Screenplay Contests: Ready, Set…WRITE!

This weekend we’re participating in the first round of NYC Midnight’s 2009 Screenwriting Championships.  At midnight tonight (EST) we’ll get an assignment (a genre, location, and object) and then we’ll have 48 hours to craft a 5-page screenplay.  If we’re lucky, we’ll get to do this for the next 4 months.

Why would we do this to ourselves?  Because we love it.

Participating in timed writing contests is the best thing we’ve ever done for our writing.  It forces us to work fast (a good screenplay in one week? 48 hours?  Yeah, right…), pushes us out of our comfort zone (desert horror movie, anyone?), and makes us work together.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR CONTEST PARTICIPATION and WHAT WE’VE LEARNED SO FAR

4/08 – NYC Midnight 2008 Screenwriter’s Challenge

• THE ASSIGNMENT: 1 week, 15 pages, romantic comedy / internet cafe

• FIRST THOUGHTS: Honestly, we were a little disappointed. We’d been preparing for our own personal worst-case scenario (western or  historical drama), so when we got romantic comedy, it felt too easy.

• THE PROCESS: Not easy.  We wrote a couple of different drafts and didn’t feel the magic. Two nights before the end of the contest, Julie got inspired and stayed up all night to do a complete re-write.  She followed her gut and made the main characters gay.  The new script was funny, sassy, and sexy.

• RESULTS: HOORAY! We placed 3rd in our heat…not high enough to move on to the next round but high enough to feel encouraged.

• LESSON LEARNED: We learned that writing made us happy and was something we wanted to pursue seriously.

• FUN FACT: We later expanded this 15-page contest entry into the feature-length screenplay Baker’s Dozen, which is now a Great Lakes Independent Film Festival finalist, Outfest semi-finalist, and BlueCat Screenplay Competition quarterfinalist.

9/08 – NYC Midnight Screenwriting Championships 2008 (Challenge 1)

• THE ASSIGNMENT: 48 hours, 5 pages, comedy / art gallery / driver’s license

• FIRST THOUGHTS: How fun.

• THE PROCESS: We really enjoyed this one.  Had a couple of false starts.  Started writing about a teenage kid trying to get alcohol at a fancy art opening but ended up with a fast-paced Hepburn/Tracy-esque flirt-fest involving a tardy husband and his miffed lady love.

• RESULTS: Placed 1st in its heat – Hooray!

• LESSON LEARNED: Jessica’s ideas and Julie’s writing make them the best team since peanut butter and jelly.

10/08 – NYC Midnight Screenwriting Championships 2008 (Challenge 2)

• THE ASSIGNMENT: 48 hours, 5 pages, horror / museum / baby carriage

• FIRST THOUGHTS: Eek!

• THE PROCESS: So fun.  We immediately conjured up a scary image involving little white baby hands pulling a woman into a watery bed.  We crafted a sad tale about a lonely childless museum curator who develops a creepy fascination with some Titanic relics. We threw in a little dark humor and some tragic flashbacks, and viola!

• RESULTS: Placed 1st in our heat – so exciting!

• LESSON LEARNED: We’d never even thought about writing a horror movie, so this helped us bust through some barriers.

11/08 – NYC Midnight Screenwriting Championships 2008 (Challenge 3)

• THE ASSIGNMENT: 48 hours, 5 pages, horror / desert / rug

• FIRST THOUGHTS: Horror again?

• THE PROCESS: We immediately started thinking of ways to get away from evil magic carpet / oasis / sandstorm ideas.  We did a little research and found out that the largest desert in the world is actually the ice desert in Antarctica, and things sort of flowed from there.  We ended up with an ice zombie story set on an illegal mining site with a greedy villain and some awesome visuals.  We felt really good about it.

• RESULTS: So disappointing – we didn’t even place in our heat, so we didn’t move on to the final challenge.  We deluded ourselves for a little while and thought the judges might have disqualified us for thinking too far out of the box, but when we got our feedback, they said it seemed more like the action sequence at the end of a movie rather than a whole movie.  Point taken.

• LESSON LEARNED: Good, tight, descriptive action sequences are important, but we always have to make sure the story shines through.

4/09 – NYC Midnight Screenwriter’s Challenge 2009 (Challenge 1)

• THE ASSIGNMENT: 1 week, 15 pages, fairy tale / television set

• FIRST THOUGHTS: Whoa – fairy tale?

• THE PROCESS: We read some fairy tales and mulled over some ideas about a girl moving from the city to the country after her mother dies, but nothing seemed exciting.  Then Jessica said, “They never set fairy tales in the ghetto.  Why don’t those kids get magic?”  So – our urban fairy tale was born, complete with absent father, crackhead mother, and magic glasses.

• RESULTS: Placed 1st in its heat – Hooray!

• LESSON LEARNED: Go ahead and think outside the box, but then do it WELL.

5/09 – NYC Midnight Screenwriter’s Challenge 2009  - Final Round

• THE ASSIGNMENT: 24-hours, 15-pages, fairy tale / dreams

• FIRST THOUGHTS: We rocked the last fairy tale challenge – we can totally do this!

• THE PROCESS: Not fun.  For some reason, we just did not work well on this one.  Jessica had a great idea about hitting rock bottom, but Julie wasn’t in the mood for another gritty fairy tale so she did her own thing.  Bad idea.  Messy.  Lots of crying (in real life…not in the screenplay).

• RESULTS: Didn’t even place.

• LESSON LEARNED: We absolutely must be on the same page on these challenges and every time we write together.

And that brings us to today.  We’re so excited that neither one of us can concentrate.  What will our assignment be?  Will we write all night or sleep on it and start tomorrow?  Do we have what it takes to get to the final round?

Check back soon to find out what happens!