Friday, December 29, 2006

Season of Rewrites

Greg Beal recently said that 2007 Nicholl Fellowship applications would be accepted as early as mid-January. No way I can be ready sooner than April.

Thankfully, the holiday season is almost over. Enter, the season of rewrites. The remaining members of my visiting family leave tomorrow and while I would love to spend more time with some of them, I can now get back to work on my screenplays.

Perhaps some of you are also preparing for the Nicholl and the Austin Film Festival. So, get busy with those edits, proofreading marathons, and rewrites! Somewhere among all the muddy footprints, discarded wrapping paper, pizza boxes, and broken tree ornaments are my screenwriting files which contain links to blog posts about editing. I'll add those links when I get the house clean enough to locate them. Meanwhile, here are my editing related posts:

Tactics for Making Passes
More on Making Passes
What Not To Do

7 comments:

Patrick J. Rodio said...

I am getting a script ready for Austin actually. It's actually progressing quite well!

Best of luck in '07. Happy holidays!

Anonymous said...

I am extremely disillusioned as far as contests go now. The only way someone can get anywhere is by luck of the draw, being the "reader" who gets assigned your script. They might hate voiceovers so you are in the trash before the end of page two. It doesn't matter the quality of writing, most of these readers will exert what they deem is Power. Look what the Nicholl finals did for Scott, basically nothing. $45 entry fee? I'd rather buy 100 stamps and send out queries to companies. I think my rate of return and R.O.I will be a lot better (of course this is my IMHO and I just used your blog to vent haha... Happy New Year)

MaryAn Batchellor said...

I pretty much agree that most contests are pointless - well, if putting money in somebody's pockets doesn't count as a point. BUT I still have faith in the Nicholl. Not all great scripts can advance. There are too many good ones and the whole thing is subjective. But most things in life are. There's no way to have a contest and take the subjectivity out of such a subjective business.

E.C. Henry said...

Moviequill,

Like you I am more than just a little bit jaded when it comes to script competitions. All I hope for in them is that by some miracle my script gets in the right hands of someone who will champion it. Winning or placing in ANY script competion means nothing to me, getting my precious vision on the big screen is the the goal.

The pull of the tide for the pre-pro writer will to beach you on "Frustration Island" (a close dirivative of "Gilligan's Island" filled with Skipper and Gilligan's mishaps) if you let it.

The key is to focus on factors in your control. Focus on your creativity and let your mind redirect the boat to cool places of discovery.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Anonymous said...

Hello,
seeing as you seem to be well-versed in these matters, I'd like to ask- where on earth does one download the nicholl forms?
I can't seem to find them anywhere on the website.
Not a great start to entering any competition, I agree. But I'm a new comer to these sort of things.
I'd be grateful for any info on the exact link to the printable forms.
thanks
ketakeegondane@yahoo.com
xxx

MaryAn Batchellor said...

I don't think the appplication will be available until they actually begin accepting them. We'll just keep an eye on it and the first one to see it needs to give a shout out, k?

http://www.oscars.org/nicholl/

Anonymous said...

Thank you.
-ketakee gondane
PS- your site is very helpful:) especially the character development part.
It's so encouraging to see that someone is actively trying to help out the beginner writers.
thanks again