by John | Nov 10, 2023 | Contests, Highlights, News, Our Winners, Screenwriting Contests, WriteMovies News
Become the next Grand Prize Winner we pitch to the industry
We love working with a wide range of talented writers and taking their work out to the industry – if you’d like us to do the same for you, enter any of our current contests now! The final deadline is November 12th. To introduce you to last year’s Grand Prize Winner Zack Kahn, writer of CURVEBALL, and the work we’ve done with him to ready it for pitching, read on!
Zack Kahn was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and attended NYU Tisch Film School.
He started his career as a writer/director/producer at Nickelodeon and has since written for film, TV and promos with a focus on thriller/horror and comedy. He is also an actor that has appeared in numerous commercials.
Kahn has placed in Writemovies’ contest with 3 previous entries. “Curveball,” a high-concept thriller, is his first Grand Prize win.
Zack says: “Writemovies’ several rounds of development notes have been extremely insightful and helpful in enhancing the script and I’m eager for their team to expose the project to the appropriate eyeballs and ultimately facilitate production at the best possible home for this unique story.”
For your chance to follow in Zack’s footsteps and become the next Grand Prize winner, enter our 2023 Screenwriting Contest here today! Just $59…
by John | Oct 23, 2023 | Alex Ross, News, Our Books, Script Mentoring offers, WriteMovies News
InkTip partnership, Royal Historical Society, Newsweek, Amazon news
It’s been another lively period for us, and the end of the WGA strike opens up many doors for us and our winners again – but a lot was already happening, as you can see here! Lots to tell you about from this period including impressive new acclaim for Dr. Alex Ross!
- We’ve renewed our partnership with InkTip, enabling us and 4 of our winners to gain significant exposure to successful producers – more on this soon!
- Alex Ross has been made a fellow of the Royal Historical Society – some accolade! Alex says: “It’s a pretty cool honour as the fellowship is the highest form of membership and really tough to get”! Read about it here.
- The next book by Dr. Alex Ross is also shaping up as a blockbuster insight into a hugely talked-about movie – we’re looking forward to revealing this soon!
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! (more…)
by John | Oct 16, 2023 | Ian Kennedy, News, Script Mentoring offers, WriteMovies News
It’s hard for anyone to process the scale and horror of events like the atrocities in Israel and Palestine, or genocide and ethnic cleansing, or the devastation caused by the invasion of Ukraine. But writers can play a vital role in helping us all process, and respond to, these unthinkable events when they happen. (more…)
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 | May 15, 2023 | Alex Ross, Offers, Our Books, WriteMovies News
30% off for all WriteMovies newsletter subscribers!
This ground-breaking new book shows how Hollywood developed its ‘calculated blockbuster’ and created a replicable model for success which all industry professionals can use to their advantage. Packed with insights and unheard stories from the massive films of the past and today through an industry insider’s perspective, it’s a must-read for screenwriters, producers and anyone with a passion for the movies over recent decades.
The book is published here in hardback ($110) and eBook ($45) formats:
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666911084/The-Evolution-of-Hollywood’s-Calculated-Blockbuster-Films-Blockbusted
An exclusive 30% discount is available to all WriteMovies subscribers. It’s easy to get the discount – just directly email info@writemovies.com to request the promo code!
To subscribe check the menus at the bottom of the page.
About Alexander Ross and BLOCKBUSTED…
Dr. Alexander Ross launched his journey into filmmaking, as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, by watching a lot more films at the Arts Cinema than attending lectures. On graduating, he was hired by Ismail Merchant (Merchant/Ivory Productions) to work on a film as assistant director.
Ross later went to Los Angeles, working for MGM Studios as a story analyst. With a keen eye for spotting scripts with great winning potential, he was hired by a literary agency based in Beverly Hills. Sifting through the pile of rejections, he noticed a script by a then unknown Quentin Tarantino, as well as one by Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show). The discoveries gave his career a major boost.
Several years later, Ross created his own management company, helped to finance a number of films, produced a romcom (which he sold to Warner Bros.), founded www.writemovies.com, ran more than 5,000 pitch meetings at the studios, (mainly with the heads of production), became an expert consultant to the European Union: Education, Audio-visual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), as well as to several hedge funds and family offices looking to invest in motion pictures. With his deep reservoir of knowledge about Hollywood’s inner sanctum, he decided to write about his experiences and so headed back to the UK to do a PhD. His first major publication came in the 2019 anthology on the film Grease: “Grease is the Word”.
Now, “The Evolution of Hollywood’s Calculated Blockbuster Films: Blockbusted” is his most extensive probe into Hollywood’s most dynamic era. It is the first contemporary book to delve deep into the studio process behind the making of some of the defining modern blockbusters of the 1970s and 1980s, by engaging directly with many of the leading executives who run Hollywood.
The book investigates William Goldman’s “Nobody knows anything” contention which suggests that every film the studios make is a colossal gamble. Over eight years of research, which included dozens of interviews with leading filmmakers and leading film academics, revealed that not only do the studios know exactly what they are doing, but by using replicable key markers of success, they have radically reduced the risk in film investment and significantly increased their multi-platform revenue streams.
This book is intended not just for scholars, undergraduates and post-graduates, but also for the fans of The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Back to the Future etc. who want to find out what really made those films work. It also provides budding screenwriters, directors, producers, agents and studio executives with the keys to the kingdom.
The book shows specific, detailed instructions on how to make highly successful movies, repeatedly.
