I thought I'd seen every scam out there until today.
There's a new competition in town and it's "judge" is AI. And AI is providing feedback.
For a mere $30 you can get the same information if you were to plug your first 25 pages into Chat GPT and ask for an opinion. But don't worry the "team" fully supports the writers' strike and they are only accepting entries written by humans.
Take note of the "producers" and stay clear of them -- forever.
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I just saw this tonight. It's a big NO for me. Thanks for warning people.
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Serious to read this!!
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This is just another way of convincing new writers (desperate for a shortcut) to pay money for something that doesn’t help.
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Craig D Griffiths It's that and much more:
1) it's a rip-off, money grab, that any one with a computer can get the same feedback for, for free
2) it's completely tone-deaf with what is going on in the industry right now and their constant contradiction on the website is appalling.
3) There is a producer on there who works for a top-notch production company and a lit manager (who is far from ethical) who should know better, and the fact that they are part of it points to a huge problem in the industry.
4) They are simply jumping on a band wagon and I get the desire to be "on trend for marketing" but the fact that they are so stupid not to realize the wagon has no wheels does not bode well for writers who don't know how to do some due diligence -- which is sadly a large number.
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I should add that looking at their timelines, they are clearly doing this to make money during the strike, which further points to the fact that it's not a mistake on their part. There should be a screenwriting contest guild -- I'm so tired of the way these things are run and promoted.
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What in the cyberpunk dystopian hell is this nonsense?
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... and the site appears to have been taken down.
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Christiane Lange oh wow! YES!! I love the smell of victory. Thanks for the heads up!
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It landed in my inbox as well, Laurie Ashbourne. I'm curious as to where they bought our email addresses.
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Ty -- I actually did not get it in my email (which is surprising but it gives me a clue). Many writers I know did, which leads me to believe it came from a Coverfly list -- which I will not be a part of.
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Thank you for the warning
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Laurie Ashbourne Yes, they must have had significant blowback. ... also, I think it is ok to name names, for the sake of accountability.
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Christiane and anyone else curious about the ppl supporting this BS scam: go on twitterverse search and type "AI screenplay competition"
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Good looking out! I was this close to dropping my money on this competition.
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Thanks for the warning, Laurie. Unfortunately, I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this.
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Woooow, what a bunch of slimeballs! The filmmaking community needs to start naming and shaming these cash-grab "producers" - PLEASE, as if anyone on the internet is so clueless as to PAY to have their work harvested. What a joke
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The sponsor was Scriptapalooza who now claims "I guess we were thinking too outside the box" HA HA. The "execs" (using that term very loosely) that signed on were Daniel Seco and Janet Jeffries (Google is your friend -- all writers should search out these people).
$30 for AI to read only 25 pages, give notes, prize. Feeding AI your data? These names alone on the website brought out writers' stories of prior scams/bad behavior.
I implore everyone to look at "exec" rosters in competitions. If the same name pops up ALL OVER dig deeper.
I would also be very wary of entering Scriptapalooza's main competition (they've been around for a while and right now it seems that it's simply because they pounce on prey first and figure it out later).
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Sad to hear it was Scriptapalooza. They used to be a reputable contest.
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OMG, the ridiculousness. Wow. We should keep a collection of these crazy schemes to showcase someday. When I was knee-deep in publishing, I used to keep some of the emails I got from people wanting their books published. I call it my what-not-to-do file.
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Laurie Ashbourne Scriptapalooza, it doesn't get better than that. lol
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Debbie, I have a collection. I know how most of these comps work (and don't), I have worked for or have been approached by most. There are very very few that are worth the price of admission.
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https://deadline.com/2023/07/artificial-intelligence-screenplay-competit...
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Talk about tone deaf, Laurie, regarding the Deadline article. They lost credibilty in the writers community for sure.
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Ty Strange - to be honest, I've never given them much thought or cred. What they had going for them was their longevity and that they use a pool of "industry decision makers" to read. According to their site:
"Every script that is entered into Scriptapalooza is read by either a producer, manager or agent. We do not use “readers” or “regular people” because they cannot do anything with your script. We go right to the source – a producer, manager or agent, they can make a difference, they can option your script, buy it, set-up a meeting or go straight to the studio with it.""
However, they are happy to use computers! Not to mention the fact that despite the above mantra and the scroll of "read requests" they cannot point to one single signed or produced success since 1998. I don't have that many fingers but I know that was the year Mulan was released and Katzenberg still had hair.
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I have been told by agents that the only way you can be picked up these days are to enter competitions. I would not enter this one, but I have spent a pretty penny on some and placed well and still not get representation.
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There are different ways to get picked up, Tasha. One of the top ways is to build relationships/network with producers, actors, directors, etc.
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Debbie Elicksen :D I ran a niche, academic publishing house for years, and there were query letters and unsolicited manuscripts we kept in the files as curiosa.
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Aw, where'd the Teddy Ruxpin comment go?
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I'm not sure, Laurie Ashbourne. Maybe Teddy deleted his comment.
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As always, some valuable and on point information from Laurie Ashbourne in this thread. Dig deeper.
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The Writers Guild should vet script competitions and offer "certification" for those that qualify those that pass a set of stringent criteria. The WGA should do a little more to protect "Pre-WGA" writers from scams and other suspicious activities.
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The WGA has enough things to regulate/manage and I doubt that members would appreciate their dues going to regulation for a non-member issue. Not to mention, it's not going to stop the money-grabs.
There is an organization trying to push a "seal" of approval but their list is also too hard to comply with and it's primarily focused on diversity issues as it is put out by WOC (women of color unite, which is a 5,000 member non-profit for women in film). Their demands include things like transparency in demographics of winners and readers which is by law in any form voluntary.
However, the intention behind is certainly worth exploring in a way that makes sense. Contests should provide transparency in their reading and advancement process. The fundamental fact that most first round readers (even in well known competitions) are the least qualified, and least compensated (if at all) is the fundamental problem with screenplay competitions across the board. The need for a filtering process for things not written in a legible way or over 120 pages is needed, but that is as far as the non-experienced reader should be relied upon, and that can be sussed out in under a minute per script.
The WOC initiative is here and frankly, looking at those who have made a pledge and thus received a seal points to its weakness. https://wocunite.org/screenwriting-transparency/
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Hi Laurie, I read about you, do you still work with Walt Disney?
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https://www.stage32.com/lounge/screenwriting/AI-Contest-Kaput
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https://www.facebook.com/reel/9489207347819100 AI SONG
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So many scams today! Thanks for sharing!
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Billy - The man Walt Disney died before my time. The last film I worked on for Walt Disney Animation was LILO AND STITCH.
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Hi Laurie, wow that is awesome
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Uhh! Thanks for posting this, Laurie! I hate AI with a passion. NOW, they are creatives? It warms my heart that soulless robots are supporting the WGA writers. RIDICULOUS!
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I appreciate technology and how it can become a tool in our arsenal, and there are forms of AI that we all are using and probably don't know it (post production software, photoshop and even spell check and grammarly all use some form of machine based learning) however things like this point to the ignorance of how to use it effectively. I posted a report a month or so ago as to where Chat GPT mines for its inputs and the number 2 resource is Wikipedia -- number one being the US patent office. Hopefully, everyone here understands that Wikipedia is not a reliable source and why, (also anyone who uses the sandbox function of Chat GPT agrees to their inputs being used for the machine learning). So it is incestuous at best. Stupid is as stupid does. There is no story idea or evaluation of an idea that comes from Chat GPT that is not based on something scraped from the Internet. There is nothing original or creative about it and it has no place in screenwriting.
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Would love to have been a fly on the wall for Scriptapalooza's internal discussions on how great an idea this was.
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No surprise that this was immediately railed against and then shut down.
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This just in, there is now a service out there hitting up producers and managers offering to sort through their slush pile. Scriptreader.ai is mass mailing and thankfully some who actually care about story and writers are balking. A link to the offer letter is here: https://twitter.com/johnzaozirny/status/1681744731242627072?s=46 And of course there are no humans listed on the site.
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Well that didn't take me long; 3 clicks actually -- the first to whois for the domain, and it came up with some guy in San Francisco, The second click is to google him and go to his linkedin. The 3rd click is his post as he searched to see if anyone else had thought of this: https://www.producthunt.com/products/script-reader-ai#script-reader-ai
So some tech head with zero ties to the industry is behind this.
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Thanks for the heads up, Laurie Ashbourne. I'll let people know.
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I used an AI tool today and was mightily impressed at the outputs. Worked better for features than pilots but its analysis was very useful and fast.