News: Just got a chance to pitch my one-hour, Lights, Camera, Paranormal Action! To a Canadian Producer. It was great to talk to a new possible market for the show. But, like all of these chances, it’s not guaranteed. This is probably the most difficult news about a screenwriting career – that it is up and down, you don’t always sell. But…

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Further news: The Coverfly Pitch Week win got me a meeting with an agent who is interested in seeing my animation project. You can’t always predict what will pique their interest.

I thought my tv-series with a written pilot would have been interesting to him, but nope, he’s got ongoing relationships with larger animation houses, so that’s what…

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News on the screenplay front for me. My script and profile on Coverfly.com got me noticed by industry professionals. I’ve been featured in the Coverfly Pitch Week August 2021! So next week, I have a chat with an industry pro. I’ll be getting ready for it and answering the questions that arise.

So, @marcas – this is an example of how…

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Sorry I’ve been doing the virtual Banff World Media Festival since June now. It’s gone on with events for weeks! The actual ‘conference’ week was great for me. I made lots of new contacts in television and animation mostly. I’ve been busy (after my day job is done) working up my scripts and pitches and bibles for submission. I have 4…

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I enjoyed it too! I’ve tried writing screenplays and it’s just not my main thing. Maybe someday. But it was good to learn and I think made me a better writer overall. You realize all the crap that gets in the way of your actual story. I, too, think screenplay contests can be a plus. Gordy Hoffman’s Bluecat Screenplay Contest people are…

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Hope you were all as excited as I was to hear from Kraig Wenman! He’s an amazing success story in screenwriting. Most of what he said, I agree with. I do think, though, that there is a place for some screenwriting contests other than fellowships. For one thing, once you’ve earned a little from pro screen or tv writing, you can’t apply to a…

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My favorite advice from him covered how to sell a feature (or a tv series). He suggested that you create a fabulous pitch package including a ‘sizzle’ reel. This is how he’s sold some of his projects. You need to do a 10-minute ‘video’ of what the series will feel and/or look like. It doesn’t have to be an excerpt from the script, in fact,…

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Once again, we had an excellent guest in Aaron Johnston! He’s done a lot of different types of writing and gave tips that covered tv writing, animation, novels, and he edits a magazine at the moment! So I’d recommend a listen if you didn’t catch the live APEX yesterday March 30th!

George RR Martin does another massive TV deal, announced today.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/george-r-r-martin-signs-massive-five-year-overall-deal-with-hbo-exclusive

He’s got at least six projects in the hopper now. Wow!

Arguably, he’s the most successful person in SFF who does both novels and tv series.

Also, I just preordered the new book on tv writing: “Save the Cat!® Writes for TV: The Last Book on Creating Binge-Worthy Content”

I really loved the original and hope that this has tv-specific content in it.

I will report back to the group once I get it and read it!

If you missed this and you’re interested in film, you should listen to the recording. It was very insightful yet simple enough to understand.

She references two news sources that we should be aware of and reading:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/

and

https://variety.com/

You can get a weekly or daily email as a subscriber even if you don’t pay…

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Sounds good! I was thinking of applying to another local script contest – the one that was part of the Whistler Film Festival but I listened to a zoom call for prospective entrants and they said definitely that they weren’t looking for ‘genre’. When they say ‘genre’ in film circles they mean horror, science fiction, and fantasy. This is…

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That’s great! I’ve got my “Girl Called Arf” in Scriptapalooza and a few other contests.

That’s good news, Marcas! It’ll give you a lot of direction on rewrites. I’m working on a new script, called “Dealer” (working title). I’ve got a logline and am working on the outline now. It’s a sci-fi space opera drama with a female lead.

I just put my script “Lights, Camera, Paranormal Action” into a contest on Coverfly (Diverse…

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I continue to work on my pilot, “A Girl Called Arf”. It went through a few weeks of table readings over in Screenwriter’s Network on discord. Got a lot of great comments. There are a few pros incognito on the site. They are tagged “pros” but you don’t have any info as to WHO they actually are. They both liked the script, but nothing has come from it.

My new push is to get another script ready for the Banff Media Festival in June 2021. This is a huge step for me. Now I need to find time to get the script up and running. It’s from a short story I wrote a while back. Has anyone else got a screenplay in progress?

Hope all of you are able to pursue a screenplay project as well as the prose for Apex. I’m always challenged in writing prose because I come from a nearly completely dramatic background. Writing the ‘connecting bits’ of prose is always difficult for me. The very first story I had published in On Spec years ago was a monologue.

I thought…

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Coverfly sent me a notification yesterday saying:

“An industry professional has downloaded your project Lights, Camera, Paranormal Action via the Coverfly industry dashboard. Our industry professionals have asked to remain private by default because they don’t want to receive unsolicited material. That said, if they’re interested in…

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That’s neat I just ran across this today … I’d heard of them but hadn’t seen the format

I loved that Masterclass, learned a lot from it.

Here’s a bit about PRE-LAPS: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-format-a-pre-lap-in-your-screenplay#how-to-format-prelap-dialogue-in-a-script

It’s a strange pilot season this year at US networks and streamers. Many pilots from 2020 are back in the mix, competing with 2021 offerings. See this great page on Hollywood Reporter that covers them all:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-pilots-2021-the-complete-guide

-I’m a little sad that there aren’t many SFF ones here. But…

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FYI: An example of a fantasy writer who sold to tv. Sugar Entertainment are my old bosses for So Weird, DMG and The Collector. They’ll shoot in Canada somewhere and maybe add overseas (we did a few episodes of The Collector in Lithuania). Info…

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thanks for the link. My most natural writing zone is shorter work and I’m good enough at it to keep plugging away. I tend to view these shorter work efforts as “proof of concept”.

https://blcklst.com/help/tv_script_standards.pdf

I’ll be interested in hearing your results. I am careful about contests and competitions as I’ve mentioned before. They can provide you with PR value though and that might help in getting representation or manager. I loved my #FromTheDarkside win as I got to pitch actual producers and I will be able to send my next script to them now.

I’m…

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coverfly, https://www.networkisa.org/contest, and https://filmfreeway.com/festivals are service portals for contest submissions for, possibly hundreds of contests. All have nice little built in features to encourage you to use their particular portal. Coverfly has their Red List, which is a sort of a nod to Hollywood’s https://blcklst.com/ …

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Found another one. Could be some overlap, but what the heck. Seems many are “pay to enter”.
https://writers.coverfly.com/competitions

Here’s a great source for getting a start in screenplay writing: https://www.screenwriting.info/

https://www.scriptsandscribes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/@johnzaozirny-threads-compilation-12-01-20-version-SECURE.pdf Worth your time poring through if you are thinking of getting a Literary manager.

Yes, ultimately all the razzmatazz (?sp) is nothing without a good story. Lately, the fashion has been to look for ‘existing IP’ which means published books, verified ‘good stories’ if you will, great online content providers, etc. It’s a good way to shortcut that stage of having to read a lot of underwhelming scripts. You purchase a…

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