A while back I discussed my experience with the first Writers Store’s Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest. Even though my submission wasn’t what they were looking for, I was still very impressed with the contest itself and the opportunity.

However, if you’re like me, I’m sure you’d like to see how your 15 pages compared to the ones that made the top ten. Well now you can! The Writers Store has just posted nine of them.

To see them all (including the winner’s pages) for the Simon Kinberg contest logline, please click here.

UPDATE: For those entering the current round of the Industry Insider Screenwriting contest, here’s a great tip from Dana Hahn, Industry Insider Contest Coordinator, who was kind enough to provide it to me:

“The main thing that we’re looking for in our contest is the quality of the writing, and a unique take on the logline.”
- Dana Hahn, Industry Insider Contest Coordinator

Thanks Dana! And good luck everyone!

The first (and last) time I entered Creative Screenwriting’s Cyberspace Open, it was a very, ahem, gut-wrenching experience.

The contest has changed a bit since 2009. There’s no more 24 hour phase or two hour rush final. They also film the three finalists utilizing actors and a narrator.

I’m not a big fan of the filmed scenes. While they’re better this time around, they still smack of a high school drama class rehearsal, with most actors reading from scripts, and showing only a modest regard for the actual scene direction.

But overall the contest is a great way to test your scene-writing chops. I’m pleased to report that one of the finalists this year is Elisa Graybill from my screenwriting group. Way to go Elisa!

I genuinely think her written scene was the best, and most closely followed the scene cue. So please show Elisa some Scriptwrecked love and give her your vote if you agree with me!

The Contest

The Writers Store recently held an intriguing Screenwriting Contest. An industry screenwriting veteran — in this case, Simon Kinberg (screenwriter of Mr. and Mrs. Smith) — would provide a logline that contest entrants would then need to craft into the first 15 pages of a screenplay.

Here was the logline provided:

A spy who has spent life wining and dining young women suddenly gets a major surprise when his daughter knocks on the door.

Let’s Do It

It sounded like a lot of fun, and implied an action comedy genre, so I decided to enter it. So did over 1,000 other people. Which meant the odds of making it to the top 10 was less than 1%. Difficult, but not insurmountable (my kind of challenge).

What’s the Frequency Kenneth?

According to the Writers Store, there were so many “stellar scripts” that they “came close to increasing the final count to 20.” I believe them.

Unfortunately, like many contests, the screenwriters aren’t privy to the final judging criteria. Maybe they were looking for a very specific genre? Maybe they were looking to appeal to a specific demographic (e.g. kid-friendly)? Maybe they were looking for something similar to a previously released movie?

If anyone at the Writers Store has any insight into this final process, or even the other 11-20 names that were in contention, I’d love to hear from you.

At any rate the top 10 finalists beat me, so well done!

If any of the finalists (Araby Patch, Sarah Newman, Mary Krell-Oishi, Leo Sardarian, Jacob Snyder, David Steiner, Kenneth Lemm, Yuri Shallan, Bob Giordano, and Alex Berger) feels like sending me their submission to read, I’d love to check them out (I promise I won’t blog about it).

UPDATE #1 (August 2, 2011): Nine of the finalists’ scripts are now available for download.

UPDATE #2 (August 2, 2011): For those entering the current round of the Industry Insider Screenwriting contest, here’s a great tip from Dana Hahn, Industry Insider Contest Coordinator, who was kind enough to provide it to me:

“The main thing that we’re looking for in our contest is the quality of the writing, and a unique take on the logline.”
- Dana Hahn, Industry Insider Contest Coordinator

Thanks Dana! And good luck everyone!

My Submission

For those interested, here’s my submission entitled BLOWN. I think it’s really good, yet it didn’t qualify. So, if your 15 pages didn’t qualify either, don’t feel bad about it. It’s not necessarily a reflection of your writing. You win some; you lose some. That’s just the nature of the game.

Want me to read your screenplay? Please take a look at my script services.