Compete this!

I know, that's very poor English.

I have been so busy doing the producer thing, and worrying about producer stuff, that between that and the day job I've had very little time to do anything useful in the writing department.

Which, for a writer, is not a good thing.

However I have come across four competitions recently which I thought "why not" so here they are for your information because you might want to do them too (if you haven't already heard about them and entered).

If you don't read the Go Into The Story blog by Scott Myers then ... you should. It's possibly the most abundant and useful screenwriting blog on the web (John August notwithstanding). Well Scott is running a free-to-enter thing called The Quest based on his screenwriting course which he's essentially giving away free to four winners, with some lovely development extras.

Now I would say "lucky" winners, but luck has nothing to do with it. You have to sell him your feature film concept with a killer logline. If "Scott The Producer" likes your logline you get the development deal. The development deal being that Scott will help you turn that killer logline into a killer script. But as I say, no luck involved, you better deliver a totally awesome logline that is awesomer than the other thousand-odd he's going to get.

Okay from the awesome but incredibly hard to win, to the competition-with-excellent-odds:

50 Kisses : write a 2 minute script, get chosen as one of the 50 winners, it gets made and packaged with the other winners into a "feature" that already has distribution. But that's the point: it's free to enter and there are fifty winners. Them's great odds. You'll find all the rules here.

About 18 months ago Little Brother ran a screenwriting opportunity. At that time they didn't even have a website but make no mistake, Little Brother isn't an insignificant player. This time around they do have a web site which is here. The prize is a little bit of cash (£1000) but far more importantly the opportunity to develop your TV idea through to treatment stage. You do need to have some professional credit for this - but not too much :-) I'm not even sure I qualify but it's another free-to-enter.

And finally: Screenwriting Goldmine, I know, sounds crassly commercial but it's run by Philip Gladwin and he's based in Hove in Sussex. Anyway Philip has set up a competition, it's not free to enter but £24 (early bird) is not too bad.

The one prize I really like is this one:

Individual, one-to-one coffee meeting with one of the following: Independent Producer Matt Bouch, OR Steve Matthews (Producer, Octagon Films), OR Fraser Robinson (Director of Scripted Development at NBC Universal), OR Ben Stoll (Head of Development, Channel 4 Drama). You choose the meeting that YOU think is best suited to your writing. 

And the judges are pretty awesome too.

Right, that's it from me for now. I'll try not to leave it so long until next time.

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What's on the turntable? "Levon" by Elton John from "Madman across the Water"

The Ice Furnace

Hallo peeps.

I've been ultra busy with writing stuff, production stuff, work stuff, family stuff, so I've decided to do something else as well.

It's ScriptFrenzy time again!

This is that awesome time of year when you are provided, free, gratis and for nothing, with a built-in deadline to get your feature script written in just 30 days.

I've done it every year of its existence which means I have five feature scripts I might not otherwise have had.

This year I am writing The Ice Furnace which is a sequel to the film script I wrote last year (and thus part of the collaborative transmedia Voidships project) but I'm doing it as a graphic novel instead - and I even have an artist who will (hopefully) get the some of the first chapter on paper before the end of April. Pretty graphics, yay!

Anyway, thought I'd just keep you up-to-date on what's happening.

Do ScriptFrenzy - you know it makes sense - what are you going to write?

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What's on the turntable? [at work so nuffink]

Coming up in 2012

(I am not writing this at midnight I've just scheduled it to appear at that time.)

Two years ago I organised some additional shooting for the Monsters trailer. In my past I have run businesses, organised and run exhibitions, been an organiser of massive events. Talking to people and in front of large groups doesn't scare me.

Which is why I finally decided to embrace something that has been creeping up on me. I've known it was there but pretended it wasn't.

The Producer's Hat - though I suspect wearing a hat is probably more useful than embracing it.

This year we will make Winter or at least film the actors (it will be CGI sets a la Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow). But for that to happen we have to drive it forward and unless we pick up the Producer's hat and get it worn, that won't happen. As I have more time than Chris the Director - and once the writing stage is complete I effectively have nothing to do (sort of) - it may as well be me.

Truth is, I enjoy it. I pretend not to but when, for example, we lost the cameraman a day or so before shooting the additional footage for Monsters - I managed to organise a replacement within 24 hours. It was exciting, scary and fun.

So that's the big target for the coming year: Shoot Winter. And it's a biggee. I have been gathering every bit of information (including buying a seminar on DVD from an actual producer on the subject of being one) books and so forth. It's no good going into this blind. And then adjusting everything I'm learning to fit the crowd-sourcing paradigm. It's a fun game.

Lesser goals for the year:

1. Script in for Red Planet;
2. Re-work two feature scripts so they stop saying I am merely competent;
3. Build industry contacts;
4. Get web sites running and generating income so I'm less reliant on the day job;

Overall policy for the year: Get busy!

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What's on the turntable? "Amarok" by Mike Oldfield