Screenwriting : Have you ever.... by Mike W. Rogers

That's pretty funny, actually! And great fodder for a future screenplay scene of yours, btw. Reminded me of the famous Groucho Marx quote - “I wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.” Kidding aside, there are no doubt some dubious contests out there, but on balance there are some great ones as well. I always go to moviebytes.com to view non-biased reviews from fellow writers. Definitely helps! :)

"Either NO ONE else SUBMITTED to the contest." might be the only way to win it or some contest where max. number of contestants is 3. That way everybody walks away as a winner. You know what, maybe they should have such competition.

I have felt that or that it was a first year festival, haha. BUT then I remembered, what we do is art, which is always open to interpretation. Even the best writers and filmmakers got rejected. Some of the biggest directors today never got their films into Sundance! So this keeps me grounded. I'm proud of my work, honored to receive any recognition and will continue to fight the good fight! And so should you! Pamela

Love that Norma Rae spirit, Pamela! Truth.

God no. I believe my writing got me there rather than everybody else's crap writing pushing mine to the front.

When I received my official selection email for my short film, I thought it was a mistake. When they emailed me again letting me know my film was a finalist in the horror category, I thought they had the wrong email again.

And when it became a short horror movie, no emails came. Maybe this type of humor is exactly what some of our scripts need. I meant no disrespect Tyler.

There is zero consistency among script writing contests/festivals - absolutely no standards. I'v submitted major festival (Sundance...) winning scripts to modest little festivals and never even made the cut-off. Many/most of the festivals receive thousands of scripts which are read by inexperienced volunteers (so that they can attend the film festival for free.) Most have no idea or care about what they're doing. That's just the way it is. There are, however, half a dozen or so really worthy script competitions that are worthwhile - some receive over 10 thousand submissions. The takeaway is that you got to be good (damn good) and get your script into competitions run by knowledgeable and righteous folk.

Yep. Wrote what I considered a BS script just for fun and entered just to get feedback. Came back as the Grand Prize winner. I had to wonder what the other writers who entered wrote.

Gee, I wish I had your luck, Anthony.

No, I don't take any win or loss personally just like I didn't care what critics said one way or the other about Delirium when it was released. It's subjective and there are way too many opinions, tastes, preferences and biases out there to say my work is always good or always bad. I consider myself a success when I get hired, because someone believes that I can deliver what they need.

I have won and placed in several contests and my accomplishments seemed to always arrive when I was about to quit--but those little victories were inspirational and I kept going. I guess the one thing I've learned is that you really have to love writing and find reward in the process itself and if you stay with it long enough perhaps the opportunity to do it for a living will be within reach.

I know this doesn't answer your question, but it is definitely on topic. Here's an article that just popped up about worthy screenwriting festivals. Thought I'd share: https://www.moviemaker.com/archives/spring-2019/15-submission-worthy-scr...