's script they like the most, while the judges chose the other two writers as the finalist. Whenever you see "audience choice," this means "The amount of friends you bring in to vote for you, the more likely you will be chosen." So if you see that in competitions it's pretty much rigged. It's not based off of talent, it's based on the amount of people you know who will be there for you. Judges look at this because this is the marketing side of filmmaking. If you can "market" yourself to people to come see you, you're doing a good job (and helping the event be promoted).
So, I already knew I had a low chance of winning. I've been selected to festivals based on my work, but when it comes to audience choice I don't have a big following to back me up. If you're also one of the little guys, don't waste your money on these types of things.
I did this because writing on a time limit live sounded like an opportunity to push myself as a writer.
Also, I saw some of the people's bios where they're into politics...so I figured I'm defiantly not going to win. Lately in film fests all they want are stories with forced politics in the work, not so much a good story.
Anyway, on Thursday I was still nervous. We got our prompt three hours ahead of actually writing our scene. It was, "You're protagonist receives news that changes their life." Then the audience will vote on a word we would have to put in our script.
When we got the prompt I wrote down whatever ideas that came into my head. I then got worried and went to my Father for some advice. I told him some of my ideas and he said, "You need to think bigger. Something extremely dramatic." I told him the next idea I had. "What about an orphan who learns they're not actually an orphan?" He liked the idea and started coming up with this complicated Turkish Drama set up where this girl was lied to as a kid by her aunt and uncle because they want the kid's inheritance. So the aunt and uncle kill the parents and bribe the Wills and Trusts Attorney into helping them steal the money. The kid, Ally, now 25 at her parents funeral over hears the aunt and uncle's conversation and realizes she was cold to her parents until their death because she hated that they lied to her all these years. Only to find out her aunt and uncle lied to her....yeah in three pages.
I felt like I could do it without spelling everything out. The audience picked the word "Queen," as the word we had to use in our script. So the clock started.
Oh, here's everyone's bio in order to most impressive to least. Not to sound mean, but in a film business marketing kind of way. When in film you sometimes got to tell your personal feelings to shut-it and see things for how they are.
After 10 minutes of writing I thought I'd be calm, but I wasn't. Knowing people were watching you make spelling mistakes and quickly being lazy by right clicking and clicking the correct spelling, and I made some dumb grammar mistakes...it was like my worst nightmare.
I could see the people in the room with me, I could see myself writing and I was trying to fit this complicated story into three pages without making it sound corny. All of a sudden every 2-3 minutes I was getting kicked out of my room and into a random writers' room. I had to go back to my room and re-share my screen so that my friends and other people could see my work. I didn't want to let my friends down. They were excited to see me write.
I was getting in the zone and then being brought out of it every time I had to get back into my room. I went to the room for tech support but I couldn't wait long for a response because I was on a time limit to write my scene. I used another tab window to cover my face and the other people in my room so I could have more focus. Now, when I write I like to get into the characters' head, and read out loud what I wrote. So I can be really expressive and look a little crazy. And I was also stressing whenever I had to race back into my room.
By the time there were 20 minutes left to write the judges came into my room. They said, "Hi, were' going into everyone's room to talk to them for three minutes." I wanted to scream. I had no time for this! They wanted me to tell them what my scene was about. I told them as fast as I could what it was about. I slipped in that I'm still fitting in as much of the story as I can. I could tell they didn't like that for some reason. They also could have been confused on what was going on in my scene. They didn't say anything about my story, I didn't care because I wanted to fix this tech problem so I could finish writing.
I told them what was going on, and they sent the CEO to help me fix the problem. I waved to the judges and said "Thanks," as my way of politely kicking them out. The clock was ticking. They probably thought it was rude of me, but I did what I had to do.
I then had to spend another few minutes figuring out the tech problem while being kicked out of my room over and over. It turned out that my adblocker was causing this. The platform probably had ads that were trying to fight through my settings. Once that was done I had maybe 10 minutes left. I tried my best to get back into the zone. I wrote what I could and finished the scene on an awkward note.
The time was up and the announcer said, "Please export your scripts to a PDF. Make sure you label it with your name. We will all meet in the next room." I then remembered I didn't use the word "Queen." I quickly made the uncle call the aunt "Queen," in one of his lines while no one was looking, and then submitted my script.
The judges and everyone read over everyone's script.
Reading the scripts I felt like I should have gone with my gut to do something simpler. My Father came into my room upset, "You didn't put everything in there. It made no sense!" I wasn't in the mood to explain myself so I said flatly, "Okay, I did what I did." He caught on to my mood, and said, "Okay," and left shutting my door behind him.
I continued to read the other scrips. I liked maybe two of them. The others I didn't get much out of. But they were well written for the time limit we had.
Then it was time for the judges.
Excuse the shaky camera lol.
I wasn't sure if they were saying "everyone, everyone" did a good job. In film there's this "don't say 'no' to someone ever. You never know if you'll work with them in the future or change your mind to work with them in the future." So you say things like, "Yeah, send me your script," when they're actually not going to look at it. It's like when people say, "Let's keep in touch," but then they didn't give you their contact info to do that.
So, when the judges said that everyone's script was great, I wondered, "Are they just talking about 3-4 scripts out of the 8? Are they really being genuine?" They said they've never seen the votes so close before.
Here is the audiences' votes.
Then one of the judges was saying that in the film business this is how it's going to be. If you want to get hired you have to pump out pages, write what they're asking for, and do it in a certain amount of time.
While they spoke I didn't realize that this was their intent. I'm an INDIE filmmaker. I'm not looking to be hired by someone in Hollywood. I want to write what I want and turn it into a film without needing someone else's permission. If I find someone I want to work with on a film, then I'll work with them.
Relying on someone to hire you in the film business is tough. It's as tough as today's dating. People are 10x more picky. If they don't like you for one little thing, they can say, "Next!" and there will be another person in your place. The only way they'll be less likely to replace you is by you already knowing them personally.
While they were announcing the finalists, I already knew I wasn't one of them. It was still kind of sad not to hear my name being called. But I felt calm again because it was over. Then it was time for the table read.
The people on the right with the microphones are the actors. It was pretty cool to hear them read the scrips for the first time.
The judges chose Koura as the winner. Personally I didn't agree with them, but another thing about film contests/writing contests is that it's like judging art. Everyone has a different opinion on art. So, if you're lucky to write a script that resonates with the judges, you're likely to be chosen. And there was probably the business side to this contest that the judges were mostly focusing on.
If you find yourself entering in a film contest, know that there are elements that are out of your control. It's not like in sports or dance, where you practice and practice then on the day you have to go out there and preform it's easy to see a clear winner.
Filmmaking is like judging one painting to another. I rather do my own thing than ask people to hire me. From this experience I learned to write faster and to go with my gut. I actually like the other scripts I wrote while I was preparing for this contest. It has also been a while since I've been stretched out of my comfort zone. I can also see more writing contests doing something like this in the future. It's more fun than gathering people to announce the winner for screenwriting and then boom, done. The event is over.
I hope this was helpful to you! Good luck out there ^_^
Until next time!
Best,
Emel