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Scriptapalooza: All About the Writers
So, you’ve finished your first screenplay. Congratulations! It’s been formatted correctly, with all the right margins, headings and spacing? Three-hole punched paper with brads for binding, no fancy pictures or decorations? Courier font, not Times New Roman, right? Good. So what will you do with your script now?
For many screenwriters, the next step is submitting to screenplay competitions. They have different entry fees and prizes. Some are standalone writing competitions, while some are a division of a larger film festival. But when you start to do your research, you’ll notice one name pop up again and again: Scriptapalooza.
Founded in 1998 by Mark Andrushko, Scriptapalooza awards a grand prize of $10,000, and while money’s a helpful thing to have when you want to make it as a writer, so are industry contacts. Thankfully, Scriptapalooza helps on that front, too. Submitted scripts are read by producers, managers and agents, and if they like what they read your film could end up in production.
The top three finishers from 2010’s Scriptapalooza, Andrew James Carter, David Jagernauth and Brien Kelly, took the time to answer MovieMaker’s questions on their scripts and their experiences with Scriptapalooza. The 2011 deadline for Scriptapalooza is March 4th. For more information visit www.scriptapalooza.com/.
Rebecca Pahle (MM): Tell me a bit about your script.
Andrew James Carter (AJC): Juice is a crime/action movie in which a cynical hitman must attempt the impossible and assassinate London’s top crime-lord while keeping his five separate clients from learning of each others’ existence.
The script has a large ensemble cast of characters, which presented an enjoyable challenge in ensuring each of them was unique and easily distinguishable from the others. I tried to create a world which seemed clichéd on the surface--paying homage to other films in the same genre--to help the protagonist stand out above the crowd (and so I could have fun subverting various stereotypes along the way).
David Jagernauth (DJ): Second Born is a sci-fi thriller about a world where consciousness is stored on computer chips in the brain, so after death people can continue to live in virtual reality environments or even be “reborn” in another body.
Brien Kelly (BK): My script is called A Novel Approach to Suicide and is about a used bookstore owner who comes across a book that has eerie correlations to his life. The story follows his pursuit to find out information about the book and to determine whether or not the story has any connection with reality.
MM: A huge part of the writing process has to do with revision. Have there been any radical changes between the script you thought you were going to end up with when you started and the finished product?
AJC: Most definitely. Juice started life as a short story many years ago, before I switched from writing prose to scripts. It was my initial intention to simply develop that story into a script for a short film, but inspiration struck during that process and the full plot of Juice grew from there. Only one event from the short story features in the finished version of the script.
I (perhaps somewhat foolishly) kept writing Juice as the story was still growing from short to feature. As a result, my first draft (which I never properly completed) became very confused and needlessly complex. After leaving the resulting mess on the back-burner for a time, I started again, planning the entire story from scratch and forcing back the compulsion to write until I had a complete plan to work from. As a result, the second draft of Juice was a much more solid script and I found it a real joy both to write and edit. It came together very quickly, and it was that version of Juice which would win Scriptapalooza several months later.
DJ: Absolutely. The script went through several revisions. I wrote this screenplay as part of a 10-week screenwriting class. I took that rough draft and rewrote and restructured until it was noticed by a manager, who worked with me to rewrite it to this point. I anticipate many more revisions in the future.
BK: There were not any radical changes between my initial outline and the finished script, but there were definitely elements that turned out differently than I had originally planned. I think that stems from the fact that my outlines are pretty minimal and only contain the basic action and plot points. When I sit down to write, often the characters will say things that I did not expect, or the mood or pacing will fluctuate depending on what feels right at the moment.
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As a result, the second draft of Juice was a much more solid script and I found it a real joy both to write and edit.
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