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Heart of Film Screenplay Competition
Common wisdom says that you have to live in LA to launch a screenwriting career, and though it sure helps, it's not entirely true. Contest wins can get an out of state writer noticed, and one of the biggest contests isn't even in LA. It's the Austin Film Festival's Heart of Film Screenplay Competition. I interviewed competition director B.J. Burrows about the contest to get to the heart of the matter (sorry, but the pun was too easy to pass up).
Q: How did the contest start?
A: It was founded by Barbara Morgan and Marsha Milam, who wanted to do a festival for screenwriters with workshops and access to professional writers. We've just completed our 8th annual competition.
Q: How many entries do you receive?
A: We receive about 3,000 a year. This year we received closer to 3,500.
Q: What happens to the script once it arrives in the mail? What's the selection process?
A: We have a logging procedure where scripts are assigned a number. We have about eighty readers from production companies, graduate students from University of Texas, and professional writers in the area. Each script gets two reads in the first round, and it only takes one reader to say yes to get it to the second round. About ten percent of submissions make it to the second round. This year, we had roughly 400 scripts in the second round. They are then read by production companies and professional writers. They judge on structure, character, originality, dialog, and story, with emphasis on story. Format doesn't have to be perfect, but it should look professional. The highest scoring scripts become our semi-finalists. Out of the 400, we had 17 semi-finalists. The winners are judged by industry writers coming to the festival. We have readings of the finalists and try to facilitate meetings between the finalists and the production companies at the festival. The winners are announced at our luncheon, so I find out when everyone else does.
Q: Is there one genre that seems popular in the submissions you receive?
A: Three of our semi-finalists this year were comedy-style Mafia stories.
Q: Who are your success stories?
A: Excess Baggage, Goodbye Lover, and Miracle in Lane Two all came from the competition. Cindy Davis Hewitt, who was both a semi-finalist and a finalist with two different scripts last year, was signed by Pixar.
Q: What are your plans for the contest next year?
A: We're planning on holding a staged reading of the winning scripts in Los Angeles. We also started a teleplay competition this year and we received about 400 submissions. Next year we're going to accept original pilots as well as scripts based on an existing series. And though our deadline for features is May 15, we may change the deadline for the teleplay competition to accommodate the seasonal nature of television.
Heart of Film announced their 2001 winners in October, and they will start accepting submissions for 2002 early next year. You can check out complete rules at their website, www.austinfilmfestival.com. Say good-bye to LA and hello to Stetsons, beer, and BBQ.
Monica Zepeda
iam_monica@excite.com
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