SALEM - Writing screenplays can be a downright scary racket to break into, especially for writers such as Smith, who have no connections in the film industry. Their work rarely gets so much as a nibble from Hollywood....
See: Who Owns Hollyood?
Hollywood S***s on Massachusetts
Enter the Screenwriter's Challenge, a contest that promises to help break this deadlock by leveling the playing field and giving first-time writers from around the world a chance to show off their chops and get their work noticed by people who know how to get films made.
And your religion, please?
Think "American Idol," only for a caste of writers for whom fame and fortune will probably mean having their best work ripped up and redone by some egomaniacal director.
Who would in all likelihood be a you guessed it!!!!
:-)
So THE PRESS KNOWS, folks!
Last month, Smith and several other aspiring local screenwriters joined some 600 others in the contest, which gives writers eight days to compose a 15-page screenplay. The catch: The contestants had no idea what they would be asked to write about until 11:59 p.m. on April 17, when they were assigned a specific genre and subject.
It is a stipulation that shakes up the writers' imagination, takes them out of their intellectual comfort zones, and rules out the submission of work that has been written and edited in advance.
What, they writing about 9/11 Truth against the Zionist-controlled papers?
Steven Buttacavoli, 37, an attorney from Cambridge with an analytic bent and a love of thoughtful thrillers and introspective dramas....
So he has a job?!! You went to coolege for what, kid?
[His] first-round assignment was to write a romance featuring a life jacket. The feature-length scripts Buttacavoli has penned in his home office, beneath framed juris doctor and master of public policy diplomas, concern characters who make personal discoveries that change their lives, often including an overworked, disgruntled lawyer.
He WROTE about HIMSELF!!!
He acknowledged struggling to come up with something romantic about a flotation device without being trite. "I had to think, 'not "Titanic," not "Titanic," ' " Buttacavoli recalled.
Why not rip it off; everyone is doing remakes?
I wouldn't see your lame ass production anyway; I quit going to movies.
His entry, "Full Moon Lake," gamely reprises the theme of teens romancing at a lakefront summer camp: The geeky guy gets the pretty girl despite the efforts of the attractive jock.
This guy is sick! He WRITES ABOUT HIMSELF within this ADOLESCENT FANTASY! This is what passes for GOOD SCRIPT in HOLLYWOOD? Some PERVERTS SUMMERTIME SEX FANTASY with TEENAGE GIRLS!!!
NO WONDER there is SO MUCH GARBAGE on the movie channels!!!!!!!!
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"Full Moon Lake" probably won't get him to the finals, he said, but "it did kind of spur an idea I had, about a mother who realizes her son is a notorious serial killer."
What is WRONG with THESE PEOPLE and the GLOBE?!
You SEE the MOVIES I HAVE LISTED s MY FAVORITES!!?
All (or most) TEAR-JERKERS about LOVE of LIFE!!!
WTF is WRONG with HOLLYWOOD? Are they PSYCHOTIC?!!!!
They are REALLY, REALLY SICK if THIS CRAP is considered award-worthy! Go into porn, buddy, because you will probabaly end up there ayway!
The competition also gives would-be writers a chance to launch their scripts into the nebulous world of film producers, writers, professors, and other commentators who actually look at, and comment, on the entries.
Who cares about the films; that LAST PART is for US BLOGGERS -- readers and writers both because I AIN'T WATCHING SOME HOLLYWOOD TRASH served up by these sick pups!
"The ultimate goal is to be discovered," said contestant Wes Teasdale, 25, of Allston, who works at Partners Health Care but hopes to find work someday as a writer for television sitcoms.
Oh, ANOTHER ONE that ALREADY HAS A JOB!
Couldn't you choose something better to write?
"It's impossible to get into the television and video producing business unless you've done something, and it's impossible to do anything unless you're in the business," said Teasdale, who was a finalist two years ago for a script he penned that successfully wove together a fairy tale about a beauty pageant. The Screenwriter's Challenge, he added, "is a way to get somebody to look at your stuff."
Are you jewish?
The contest is the brainchild of two New Yorkers, Charlie Weisman, a former civil engineer who worked on the South Station segment of the Big Dig, and his friend and fellow film-making aficionado, Craig Flamm.
Why am I smelling gay and jew over all this?
It never ends. The damn agenda-pushing never ends.
In 2002, they founded a company, NYC Midnight, that sponsors several contests for aspiring filmmakers and writers in addition to the Screenwriter's Challenge, which is in its sixth year.
"Everyone wants to make a movie," said Weisman, 33, as he lunched on tartines at a busy Greenwich Village bistro recently. "We wanted to create something where you didn't need money or connections."
The Screenwriter's Challenge divides $14,000 in cash and other prizes among its top 10 finalists (the winner gets $1,500 in cash and a $2,500 scholarship to Writers Boot Camp, a Los Angeles-based workshop for entertainment writers).
That's it? All that $$$$ Hollywood is making?
But the main prize is the opportunity to get feedback from the industry professionals who judge the competition, and perhaps even get a film made.
Translation: Make the cock-sucking connection.
"Winning the contest didn't help me raise funds or get A-list actors, but I did go into the process knowing that I had a pretty good story. Plus, it didn't hurt to be able to throw the phrase 'award-winning screenplay' around," said Amy Neswald, the 2005 Screenwriter's Challenge winner, who was able to make a short film from her contest-winning script, "Wilderness," a fantasy about finding a soul mate.
In Salem, Katie Smith is not sure whether her evil baker will make the finals, to say nothing of the silver screen. She has higher hopes for a script she wrote, "Father's Day," which made her a finalist for a horror film contest based in Sydney (it's about something really bad that happens during a hotel tryst, but we don't want to spoil it in case this one comes to your local cineplex some day).
Don't worry, I'm not going!!!
As with all aspiring screenwriters, her optimism is inscrutable....
To see what s*** she is turning out, go here
