by John | Jun 17, 2019 | Updates
Wanted to enter our Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest but missed the deadline? You’ll be pleased to hear that we’ve extended the deadline by one week, giving you an extra chance to submit!
We know how easy it can be to miss a competition deadline. Maybe you were trying to make those last minute adjustments to your script that you felt would take it another level, only to find that it’s a bigger task than expected. Or maybe life just got in the way – as it tends to do!
We’ve really enjoyed reading the scripts that have been entered into our contest so far, and we’re eager to see what else you might have on offer. As a result we made the decision to extend the deadline and give you a bit of extra time to enter!
There are major advantages to entering one of our contests. The Grand Prize for the top placed script is $2000, and the top three scripts all receive:
- A year of free script development worth up to $3200
- Guaranteed pitching to industry
- Exclusive previews of WriteMovies Academy, our unique Virtual Film School
- Exclusive prizes from InkTip
And if you need even more info on what’s on the line, click here to take a look at an article from last week in which we discussed how we help our winners develop their scripts and make them even better!
Don’t miss your chance. This is your last opportunity to get involved in our Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest and take your first steps towards screenwriting success with WriteMovies!
Click here to enter the WriteMovies Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest!
by John | Jun 14, 2019 | Writing Insights
The fundamental thing that a script should do is tell a great story. Hopefully, that’s not a contentious point – we go to the movies or turn on the TV because we want to be entertained! Whether it’s an adventure, an emotional drama, or a horror, the story is what keeps people hooked. With that in mind, it’s easy to focus on the things that are always visible: plot points, characters, and dialogue.
But it’s important not to forget that the very best stories have layers. Underneath the surface, they have something more to say about life. If you ignore this second layer – if you ignore themes, and forget to include one (or more!) in your script, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice. They might not be visible or obvious, but they’re extremely important.
At the end of the day, it’s the theme that will most touch an audience and make them remember your film long after they’ve seen it. Anyone can string gunfights, explosions, arguments, and witty dialogue together, but if you can say something unique and profound that no-one else can say, it’ll really make you stand out.
It’s important to note that the theme is not the same as the concept of your script. Your concept or premise is the idea that drives your story; your theme is the message that it is trying to convey through that idea.
So for example, in David Lean’s classic film THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, the concept is that a rule-obsessed British colonel helps his Japanese captors to build a railway bridge, while being unaware of an Allied plan to blow it up. The themes, however, revolve around the absurdity of the idea that there can be rules in warfare and that honor can exist in such a situation.
These themes are never explicitly stated, but they’re clear from very early on, as soon as Colonel Nicholson (Alex Guinness) takes out his copy of the Geneva Conventions and attempts to show it to the uncaring commandant Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) to protest that his officers can’t be put to work because it would be in breach of law. And later on, Nicholson even forbids his men from trying to escape the POW camp because, having been ordered to surrender, escaping would be in breach of their orders!
This theme – of the absurdity of the rules of war – is difficult to express in a single, memorable sentence. It’s always there, though, in every scene of THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. It leads us through the story from start to finish.
Knowing what your theme is before you start writing (or at the very least, during writing) is immensely helpful in this regard. If you don’t know what message you want to express, your story can end up wandering all over the place because it doesn’t have any guidance; a strong theme, on the other hand, can help to keep it on track.
So there are a lot of good reasons to make sure your screenplay’s themes are clear. It will help audiences to remember your work, making you stand out as a writer with something unique to say, and keep your story on track.
It will also help to keep us script analysts engaged. Make us use our brains rather than just dealing with things on a shallow level, and we’ll keep reading – and if you can get people to keep reading your script, page after page, then unsurprisingly you’ll achieve success in this industry!
Looking for more help on writing your script? Click here to take a look at more of our Writing Insights articles!
by John | Jun 9, 2019 | Updates
The WriteMovies Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest is heating up, with just one week to go until the final deadline on Sunday June 16th!
There’s a host of reasons to submit to this competition – not least of which is the Grand Prize of $2000, which is awarded to the script that comes in first place. Even more valuable, however, is the guaranteed pitching to industry and the year of free script development given to the top three scripts.
Any great writer knows that writing is rewriting. With help and advice from our industry experts, our winners can expect to see their script go from strength to strength. We’ll assess your work on elements such as concept, structure, characters, and more.
WriteMovies is able to add a massive amount of value to any script, no matter how far along it is. Don’t forget that you can get our help on your screenplay by buying one of our Script Reports, starting with Judging Feedback from $89 up to the more comprehensive Development Notes at $149.
And once our winners scripts are in the best possible shape – that’s when we start taking them out into the world and pitching them to the industry! Don’t miss out on your chance to win these great prizes and start your screenwriting journey with WriteMovies.
Make sure you submit to our Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest by the final deadline this Sunday, June 16th by clicking here!
by John | Jun 7, 2019 | Our Winners, WMC
THE TIME-TRAP: When the most dangerous man in America gets his hands on a time machine, an emotionally fragile FBI agent must go back through time after him, with the full knowledge that he can only return to the present by living his past all over again.
To describe THE TIME-TRAP as a thrilling ride would be an understatement. Partnering a great concept with high-octane action, this is a manhunt like we’ve never seen before. It kept us gripped from the first page to the last, coming through a highly competitive field to take first place. Congratulations to the writer of THE TIME-TRAP and the first ever winner of the WriteMovies Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award, Mark Flood!
As the WriteMovies Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award 2019 winner, Mark has won guaranteed pitching to industry, two sets of Development Note, and further advice on honing his script from our screenwriting experts. He’s also still in contention for our Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest, which has a Grand Prize of $2000 and is open until June 16th. Click here if you want to enter the competition yourself!
Here’s a summary of THE TIME-TRAP:
Special Agent Sam Miller, a man haunted by the tragedy of his past, is the lead agent in the hunt for the FBI’s most wanted, Michael Barnton. After a dramatic chase across San Francisco Bay, Miller is successful in capturing Barnton, but instead of his mission coming to an end, he discovers it has only just begun.
Barnton escapes custody and stows away in a scientist’s car; a scientist who has succeeded in building a time machine which Barnton steals and uses to leap into the past, planning to change things in his favor. What Barnton doesn’t know is that although he can jump backwards multiple times, the only way to come forward to the present is to live all those days over again.
Realizing that he might be target in the past, Miller agrees to go after Barnton. Armed with a tracker and a second time machine, Miller embarks on an epic chase through time – with not just the chance to catch Barton, but also to right the pain from his past and discover that there might be more to Barnton’s crimes than it first seemed.
If you’re a producer interested in this project, email david.vogel@atalentscout.com today!
And here’s a quick bio of the writer of THE TIME-TRAP, Mark Flood:
Mark grew up in Northern Ireland and moved to Scotland to study at university. Because of his love of film and television, he decided to try his hand at screenwriting after university and even wrote a novel.
In recent years, Mark has continued to write for the screen. He is now writing with a better understanding of the process, a new love of the craft, and an appreciation of what his strengths are.
by John | Jun 3, 2019 | Updates
We first launched the WriteMovies Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award because we wanted to be transported to amazing, fantastical new worlds – and boy, did you guys deliver! Our entrants spanned the deepest reaches of space, magical lands, and all of time: past, present, and future!
The imagination is a writer’s most powerful weapon, and it was on full display here. Well done to everyone who entered; the quality was so consistently high that you made it extremely difficult for us to pick a winner!
Some of the things that helped us make our choice include:
- Originality of concept – giving us something truly unique instead of something we’ve seen before
- Depth and complexity of worldbuilding – making the universe of the story feel like a real, lived in place
- Impressive visual elements – taking full advantage of these genres’ strengths
- Great characters – ensuring that the human element doesn’t get lost!
So here it is… The first ever winner of the inaugural WriteMovies Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award is…
THE TIME-TRAP
By Mark Flood
A big congratulations to Mark, who has won guaranteed pitching to industry, two sets of Development Notes, and continued script development from us! Well done also to all of our Honorable Mentions, who you can find listed below.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
| OMEGA POINT, James Bingham |
ENDANGERED SPECIES, Mark Flood |
GODLESS SKIES, Joshua David Harris |
| FABLE OF THE JADE TIGER, Jason Fisher |
SHIRO, Pascal Kulcsar |
THE LAST PRISON, Richard Geiwitz |
| THE REVOLT OF THE WHALES, Michael Rhodes |
MARS GENESIS, Don Ternyila |
RACE MUSIC, Eric Weber |
by John | May 29, 2019 | Industry News
It’s always important to keep up to date with what scripts are selling, and there are some interesting things to note from Script Pipeline’s last couple of reports on sales from March and April…
First of all, sales have slowed lately because a dispute has led to most WGA members firing their agents. That alone is worth keeping an eye on; how script sales will be conducted in the future, and how practices will change as a result of this, could have major ramifications for our industry.
Apart from this, here are some of the things that caught our eye in these latest reports…
- There’s been some controversy over the casting of Will Smith as Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena, in biopic KING RICHARD. With Smith set to also produce, however, it’s unlikely that the casting will change. This could be a powerful sports biopic if handled correctly.
- The DC Extended Universe will continue with THE FLASH – and unusually, it seems they’re allowing Ezra Miller, who plays the title role, to write it as well.
- Although they haven’t traditionally fared well (DETECTIVE PIKACHU excepted), another video game adaptation is being attempted in the form of SAINTS ROW. Lacking the brand appeal of franchises like POKEMON or ASSASSIN’S CREED, it remains to be seen whether there’s really an audience for this.
- On a similar note, last year’s TOMB RADIER reboot is getting a sequel. We weren’t too impressed with it ourselves, but it’s clearly done well enough at the box office to deserve a follow up.
- With recent adaptations of IT and PET SEMETARY, bringing the works of Stephen King to the screen is popular right now. That trend continues with ‘SALEM’S LOT – here’s hoping it’s more like the former than the latter in terms of quality.
If you want to see what else has been sold these last couple of months, take a closer look at Script Pipeline’s report on March Script Sales by clicking here, or click here for sales from April!
by John | May 27, 2019 | Francais
Notre compétition de Sci-Fi et Fantastique est close, mais le Concours PRINTEMPS 2019 est toujours d’actualité – et la deadline arrive dans moins d’un mois.
Vous avez jusqu’au 16 Juin pour participer et peut-être gagner le Grand Prix de 2000$ cash, et la garantie de voir votre texte présenté au grands producteurs, ainsi qu’un an de Développement de script gratuit, pour les trois premiers. Donc à vos claviers ! Et n’oubliez pas de peaufiner vos dialogues, ajuster votre histoire, étoffer vos personnages, et donnez-nous envie de lire vos textes.
Qu’est ce qui nous donnera envie de vous lire ? Voici quelques trucs :
- Un concept unique. Nous lisons beaucoup de scénarios, donc montrez-nous quelque chose que nous n’avons jamais vu !
- Des personnages qui ont de la consistance et que nous pouvons aimer suivre. Si nous sommes happés par les personnages, nous aurons envie de savoir ce qui va leur arriver après !
- Un potentiel commercial fort. Si le projet risque de ne pas rapporter, il a peu de chance d’être fait.
- Une grande scène d’ouverture. L’histoire doit nous happer dès les dix premières pages. Les premières impressions comptent !
Jetez aussi un œil à l’article de notre Directeur Ian Kennedy, vous aurez quelques trucs et astuces sur les erreurs à ne pas commettre ainsi que d’autres détails importants.
Voilà, vous êtes prêts… Cliquez ici pour envoyer votre texte et participer au Concours PRINTEMPS 2019, avant le 16 Juin !
