Silver Screenwriting

“How can a writer write a memorable spec script that helps get them staffed? Why is it so hard to write a TV pilot script that could not only help to get you noticed, but could sell? Teaching the writer to write a standout TV spec script and pilot script is my goal.

It is harder now than ever to get your scripts to land at the top of the pile. I have always believed that strong writing will rise. I have helped launch countless writing careers. While doing so, I have noticed some commonalities in the writers who make it. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is belief in self and a burning desire to make it happen.

If the writer starts their career with purpose, puts the work into writing the strongest scripts possible, learns the craft of storytelling and envisions success, it will happen. Learning the craft is the part that takes time and dedication. A large part of what I teach is getting the writer to draw from their truth and fictionalize it into their writing. I wrote a book, Story Line: Finding The Gold In Your Life Story that heavily explores this philosophy. It comes out in March of 2011. Guiding writers to understand this concept and a breakthrough method for constructing strong story that I’ve discovered has garnered big results.”

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We’ll be bringing you Jen’s guide in daily chunks over the next couple of weeks. For those entering the Golden Age of Television competition, this will be invaluable, practical help.

Silver Screenwriting – feature film scripts.
Golden Age of Television – television scripts & teleplays.
Short Script Contest – short scripts of 20 pages or less.

Opportunity, access and acclaim.

Television is booming, with an insatiable appetite for new content. High salaries, creative control and a fast paced, exciting environment have made tv a mecca for new writers.

TV is in a new golden age, and our Golden Age of Television Writing Competition seeks the best scripts across both major formats:

There are two categories:

1. Spec scripts (for a show already in existence) of half-hour or one hour length, comedies or dramas (The Office, CSI, etc.)
2. Pilots and MOW (Movie Of The Week). Pilots for comedies or dramas may be up to one hour in length.

We’re looking to find the next generation of tv writers, get them a polished range of samples and get the repped. Our prizes are focused on professional development, and include close, personal help getting onto the first step of the ladder.

Grand Prize

! Like all our contests, we work tirelessly to improve the access, development and career prizes, so check back often for updates as we expand our prize pool and our production company focused advisory board.

For both Spec Scripts & Pilots/Movie of the Week:

• Winner of each category receives $1000.
• All winners and finalists may receive consideration by established production companies and agencies.
• Telephone consult and full script development with Just Effing’s Julie Gray.
• Career consulting and coaching, plus free coverage from The Script Department.

Runners Up

The three runners up in each category:

Advisory Board, Judges & Production Companies

Confirmed prodcos will be added in the next few weeks.

Deadlines & Entry Fees

Early Bird: August 15, 2010 ($30)
Regular Deadline: September 15, 2010 ($40)
Extended Deadline: October 15, 2010 ($45)
FINAL DEADLINE: November 15, 2010 ($55)

Annoucements

Quarter Finals – December 15^th
Semi Finals – December 28^th
Winner – January 15th

What We Are Looking For

Fresh, polished concepts, great writing and a good grasp of the medium. We will setup pitches, representation meetings and potential sales, both in the US and also for foreign markets. We are looking for the next generation of tv writers with solid script skills and saleable ideas.

Television is so broad and there are so many niches and subgenres that we don’t want to constrain anyone by selecting particular types of show we’d like to see. Let your imagination run riot, but remember, commercial viability is all part of the writing mix.

Television Writing Help & Resources

Television Scripts To Download

Television scripts, while similar to feature scripts, are formatted slightly differently. Pages are looser and faster and it pays to check out some professional examples before submitting your own.

Click here to read an episode of Lost.

Click here for a classic Simpsons program.

Click here and sample a Star Trek script.

For the Silver Screenwriting Competition, we’d like to set out our detailed judging criteria. We have evolved a very rigorous, quantifiable method for judging your scripts:

1^st Cut

As with most screenwriting competitions, such as Austin, Silver Screenwriting readers are required to read to a minimum of at least page 30.

Readers then fill out a brief score card for each script.  Score cards include 5 categories:

PREMISE

NARRATIVE

CHARACTER/DIALOGUE

STRUCTURE

EXECUTION (format, language usage, spelling).

Scores range from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) in each category.

A minimum score of 19 is required to make it past the first cut.  Scores of 18 or below are eliminated from the competition.

This year we had roughly 200 scripts that made the 1^st cut with scores of 19 or more.

Quarterfinal Round

The scripts that have progressed past the 1^st round are then randomized and redistributed among the readers and they’re given a second score card with the same 5 categories.

The totals from the two score cards are added together, giving us a total score out of 50.  Any score with 41 points or better is published on the SSC website as a quarterfinalist, any with 40 points or less are eliminated from the competition.

This year we had 46 quarterfinalists with 4 that were moved into this round after a debate among the judges.

2^nd Round Judging (semi-finals)

Scores are reset and scripts are randomized and distributed to new readers.

Score cards include 6 categories:

ORIGINALITY OF PREMISE

GENRE EXECUTION

CHARACTER/DIALOGUE

THEME/SUBTEXT

VOICE

Score cards also include a brief summary of the strengths or weakness of the script.

The top scoring 20 scripts (any ties are automatically added to the list) qualify for the next level of judging.

All top 20 scripts and writers are cross checked to ensure eligibility per the Silver Screenwriting rules regarding ownership, earnings, options, etc.  (LINK TO RULES)

Third Round Judging (finalists)

The top 20 are now printed out in hard copy. Notes, comments and questions are made on the pages. Premise and summary notes are written on the title page or back cover.

Judges include Julie Gray and two top industry readers.

This qualifies the top 10 scripts for grand prize judging.

Grand prize winner, 2^nd, 3^rd place

The top 10 scripts are each read by a panel of judges including Julie Gray and two guest judges. For the 2010 competition, an executive from Fuse Entertainment and from The Bedford Falls Company will guest judge.

The grand prize winner, 2^nd and 3^rd place winners are chosen.

Here you go, everybody! The top 50 scripts of over 1,000 submitted. So this represents the top 5% and that’s quite an accomplishment! The 20 semi-finalists will be announced on August 1st.

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Abeyta, April & Kim Nunley – Super Ted

Amdahl, Joseph- A Boy in the Woods

Axelrad, David & Michel Plaxton – Machine Gun Kelly: The Real Story

Barlowe, John & Irin Evers – Miss Christmas

Bauer, Kristin – Edultery

Booth, Thom – Jaunt

Bowlden, Kelli – Venus Envy

Brown, Harold – Dewey and the Magic Library

Burningham, JR & Tess Ortbals – Terra Incognita

Cambria, Craig – Canaries

Catz, Sarit & Gloria Ketterer – Instant Karma

Cecchini, Ron – Blue Lady

Dilier, Matthew – The Sandbox

Donald, Mike – Cortex

Donald, Mike – Shadow Trade

Donnelly, Scott & Joe Douglass – Cows

Downs, Christine – The Jupiter Syndrome

Evans, Corey- Death’s Horizon

Farrand, Carol – Nobody in My Family Has Sex

Fass, Rick- Love Erasers

Figel, Rich – The Doll

Fortune, Jules – Better Than Broadband

Headley, Jason & Michael Tumino – Seniors

Hoover, Stephen – Buried South of Galatians

Hoover, Stephen – Ghosted

Hoover, Stephen – To Live, Press 1

Luu, D.N. – Faithful

Jackson, Ryan – Fix

Knutson, Forrest – Samurai High

Lammey, David – Shotgun Wedding

McCoy, Michael – Under the Rising Sun

McMinn, Dave – O Boy

Moore, Sherry Lynn – Hunting Season

Nolan, Tom – The Quick Way Home

Puterbaugh, Joseph – The Jack Johnson Story

Ridone, Steve – Colby on the Potomac

Rosen, Jane – Ancestral

Sayle, Allie & Liz – Troublemakers

Sheehy, Rich – The Intake

Simpson, R. Ian – Paraplizzle

Spiegelman, Bruce – IsiS

Stein, Christopher – Moment of Conception

Shyu, Tony – Macau Twilight

Stirling, Bruce – The Embalmer’s Apprentice

Wasserman, Daniel – Stowaways

Watson, Robert Keith – Bank Robbing for Dummies

Wiggins, Joseph – Amsterdam XXX

Wolfe, Celeste Chan – Spotnik

Tze Yun, Sun – The Sun Rises East

Zakalik, Marc – Drumadoon

Now, a word to those of you who didn’t place. Why god, why? you might be asking yourself right now. There were two of three reasons your script didn’t move up to the quarter finals and they are (broadly speaking) a) your script had significant format, spelling and language usage problems b) your first ten pages were not entertaining, the genre wasn’t clear and the tone was all over the map and c) subjectivity.

Now a small (but loving ) slap on the wrist and weird pattern I will note: this year, the scripts that didn’t make the cut were far worse than the scripts that didn’t make the cut last year. The scripts that made the cut, however, were far better. I have no idea why this is but the scripts that are moving up to the next round are going to be VERY tough to judge. I have my eye on about ten or twelve that I particularly like but on the other hand, I read one that was SO excellent for the first seventy five pages – great, right? – and then tanked out with a confusing, illogical, lazy ending.

So the real judging begins now. Can you write opening pages that engage, that are professional, that entertain and intrigue? Can you write with the proper format and without eight (YES, true story) pages of action lines first? Great. That makes you a quarterfinalist. Let’s see what you quarters can show us beyond that. This is where the going gets much tougher.

Good luck to you all and for those who didn’t make the cut here but did somewhere else, don’t forget subjectivity is at play here, so don’t be too downhearted. As I am wont to say, until they invent the Read-a-tron 5000, you have to make do with live humans who have experience and background reading scripts.  If you didn’t place anywhere else, take this as a sign that you are completely NORMAL and just need to keep writing. Don’t take it too seriously or too personally. Every single person who took the time to enter and who tried his or her best is a winner in my eyes and if you’ve ever met me you don’t doubt the truth of that. Onward!

To stay sharp, to learn and to write something you could film on a small budget, the short just keeps growing in importance.  In fewer than 20 pages you must establish plot, character, setting and take the audience into a satisfying story.

Many famous writers and directors owe their early careers to writing award winning shorts. Not only is it excellent practise, but a short is an excellent addition to a portfolio of writing samples and a way of beginning production on a project.

The screenplay must be no less than 5 (five) pages and no more than 20 (twenty) pages, excluding the cover.  There are no limits on subject, genre or style.  Please bear in mind this is a short film script, and should be formatted just like a feature.

Prizes

Can you write a strong story in just a few pages?

Grand Prize

For any script of 20 pages or fewer:

• Winner receives $500.
• All winners and finalists may receive consideration by established production companies and agencies.
• Telephone consult and full script development with Just Effing’s Julie Gray.
• Career consulting and coaching, plus free coverage from The Script Department.

Runners Up

The three runners up:

• Career consulting and coaching, plus free coverage from The Script Department.

Advisory Board, Judges & Production Companies

Confirmed prodcos will be added in the next few weeks.

Deadlines & Entry Fees

Early Bird: August 15, 2010 ($20)
Regular Deadline: September 15, 2010 ($30)
Extended Deadline: October 15, 2010 ($40)
FINAL DEADLINE: November 15, 2010 ($50)

Announcements

Quarter Finals – December 15^th
Semi Finals – December 28^th
Winner – January 15th

Hi everyone, we’ve been buried in a pile of scripts a mile high, but we thought an update was in order. We’ve read over half the entries, and while we continue judging we’re going to double check each and every entry. As we expected, we’ve had some amazing scripts already and the standard is higher than ever. Congratulations to everyone!

We are launching our new television, short and synopses contests, to take us through the rest of this year. Stay tuned as our site is upgraded to add these new competitions and some features & content our regulars have requested.

If you are waiting for either payment information or confirmation of entry, please be patient. We are almost finished and hope to have everyone verified and sorted within days. Thanks again for all your entries and the very best of luck…