An historical drama set in Roman Britain adapted from the novel by Rosemary Sutcliff, OUTCAST captured us from the first page to the last with its superb world-building and dramatic story. Congratulations to its writer, Sarah Bellwood, for placing 3rd in our Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest!
Another deadline approaches! There are only a couple more days left to enter the WriteMovies Fall 2019 Screenwriting Contest and Horror Award 2019 at our cheaper Early Bird rate… Make sure you don’t forget to enter by this Sunday, August 25th!
Just last week, we were excited to announce the winners of our Spring Contest – but the wheels never stop turning here at WriteMovies. Our next two competitions are well underway, with fantastic prizes and opportunities to be won for screenwriters!
Not only is there the chance to win the $2000 Grand Prize of our Fall 2019 Screenwriting Contest, but we’re also celebrating great writing in our 20th Anniversary year with our second genre prize: the WriteMovies Horror Award 2019!
Submissions to the Horror Award receive free entry to the Fall Contest, with additional prizes on offer too: two sets of Development Notes, further advice on fine-tuning the winning script, and guaranteed pitching to industry.
And more than that, it’s the opportunity to be the first ever winner of this Award, joining Mark Flood who earlier this year became the winner of our inaugural Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award with his script THE TIME-TRAP!
If you need a bit longer, don’t worry. The final deadline for the Horror Award is September 29th and for the Fall Screenwriting Contest, you’ve got until October 13th. But if your script is ready, make sure you submit before the Early Bird Entry ends on Sunday!
Click here to submit to the Fall 2019 Screenwriting Contest – or click here to submit to the Horror Award!
It’s one of the most exciting moments of the year for us here at WriteMovies… Yes, it’s the moment we get to announce the winners of our most recent competition: the Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest!
As WriteMovies entered its 20th year, we decided that we wanted to reward writers by creating awards that celebrated different genres. We’re very pleased to announce that the second of those awards is now open for submissions: the WriteMovies Horror Award 2019!
After the huge success of our Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award, we couldn’t be more excited to see what you’ve got for us next. We’re certain you’ll show the same inventiveness, passion, and storytelling talent that we saw last time – except that this time, you’ll need to be a lot scarier!
The winner of the WriteMovies Horror Award 2019 will receive:
Plus, ALL entries to this award will automatically get FREE entry to the WriteMovies Fall 2019 Screenwriting Contest, with the chance to take home the Grand Prize of $2000 – so if you’ve got a horror script and were thinking of entering our main contest anyway, you’ve nothing to lose.
Horror is a genre where a lot of great filmmakers have started out and made their name. If you want to join them, this could be your chance! Make sure you enter by the final deadline of September 29th.
Scare us with your stories. Come up with concepts and creatures that will chill us to the bone. And once you’ve put it all down on paper and finished writing your script…
Submit to the WriteMovies Horror Award 2019! Click here to visit the main contest page and find out more!
It’s a big day for us here at WriteMovies as we announce the Quarter-Finalists from our Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest – and what an amazing group of scripts this has turned out to be!
The bar continues to rise for us with each competition. The response to this contest has been genuinely fantastic, with people submitting right up to the final deadline – and many more taking advantage of our one-week extension!
It’s hard to think of a time when the standard has been higher. We’ve had screenplays from all kinds of genres, ranging from serious drama to children’s animation, from horror to comedy to romance and everything in between!
And of course, fuelled by our inaugural Sci-Fi and Fantasy competition – with every submission also receiving free entry to the Spring 2019 Contest – we’ve not only been taken to countless new worlds, but we’ve had even more high quality scripts to judge than ever before!
If you’re disappointed that you haven’t made it onto our list of Quarter-Finalists, just keep in mind how tough the competition was this time. And don’t give up! If you want to go further but aren’t sure how, we’d recommend making use of one of our Script Report services to get the feedback you need that will take your script to the next level.
You’ll also get free entry to our next major Screenwriting Contest when you buy a Script Report: the Fall 2019 Screenwriting Contest is already open for submissions. Click here to find out more!
But for now, well done to all of our Quarter-Finalists, and keep an eye out for Semi-Finals on August 2nd. Hit the button below to find out who made the Quarter-Finals!
| Quarter-Finalists | ||
| BISCAYNE, Adam Hersh | THE ENCHANTED OPAL, Alan Smith | CARAVAGGIO, Alasdair McMullan |
| TORONTO THE GOOD, Andrew Moodie | SURVIVAL, Anne Raitt | EPSILON, Anthony Etherington |
| GLEIS DER VERGELTUNG, Astrid Korten | LADY IN RED, Astrid Korten | DIE TRANE, Astrid Korten |
| MADE IN AMERICA, Rikki Rivera | STARRING… JOHN DILLINGER, Bill Walker & Brian Anthony | DON’T TELL A SOUL, Dan Stone |
| MARS GENESIS, Don Ternyila | THREE DAYS, Emilio Santin | APEX VANISHED, Eric Barcley |
| RACE MUSIC, Eric Weber & Hasan Oracius | THE CRAWL UP, Gabriell DeBear Paye | OMEGA POINT, James Bingham |
| FABLE OF THE JADE TIGER, Jason Fisher | IN THE GAME, Jason Fisher | ITER APOCALYPSE, Jean-Francois Oviode |
| A CHANGE OF PLANS, Jeffrey Ward | MONSTER, Jennifer Carta | UN CRIME PLUS QUE PARFAIT, Joel Prost |
| CHANNEL THIRD, Jonathan Murnane | GODLESS SKIES, Joshua David Harris | SUNSHINE STATE: DUENDE, Kai Thorup |
| DOUBLE FF, Karl Mather | CAROLINE BUXTON’S LIPSTICK POSSE, Kelly Karam | KID SOLDIER, Kelly Karam |
| LENA’S RULES, Ken Comer | ANCIENT DEMONS, Kushagra Kundra | PLANET SPARTA, Link Miller |
| THE TIME-TRAP, Mark Flood | ENDANGERED SPECIES, Mark Flood | PRODOMICA, Matt Lewis |
| INCIDENT AT PINEY HOLLOW, Michael Neyland & Susan Neyland | THE REVOLT OF THE WALES, Michael Rhodes | VOYAGE DANS L’HISTOIRE, Nanny Silvestre |
| CINQUIEME ETAGE, Natacha Astuto | KATHARINE TO TESLA, FAITHFULLY YOURS, Natalie Paige Bentley | THE MERMAID, Natalie Paige Bentley |
| THE SAX, Pascal Kulcsar | SHIRO, Pascal Kulcsar | SURGEON HONG, Paul Gross |
| THE LAST PRISON, Richard Geiwitz | DARWIN RISING, Richard Geiwitz | TALES FROM MYSTERION: THE HIDDEN ISLAND, Richard Garcia Morgan & Ryan Jaroncyk |
| SUPREMACY, Rosalyn Rosen | HIGHLAND DRIVE, Rosalyn Rosen | OUTCAST, Sarah Bellwood |
| FRESH START, INC., Scott Taylor | THE CHEESE DANCE FILM FESTIVAL, Steven Bednar | A TASTE OF PRIVILEGE, Steven Bednar |
| HUNT FOR THE LOST SECRET OF EDEN, Tom Zmiarovich | APOCALYPSE, Tyler True | LOVE IS EVERYTHING, Tyler True |
| DER LETZTE BUS, Urs Aebersold | THE M&M BOYS, Gino DeMarco | COYOTE WARRIOR, Roberta Rovner Pieczenik |
Semi-Finalists are due to be announced on August 2nd and Finalists and Winners on August 16th – keep an eye out for those!
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.
Our inaugural Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award may have closed for submission, but the WriteMovies Spring 2019 Screenwriting Contest goes on – and the final deadline is now just one month away!
Your last chance to enter will be on Sunday June 16th, with a Grand Prize of $2000 plus guaranteed pitching to industry and a year of free script development for the top three scripts. So get to work polishing that dialogue, tweaking your story, and fleshing out those characters, and make sure you give us lots of reasons to get excited!
But what will help you to get our attention? Here are some things we look out for:
You should also take a look at our Director Ian Kennedy’s article on “What your writing submissions are telling us” for some hints and tips on what mistakes to avoid, and more details on what we’re after.