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 | Aug 18, 2023 | 2023 Screenwriting Contest, Contests, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award, Screenwriting Contests
Thanks for all your entries to our 2023 contests.
The WriteMovies Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award is a thrilling journey into other realms, exploring the vast possibilities of the human imagination through your scripts. Amidst the captivating landscapes and intricate narratives, we have, after careful consideration, selected a deserving winner!
Sci-fi and fantasy genres often birth franchises, offering storytellers rich lore and expansive story worlds to delve into. This amplifies the excitement as we eagerly anticipate presenting all our winners to the industry.
Remember, even if you didn’t clinch the victory this time, your writing journey continues. Persevere and re-enter future contests, for persistence is a writer’s essential trait!
Seeking assistance? Explore our sci-fi and fantasy-themed writing insights articles, covering aspects like worldbuilding and dialogue. For personalized guidance, consider our Elite Mentoring service, connecting you with industry veterans.
Thanks for all your entries to our 2023 contests, which closed on November 26th. We’re enjoying judging your works, now with our next winner to announce: our 2023 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award Winner revealed: THE REVOLT OF THE WHALES by Michael Rhodes!
Congratulations to Michael for an inventive and visionary screenplay. We’re really looking forward to helping develop this further and pitching it to industry.
Congratulations once again to our
2023 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award Winner!!
Michael Rhodes
by John | Aug 11, 2023 | 2023 Screenwriting Contest, Contests, Rom-Com award, Screenwriting Contests
Thanks for all your entries to our 2023 contests.
Thanks for all your entries to our 2023 contests, which closed on November 26th. We’re enjoying judging your works and we’re already set with our next winner to announce, postponed a few days due to the contest extension: our 2023 Romance and Comedy Award winner, WHISKEY MOUNTAIN DAYS by Bill Walker!
Congratulations to Bill for an imaginative and unique screenplay. We’re really looking forward to helping develop this further and pitching it to industry.
Congratulations once again to our
2023 Romance and Comedy Award Winner!!
Bill Walker
by WriteMovies | Aug 4, 2023 | 2023 Screenwriting Contest, Contests, Horror Award, Screenwriting Contests
2023 Horror Award winner revealed: THE LAND OF BROKEN SKY by Jeremy D. Thompson!
Thanks for all your entries to our 2023 contests, which closed on Sunday. We’re enjoying judging your works and we’re already set with a first winner to announce, postponed a few days due to the contest extension: our 2023 Horror Award winner, THE LAND OF BROKEN SKY by Jeremy D. Thompson!
Congratulations to Jeremy for a vivid and highly original script full of unique visuals and skin-crawling moments. We’re really looking forward to helping develop this further and pitching it to industry.
This is just the first of our results announcements to cap off the year – many more to come over the weeks ahead so watch this space! Congratulations once again to our 2023 Horror Award winner Jeremy D. Thompson.
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 | Feb 10, 2023 | Contests, Our Winners, Pitching, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award, Screenwriting Contests
Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be showcasing our many award winners from 2022 as we pitch them to successful producers and studios.
First is our Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award winner, a vivid portrait of a future family finding peace and happiness together in a deep-space setting, only to be torn apart by wars and social conflict as they try to reunite.
When a sentimental miner moves to a safer planet ahead of his studious husband and their daughter, an interplanetary class war threatens to divide the family forever.
To express an interest in producing or optioning this script, contact talent@atalentscout.com now!
About the writer:
Illimani Ferreira is a Brazilian writer currently living in the United States, more precisely in Coastal Oregon, where he is trying to figure out if, as a person who grew up in Brazil’s central savannas, he is a beach person or not.
Before moving to the United States, Illimani Ferreira had the chance to live in different countries such as Brazil, France, and Canada, and work in different fields, from Social Housing policy consulting to scrubbing toilet bowls at 3 am in a shelter for homeless persons living with the HIV. As an immigrant himself, Illimani cares deeply for matters related to immigrant rights.
Illimani’s writing is focused on a broad range of Science Fiction that can go from a grimdark noir to the zaniest of comedies. He likes to think that there is a bittersweet signature in everything he writes and, although his Latinx identity doesn’t steer his writing, it does illuminate his perspective. The same applies to the fact that he is a gay man.
by John | Feb 8, 2023 | News, Our Winners, Screenwriting Contests
A glimpse under the hood at how we’re developing our winners, forging industry links and pitching.
Developing scripts with our winners, and readying them for the right time to pitch, is a unique pleasure of our position in the industry. We’ve been working intensively with many of our recent winners in January and we’re looking forward to introducing you to them and their work over the coming months – always looking for that perfect moment when their script is best placed to capitalize on its potential, or even on renewed topical interest in its themes and subject matter. We’ve got a fascinating slate right now and we can’t wait to share it with you.
It takes a lot of long-term relationship-building behind the scenes to make this kind of thing possible. Not just with our writers, but of course with producers and industry talents as well. Those relationships and connections take many forms. Our founder Alex Ross has completed his groundbreaking book BLOCKBUSTED on the evolution of Hollywood’s calculated blockbuster, packed with interviews and industry insights. And he’s already completed lots of interviews with the team behind one iconic cult movie, for his next book, which will be all about that film. We’ll reveal all about it soon and tell you the fascinating people he’s been meeting to gain never-before revelations about some of its most famous questions!
So often, writers are thinkers. They tell stories by engaging with the issues and dilemmas of their times, and playing those issues and conflicts out through characters and their choices and challenges. It gets strangely prescient sometimes watching news stories unfold when you know that one of your writer clients or friends already wrote a script about that very issue, and totally nailed why these things happen in the world. It comes from working with talented writers over many years, that often, major news stories don’t come as a surprise at all. Sometimes writers serve as the conscience of their times, and as the early warning of the dangers and mistakes ahead of us if we don’t make the right choices now. Sometimes it’s all these things at once. That’s what I’ve been thinking in response to a major news story this week. As it unfolded, I was remembering how much of it exactly mirrored a different true story that was adapted years ago by one industry professional we speak to regularly. That story foreshadowed – sadly almost fully – many of the exact same situations and issues which have now happened again and have once again become a massive news story. Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same!
2023 is shaping up to be an exciting and fascinating year for us, and we’ll continue to blog about it whenever we can.
Sign up to our newsletter BELOW to come along for the ride!
