by John | Oct 20, 2023 | 2023 Screenwriting Contest, Development Notes, Elite Consulting, Industry Diary, Matt Rose, News, Pitching, Screenwriting Contests, WriteMovies News
Our Development Notes have been getting our winners ready for industry.
Major wins for all writers this month with the WGA and AMPTP reaching a tentative deal expected to end the strike, and meeting many of the WGA’s demands! For a breakdown of the deal, see the WGA’s Summary of the 2023 WGA MBA. And thanks to this, we’re resuming pitching and relishing it!
With the strike coming to a close, we are thrilled to soon resume pitching our winning scripts from the last contest cycle! Polished through a cycle of incisive WriteMovies development notes and exciting rewrites by our wonderful writers, we are ready to cast a wide net in pitching these stories to studios, producers, and financiers. We have been researching a wide variety, from big names to indie powerhouses, to contact with our pitches and strategically crafted one-sheets when the time is right. And that time is near!
Maintaining relationships with our winning writers, our team has offered their analysis and insight on numerous drafts, in order to make these scripts as compelling as they can be and ensure they pop off the page for potential producers. As we reach the climactic pitching preparations for our last contest cycle, we are also ramping up on a new screenwriting contest that is currently accepting submissions. Resuming pitching is an exciting time for all of us and we’d love you to be a part of it too…
Have you written your next (or first!) masterpiece but you’re not sure how to get it off the ground? Need the motivation to finally finish a story you’ve been yearning to tell? Get your script in before the submission window closes! A contest submission guarantees your script is getting out in the world and getting read by a panel of analysts and industry judges. Winners will receive development notes and the full pitching force of WriteMovies.com. For all entrants, we guarantee feedback on your first 10 pages, and you may opt-in for full-on development notes as well. We look forward to reading your stories! (And, hopefully, one day, watching them on the big screen!)
See our current contests here!
by John | Jul 14, 2023 | Industry Diary, Industry News, News, Pitching, WriteMovies News
Why we’re pausing all pitching until 2023 WGA strike disputes are resolved.
WriteMovies would like to welcome our new Analyst Matt Rose, who shares our response to the 2023 WGA strike below:
Our team here at WriteMovies stands behind the Writers Guild of America during their current strike as they put the scripted film and television industries on hold in advocating for fair wages, protections from being overworked and understaffed, and safeguards against AI screenwriting.
As script consultants and contest runners, we’ve worked with countless writers, both aspiring and experienced, and we understand the painstaking labor that goes into perfecting a screenplay for production. From blockbusters to indie hits, we know that every great film or series begins with an excellent script. In all respects, we pride ourselves on doing everything we can to hone and bolster the voices of screenwriters. In solidarity with the writers who keep the entertainment industry afloat as proven by the numerous production delays and shutdowns effected by their strike WriteMovies will not be pitching to any studios that are WGA signatories until the strike comes to an end.
The demands of the WGA, outlined by AP News, include calls for much-needed updates to outdated wage and labor standards, which have effectively been used to underpay and overwork screenwriters in recent years. As audiences continue to move away en masse from live television towards streaming platforms, writers’ residuals from syndication have all but vanished while long-term streaming deals leave writers’ compensation disproportionate to their value. The WGA calls for increased upfront pay to correct for residuals lost to the streaming era.
Also based on norms of the past, overly-long exclusivity deals leftover from the age of 22-episode TV seasons block writers from accepting available work despite 8-10 episode seasons now being commonplace. The WGA demands shorter exclusivity terms to mirror the shrinking of TV seasons. The guild also wants to end the exploitation of “mini rooms” which overwork a handful of writers during development, and they demand contractual safeguards against studios’ and producers’ use of artificial intelligence to write scripts.
Any pitching to studios and producers is considered a crossing of the picket line even for aspiring guild writers, who may be permanently barred from WGA membership for scab behavior though writers may continue seeking agents or managers, according to screenwriter and WGA secretary-treasurer Christopher Kyle. WriteMovies will continue to offer our screenplay contests and development services, and our studio pitching for winning scripts will resume as soon as the WGA strike comes to a close. In the meantime, we are working as hard as ever to aid our winning writers in polishing their scripts and prepping our pitch materials!
Find out more about WriteMovies’ contests and submission opportunities HERE.
by John | Jul 14, 2023 | 2023 Screenwriting Contest, Contests, Industry Diary, Industry News, News, Pitching, Screenwriting Contests, WriteMovies News
WriteMovies is back and ready to launch our long-proven contests again in the weeks ahead.
It’s an exciting year for us and it’s hard to believe it’s already halfway done. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes on preparing our winners for pitching, as well as Dr. Alex Ross’s books and launches, and we’re getting ready for a dynamic few months ahead. Now we’re ready to relaunch our contests and services with an expanded and refreshed team – and we’re looking forward to finding out what you’ve been working on too!
We’re looking forward to having a big pitching presence in the months ahead – writers’ strike permitting! We’re also publishing our response to the WGA strike today here – we want writers to thrive in the new era, we’ve got some great winning scripts to promote, and we’ll share those adventures with you once the situation is right again.
Meanwhile, don’t forget that our founder Dr Alex Ross’s new book BLOCKBUSTED is now available in hardback and eBook and ALL of our newsletter subscribers can get a full 30% off! Click here to find out more – we look forward to sharing lots more about it in the months ahead. The film is full of exclusive insights into the evolution of Hollywood’s calculated blockbuster, including lots of your favorite movies from the 1970s to today. We’re also itching to tell you about his next book, which goes even deeper into one of the most iconic and talked-about films of the last half-century!
We’ve also got lots of strong new media and online course content shaping up to share with you as well – so there’s lots to look forward to!
by John | Oct 22, 2021 | Industry Diary
We’ve been keeping up with our work pitching our winners’ scripts lately, making sure that we’ve got everything ready as we reach out to industry. Here are a few of the things we’ve been up to…
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by WriteMovies | Sep 9, 2021 | Industry Diary, Industry News, Updates
Oh, and in other industry news, apparently there’s a Bond movie out this Fall as well. I’m guessing we can’t say “you heard it here first!” but anyway! In honor of it, this is the 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios photographed by our Director between meetings there.
It’s been an exciting time for our winners – as well as the new Success Stories we’ve already shared with you about exciting deals that Vanisha and Elizabeth have done thanks to their wins with us, we’ve got at least two more to come, which we’re itching to be able to reveal! Watch this space… but that’s just the start. We’ve got a lot of other entertainment industry discussions and activity to share with you this Fall. Here are other exciting discussions and outcomes we’ve been gearing up for this summer: (more…)
by WriteMovies | Jun 30, 2021 | Industry Diary, Industry News, Pitching
Our engagement in the wider industry never stops, even while we’re deep in judging scripts for our major contests. In fact we’re having some fascinating conversations right now, and we share them with you in our Industry Diary articles when we can. Here’s what we’ve got up to in June, including our best practice tips for linking writers and producers… (more…)
by John | May 6, 2021 | Industry Diary
The past month in our Industry Diary: It’s been a long year, but we’re always looking to get our scripts pitched to industry. As productions get back on their feet, here’s an update about what we’ve been up to lately:
- One of our winners provided an excellent new draft of his powerful script yesterday, refined following our latest free Development Notes to get it pitch-ready. We’ve immediately sent the script on to Oscar-winning producers who asked to see the new draft once ready. Really excited to see what they think of it!
- I attended the WGGB Open Session discussing the impact of Covid-19 and Brexit has had on the industry, and information and guidance people can receive in the future. I also heard stories from people’s personal projects that were postponed, cancelled, or fortunate enough to be adapted to go ahead during the pandemic.
- Making enquiries through IMDb Pro with potential producers about some of our winners such as END OF THE LINE, RIDING WITH CHARLIE and MAKE THE WEATHER. You can read all about the writers and the scripts in the articles linked.
- We’ve been communicating with our latest winners to get their work pitch ready. All our winners have now received Development Notes from our analysts and are hard at work on new drafts of their scripts. We’ve also been putting together one-page pitches for them, a key tool for us when pitching.
- One of our recent winners is reworking their script into a different format after an expression of interest from one of our contacts, who is looking to pass on sci-fi scripts for an award-winning Hollywood professional to direct. Loglines for all our winners scripts were also sent out to top producers for consideration.
