2010 Semifinalists

————————————————————-

2010 Quarterfinalists

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.

———————————————

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!

PAST WINNERS!

2009 Winners:

Kodjo’s LA Adventure – read about his winning trip.

Click here for the 2009 Grand Prize winner and the other finalists.

Click here for the list of 2009 Semifinalists.

Click here for the list of 2009 Quarterfinalists.

2008 Winners

SSC 2008 Winner’s guest blog on Just Effing Entertain Me.

Video featuring 2008 Winner Hilary Graham discussing the SSC.

Click here for the 2008 Grand Prize winner and the other finalists.

Click here for the list of 2008 Semifinalists.

Click here for the list of 2008 Quarterfinalists.