http://www.scriptapalooza.com
Scriptapalooza is a screenwriting competition in america that prides itself on being surrounded with "reputable and successful companies, including many producers, literary agents, and managers who read your scripts". This company is hugely influential and has brilliant industry connections 68 of the winners and runners up have been released as finished films.
Cost to enter this competition begins at $45 ( Until January 6th) if you are an early bird but can get as high as $60 if you reach the final deadline on April 21st 2014.
You can also get script feedback where they analyse your writing style and give you feedback on the quality of it. This costs $85 extra but may be invaluable to a fledgling writer looking for a break.
You can enter a finished screenplay here
https://scriptapalooza.wufoo.com/forms/z7x3k1/
Make sure it's in English and submitted in a PDF / Microsoft Word format.
Examples from existing scripts
Bellow to the right is my annotated script analysis this covers all the specifications and conventions of screenplay writing.
The Girl is a fantastic drama based off Alfred Hitchcock's relationship with the actress Tippi Hedren during the production of the horror movie The Birds
It has a beautifully crafted screen play that's both entertaining and unconventional. It has a fantastic use of character development.
( There are new annotations to the screenplay in yellow)
The opportunity to de-rig in this shot is a brilliant example of character and scene direction you can almost picture everybody working as a team around Tippi at this point and her just stood in the center of it all looking lost
The final extract is great of inner, outer presence and context as Hitchcock is trying to "sell" Tippi to his wife Alma convincing her that she is the actress for the film. Although slightly nervous in convincing her he gives off a very cool outward presence.
It shows allot of the closeness of their relationship both working and living together and how the two of them function as almost one person.
Example 1 EYES ON YOU
EYES ON YOU was made by some friends of mine during the BFI Regional Film Academy film academy. It's got a great simplistic story line that conveys fine tuned social realist atheistic. It has a good use of character development as the main protagonist Wayne
This extract is near the end of the film you could argue it's plot point two. The point is this dialogue is crisp realistic and completely vile. It makes the perfect place for Wayne to gain some character and stand up for the girl who had recently helped him out, all the stuff said about looking after him and family gets washed away when he mentions hurting the dog. it leaves the perfect social challenge for Wayne to rise to. however when it comes to it he has very little to say which actually shows the polarization of the characters. This shows him as the quite hero because the bad guy talks insistently.
The scene direction in this is simplistic however it conveys the message of the story with Wayne finally standing up for himself.
INNER Presence
Wayne is made uncomfortable by the mugging he has just taken a part in this along with his distaste for his gang comes to a peak when the thug outright threatens his pet. He knows this gang aren't his friends the thug shows no respect for him " yo yo look at me, we look after you don't we?" is a passive aggressive attempt to bully him into submission.
OUTER Presence
His exterior presence however is that of a calm thug. This means that he's simply playing along with the gang for fear of his own safety When the thug threatens him he finally gains the courage to stand up for himself. The thug in these shots shakes his hands attempting to gain his attention and create eye contact this is a very primal form of threatening someone, staring is almost a key to animalistic aggression.
Example 2 Swoon
Good Dialogue
Swoon is another great short film made by young people. This short has great development of character and lets the main boy "Jeremy Parker" as he struggles with his teenage angst as he becomes fixated on the girl next door.
The extract has a great use of dialogue introducing you to a completely un-important character who knows his normality. The amount of knowledgeable detail in his thought process actually leads the audience to believe that he is much smarter than he first thought. This short again has fantastic scene direction it truly makes you imagine the shot before you see it.He spends most of the short in voice over and Ironically although he thinks as if he is nothing special he actually is the only character with a narration making him the most unique in the story.
This also has great use of dialogue as it perfectly paints how the character feels whilst at the same time not being left to get mixed up in clunky conversations where an uncomfortable character would need to explain themselves.
INNER Presence
Jeremy has the inner personality of an intellectual self reflective boy, their are almost elements of moody noir-films to is self narration of life. This is a running theme throughout the story and it makes him seem relate-able to the audience. This depth and control is a great running slice of ironic humor as he complains about being average but has a level of intelligent depth that is much smarter than most people.
OUTER Presence
On the other hand his outer appearance is that of a generally disinterested teenager, this goes a long way ( in conjunction with is Inner presence) to show his fear of being mediocre is purely in his head, the guy thinks more coherently than most normal hope too. This ability to say little but know the character is thinking allot is what I would like the audience to feel about my protagonist Jamie.
Writers room
The BBC writers room is a place budding writers can send their work to the BBC for limited periods of the year. If accepted they can be turned into shows on any of the BBC channels. The scripts sent in are read by professional readers looking for new talent.
Audience research
Getting studying gender is interesting to see who would be more interested in my script however since I feel my story is fairly sexually neutral I don't feel that it would make a huge difference who the majority was.
Age is important knowing who this story is for, I want to aim the story for late teenagers early adults. The amount of people who will be in interested is important as it would be great for the product to be at least slightly commercially viable
What I have next is a Primary Evidence interview with the audience demographic, the audience I am trying to market my screenplay towards a late teens with an interest in violent stories and quirky films. ( This was written at the time of screenplay writing but hadn't been integrated).
Me: So what short of films do you tend to watch?
Interviewee: Well its a pretty broad question you know? I like stylistic murder thrillers, like Seven, The Usual Suspects, La Confidential, Jean-Pierre Jeunet films like Ameile and Micmacs, yeah those are cool.
Me: So you like darker humor?
Interviewee: Mmm, Yeah
Me: What do you do outside of studying?
Interviewee: I work, I do part time at a fast food restaurant, I don't really like it but its money y'know?
Me: Why don't you like it?
Interviewee: Its mostly my co-workers, most of them are a nightmare to work with the boss is seedy and spends most of the time trying to flirt with the waitresses.
Me: what else do you do in you're free time?
Interviewee: I don't know, I go out abit, drink.
This is a great piece of qualitative data, an interview helping us understand the demographics of one of our primary audience. The liking of darker humor and borderline surreal cinema are really important as that shows young people will be interested in my short. Elements of my interviewees life are similar to that of my protagonist Jamie for example talking about their boss flirting with the waitresses is the same kind of situation, my character sees everyday with Al and Jessica.
Research Into Themes, setting and locations
Kitchen hierarchy
The hierarchy in the kitchen was probably the most interesting thing to research although It really didn't have allot to do with the actual story, All of the chefs who have a work title all have about equal rank only the sous gets a rank between the Chef de Cuisine ( the boss ) and the Chef de partie ( all the individuals who have stations). This functions in my story as a reward for most of the characters to chase but the moral question is in that non of them chose to work hard to win that place.Professional kitchens are not nice places there's shouting boiling water, knives, be people running around with trays, The pressure of working in one of these places in my mind would be the perfect location for somebody to begin to loose their mind, not saying I'm a psycho killer but family and friends can see that as stress gets to me the ability to reason can dramatically slip.
Murders in kitchens
Although I couldn't find an example of a chef who killed his competition I was able to find information on a sous chef who murdered and ate his boyfriend in 2008. Anthony Morley, 36 former Mr Gay UK repeatedly stabbed his boyfriend before slitting his throat, carving frying and chewing parts of his body ( Including a nipple says the guardian).Freezing to death
The act of Rachel getting frozen to death is an important plot point in the story therefore I wanted to research how low the temperature would need to be for someone to freeze to death overnight. It turns out there's not really a given guideline about size, temperature, and duration when it comes to people freezing to death so unfortunately I'm just going to go with common sense write the freezer as cold as possible, make Rachel small, and keep her locked in it for as long as possible.
Tales of ambition
Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian Politician who pioneered a form of politics called Machiavellian-ism OED (Oxford English Dictionary) calls it " The employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct". Essentially his work is that of deception on a personal level manipulating people to better suit yourself.| "He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation." The Prince Chapter 15 |
Growing up in Florence , he studied grammar, latin and rhetoric. He later became employed in the second chancery where he was put in charge of processing and making government documents. This was the ideal place for him to learn how the law worked and where exploitable loopholes could be placed.
He was a politician, poet, and philosopher. his best known book was probably "The Prince" where he spoke of public and private morality needing to be understood as separate entities. He also stated his beliefs that a leader must be "positively willing to act immorally at the right times". This is the beginning of some of my framework for Jamie. These practices are perfect grounding for some of the darker elements of my story, blackmail and threats are going to be a key focus point. Hes often used as a morally grey shady type in popular period renaissance fiction.
Research into similar existing texts
My main inspiration for this script was the Disney Pixar Movie Ratatouille. It's an animated family movie that takes place in Paris in a professional kitchen.The tone of this film is way off what I want for my short however,
it still shows the levels of respect and the different roles in the kitchen whilst still functioning as an entertaining children's movie. Another story element I took inspiration from was the underdog hero who starts out as a overlooked worked and becomes head of the restaurant.
I also been heavily influenced by the movie Delicatessen (Directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet) it is a wonderful quirky movie about one man being brought into an apartment building where the tenants want to eat him. It's wonderfully weird and in concept could work in reverse to the notion of one single murderer. The film didn't have as much to do with food however as I had first pictured which was a little disappointing.
I have been influenced by the butchers mannerism of continually sharpening his cleaver and have elements of the affair in the film in Al's and Jessica's affair in the final draft of my screenplay.
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare most famous works, its a tragedy of a would be king who kills the old king and many of his associates in an underhanded attempt too gain power. In the play Macbeth kills king Duncan and succumbs to guilt and paranoia at first, I wanted their to be a hint of an accident at first with my character Jamie's first kill, this means there is a hint of every-man on a dark path to him that makes me potentially feel more real to the audience. His later kills come out of self preservation and in the end psychotic rage that goes further than the job he was killing for would benefit.Another text that has the brutality of rising to the top would be the Brian de Palma film Scarface ( a remake of a film from 1932). It tells the story of Tony Montana, who kills his way to the top becoming Miami greatest drug kingpin. It has similar themes to Macbeth including the defeat of the protagonist at the end that I have also chosen to use in my screenplay. This doesn't have the quirky borderline surreal charm I'm going for but I feel the story fits nicely between the stories.
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Both of these characters are similar to the story of Faust a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years of limitless power. This is another great story of a man whose power corrupts him and in the end leads to his ruin. The story stems from a book in 1587 however the people who the story was inspired from remain unclear. the level of committing evil in exchange for power is one that I feel I'd wish to incorporate into my story.Refferences
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicatessen_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille_(film)
https://twitter.com/Scriptapalooza1
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/oct/18/anthony-morley-murder
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/7679695.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhNzED7zfZM
https://vimeo.com/79440489
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161216/Restaurant-owner-dies-getting-trapped-inside-walk-freezer-overnight.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pQQHnqBa2E
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust#Marlowe.27s_Doctor_Faustus
Excellent work and lots of effort. This can now be a distinction. Please remove the highlighting and check all the spellings (copy and past into a word document and check there. Still quite a few errors.)
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