Screenwriting

Congratulations on Crystal Umbrella making the Quarterfinals, Yvette Ganier!

Just saw the official announcement — I’m honored to share that my script KISS is a Quarterfinalist in the Stage 32 + Mammoth Pictures contest!

Honored to be a quarterfinalist with my screenplay THE BITING TIME

Logline:

A teenager visits her grandfather with severe dementia, watching as he regains his

memory as he's taken over by an alien parasite.

Cocoon meets The Mist

This screenplay is deeply personal and helped me work through my anger and grief from the loss of my dad to dementia.

Congratulations to all the other quarterfinalists ❤️

Honored to be one of the Quarter Finalists for this competition with my script Under The Influence.

Format: Horror Comedy Feature

Comps: The Faculty and Attack on the Block meets Coachella.

When body-invading parasites descend on a music festival, the restless assistant to a flighty influencer must band together with a ragtag gaggle of social media personalities to survive the night and keep their social status intact.

Congratulations to all the fellow quarterfinalists and everyone who submitted! Ecstatic that my screenplay, THE UNCLEAN, made it to the next round.

Logline: In a drought-stricken Mississippi town on the brink of disappearing, a grieving ex-preacher reunites with his estranged son — only to discover a shape-shifting force beneath the old church that “heals” by devouring grief, memory, and identity. As the town embraces the miracle and begins to forget itself, father and son must confront whether peace without pain is salvation... or annihilation.

It's Sinners meets Annihilation. Best of luck to everyone in the next round!

Good luck to all. Are any of the stories non deus ex-machina?

You're right, Juliana Philippi. And just talking about construction paper brought back memories. Definitely kudos to the elementary school teachers who inspired and guided us all. Teachers deserve more love and recognition (theme for a story).

Maurice Vaughan Yes they do. And yeah! Interesting...lots of ideas for new screenplays piling up!

This is beautiful, Juliana Philippi. There’s such a quiet confidence in the way you trace your beginnings, not as a straight line, but as movement, between places, languages, cultures, identities. That sense of being “in between” feels like such a natural birthplace for a writer. When you don’t fully fit one box, the page becomes the place where you get to build your own.

I love how you describe writing as freedom, the freedom to become, to explore possibilities without expectation or permission. That idea of the page as a space where no one tells you who you’re supposed to be feels especially resonant, particularly for those shaped by multiple worlds.

Ashley Renee Smith Thank you, that means a lot to me. Exactly that, we get to be free : )

Juliana Philippi Thank you for sharing, it's lovely to get to know you. That idea of not fitting in is exactly why my Peruvian mother did not teach me or my sister Spanish. I completely understand her reasoning considering she experienced racism at work but it's a whole side of myself that's not explored. I remember english was my favorite subject in high school and I grew up loving movies but had no notion of screenwriting until I was much older.

Congratulations, Quarterfinalists!

Humbled to be on this list. I have read a few of these projects. Congrats all snd good luck!

Honored to be selected, congrats to all!

Congrats to all the fellow Quarterfinalists and all that submitted!

Elle Bolan - My dreams are like completed parts of/or complete movies or documentaries. Did you say you don't visualize? That's incredible. I can't imagine my life not being able to.

I have three-D object visualization. Pick objects up and turn them around in your head to see what they look like from other angles. It's a trained Draughtsman's trick.

@David Taylor I did say that. I can't visualize at all. I get... Color washes and a sense of motion in the colors and blackness. But I cannot create mental images. I've never been a visual person. It's jarring to think people see pictures in the head like full visuals on a screen. It fascinates me. And I think it's cool y'all can do that. I've tried. Guided meditations, books, etc. But nope. Just shifting colors on black.

3D? That's... So wild. I dunno what to make of that. It's incredible.

Elle Bolan - Not really, its draughtsman-ship training. Begin with a cube with a hole in it and draw it in four elevations/views. Then it gets more and more complicated a shape. Then draw cones and other objects which you draw in four elevations to exact dimensions in three D too. By the time you get to drawing machined parts - e.g. tools - in four elevations you get pretty good at it. I don't think people get trained like that anymore, they use CAD design programmes. The training was so that you produced a set of drawings for things which could be manufactured. It was a very long time ago. When I was ten, at school, I wanted to be a Draughtsman/Engineer.

Elle Bolan - PS - In lesson ONE, the teacher said: "Every object you see around you which is not grass, trees or flowers was man-made, it was manufactured, and every single object was born on a piece of paper and a drawing board, like the one you are sitting in front of now. It is my job to teach you how to technically draw anything, do that it can be made, it is your job to learn". I was completely hooked for a few years and wanted to design new things.

David Taylor good lesson for us writers to remember—even if we may have trouble executing it—to turn our early drafts in three dimensions and look for structural weaknesses.

for 11 years i owned a restaurant and i would tell all my team that everything is engineering. not just the door that fell off its hinges or the roof that’s leaking. cooking is engineering. building a craft cocktail is engineering.

i believe the best storytellers are at heart problem solvers.

Which email did you use, GJ Harvey?

Maurice Vaughan support, writershelp, and now Geoff and Richard direct...

Elle Bolan Eric Christopherson Yep, been doing that, thx

When was the last time you emailed writerhelp@stage32.com, GJ Harvey?

Maurice Vaughan My last contact from them on this issue was Dec 6 from Support and Dec 2 from Geoff.

Thanks for sharing the script and article, Ashley Renee Smith. I mainly externalize trauma through plot. I'm comfortable with ambiguity for smaller things in my scripts, but not the big things. I know things will probably change in my scripts after selling them, but I like things to be certain in my scripts when I write them.

Thank you for sharing this script. I’m torn between wanting to explain everything clearly and trusting the reader or viewer to interpret and grasp certain ideas independently.

That sounds like an interesting story. Lots of imagery in the script, will have to give it a full read later.

Much of what I’ve developed so far comes from years of listening to podcasts and watching science and philosophy channels on YouTube. I’ve reached a point where I no longer revisit them, so perhaps it’s time to seek new material to spark fresh ideas.

your photo is so cute I love it

I took that one in a little nature reserve near my city @Meriem Bouziani. I have a love for tiny things. I have some of the coolest slime mold photos too.

Visiting new interests for fresh ideas is a great method! Keeps the gears turning.

Yeah we need to refresh our imagination all the time Elle Bolan

I listen to and watch ASMR with images of a world similar to what I am writing about such as a futuristic city.

James LO,

In The Matrix films, the real world was never shown. Throughout all three movies, viewers were watching different versions of the Matrix.

Vladimir I’m going beyond the core concept (for example a time looped period) and I’m talking about the plot (Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow could not be more different). when the plot pitched is the same as an earlier work (for example Rebel Moon is a copy and paste of Star Wars), could you get any studio to back that (when you’re not as established as Zack Snyder)?

foreign remakes are also excepted (Fuqua and Gyllenhaal did an incredible job remaking The Guilty)

James LO, In order to attract a studio, a story must have two foundations:

An original, interesting concept + A compelling narrative for that original concept.

When it's interesting to watch the main characters...

regarding the matrix

The unplugged world of Zion is the true reality. The popular fan theory that Zion is another simulation is contradicted by the films' core philosophy, which offers an escape from simulation into a true natural world.

Neo does have superhuman powers in the real world in the original trilogy (stopping Sentinels with his mind), which is explained by his unique connection to the Machine Source, essentially allowing him to manipulate machine code outside the Matrix. By Part 4, The Matrix Resurrections, Neo is once again in the real world (specifically the human city Io), where he and Trinity work to improve the Matrix rather than destroy it.

An ultimate Matrix story would be where people are released to real life, but many choose to stay in the Matrix - then a new external threat occurs from space/inter-dimensionally, where only by reality and Matrix working together can the new dimensional threat be overcome, which opens the door to an inter-galactic, interdimensional future.

Hey, Elle Bolan! I'm looking forward to these events!

Congratulations on crossing 82 pages, Ethan Meadows! Celebrating small wins helps me when things are rough in my career or I'm struggling with a project. I wrote 4 pages in a short script today. I usually outline scripts, but I'm coming up with the story as I go. I also rewrite as I go.

Didn't Woody Harrelson say in Zombieland to enjoy the little stuff? But the halfway mark is no small win. It's a big turning point for me almost every time. Feels good, huh? Congratulations on getting here. The back half is so much fun.

I'm actively drafting on a new feature. Act 1 is always a struggle bus ride for me, but I'm making progress. Words on the page is a win.

That's a great win Ethan Meadows - congratulations! I finished another polish on a script today so that's my win. It's been a good week. Congrats again and hope you have a great weekend!