I didn't make the cut

The road to success is paved with failure.

If you read King's book "On Writing," you can really get a good taste of just how many rejections he got before he wrote "Carrie." He used to have a rail road spike to hang rejections on (it started out as a nail, but eventually he got so many letters that he upgraded to a spike).

Poke

If the festival was anything like last year you didn't miss much.

...you know, just 'cuz you got turned down this time, doesn't mean you'll get turned down the next. When you look at your script, are there any places that you would want to do better? Any places that you may have rushed, any places that just didn't work the way you wanted? If not, well then it might all come down to personal taste or...oh hell, who knows I'm not above grumbling

...the hard part is that it seems these competitions have so many scripts to look over, you can't get any feedback on why you were turned down, or what you could do to improve or whatever.

...I got turned down for sponsorship and my hopeful shooting start date looms (damn it!) but I am going to keep working on it and you should, too. Go turn on some music you like and nothing depressing. There will be another competition...

...as for being depressed, well so long as its here

--spinner

Hey man!
Festivals are tricky! You have a million ways to get screwed... it's best never to expect anything from them. Politics, people problems... you could have the best script in the world, and the festival will pass it up for one about Cyborgs on the basis that a cyborg movie just came out to great box office figures... or it was David Duchovney's son who wrote the script... some festivals are so hungry for publicity...

But, hey, for your first time, expect a million rejections. The business is all about hearing "NO" a million times, and picking yourself up a million times. Learn from each experience, get back up, and take it to the next level. I bet every person here has heard "NO" so many times they could write a "No-ography" so long it would... well, it would be pretty darn lenghty.

The whole point is.. who cares? They said no? That's thier problem. NEXT!
I'm starting to hang rejection letters on the wall next to all my termination/lay-off/warning letters from work. It's nice to see the failure building up, and when the success comes, you can go over, tear down all those papers, bring them out to the balcony, pull down your pants, and... well... you can do what you like to those papers, but you have to understand that people only want what they want when they want it. Next time, dude, next time.

Revise the script again, then throw it a million more places. Do that a million more times, and something might happen. That's the way it seems to work in this crazy, nutzo world.

Just silliness to toss a script because it didn't make the grade at one 'fest.

Maybe it needs a bit of a polish... maybe not; who knows.

Sometimes the trick is submitting it to the "right" script 'fest.

Keep at it!

Poke said:

The road to success is paved with failure.

If you read King's book "On Writing," you can really get a good taste of just how many rejections he got before he wrote "Carrie." He used to have a rail road spike to hang rejections on (it started out as a nail, but eventually he got so many letters that he upgraded to a spike).

Poke

Click to expand...

Also, if you're too lazy to read it, or just don't have the time to actually sit and READ... (like me) On Writing is available as an audio book.

I really hate to admit the following but UNFORTUNATELY, it was very very true...

A couple of months ago, I pretty much was in charge of a local film festival and screenwriting competition...

Being in Las Cruces, New Mexico, we simply didn't have ENOUGH people who work in the industry (in any capacity) to be judges for all the competition... We had to resort to finding the NEXT BEST types of people... i.e., indie filmmakers, teachers, etc...

What I found, working with these people that the majority of them had no business at all being any kind of a judge i.e., the films/screenplays they enjoyed went right to the top of the scoring and the films/screenplays they hated reflected just that...

Now in and of itself, this wouldn't be so bad...

However, we had these scoring sheets that made the process pretty simple... Each scoring sheet discussed all the areas (of filmmaking/screenwriting) that required a score. Great. So there we were... Watching films and scoring them. No problem.

Then, after say 5 or 6 films into the judging that day, we're getting some judges asking us about specific areas on the judging sheet i.e., what exactly do you mean by "character development" ???

My question to them was, "Why didn't you ask me that 5 films ago?"

In other words, these "judges" really skewed certain films scores with their inconsistent judging hence, films that (for some reason) resonated with certain judges did well while films (in the opinions of the majority of the judges) that SHOULD HAVE done well, did not.

What's all that mean?

I think it boils down to the judging in these competitions... Without enough qualified judges, I would never count on a script of mine doing well. I could tell you STORIES about our screenwriting competition that would make your head spin.

One of our judges was an English Writing Professor... Of course he THOUGHT he knew how to judge but I felt he really didn't. I think he would be a great judge of a book manuscript but not of a screenplay...

Anyway, suffice to say that it really opened up my eyes to all these festivals and competitions...

Bottom line?

Don't worry about it... A competition like that would really only be good for maybe winning some money anyway... Not selling your script which should be the reason you're writing it... Or making it yourself...

filmy

Sometimes, a film script or film gets rejected because it doesn't fit their grand theme of the festival, or it just based on the people who judged them, subjective matter. So if doesn't get into one doesn't mean it sucks...

I've worked and continued helping 2 festivals here so I am one of the reader for script and viewer for films And believe me, it doesn't mean your stuff sucks

I've gotten rejected a lot too, at one festival I get rejected, at the other I won an award, I don't know... it's all matter of preferences.

So, don't get sad or depress, just keep striking, best, if you can find out why it was rejected, it would help understand how the festival works.

A lot of the important stuff has already been said.

However, rejection is the name of the game for screenwriters. Not just the newbies, but for everyone. Richard Curtis, who wrote "Four Weddings," "Nottinghill" and "Love Actually" had the script for his sitcom "Blackadder" rejected twenty-four times before it was eventually picked up.

On the other hand. As a writer it's useful to experience as much of life as possible in order to transform it into art. So, maybe you could get really, really depressed, quit film making, quit everything and become a hobo for the next twelve years and then write a great script about your experiences of being a depressed hobo. Believe me, I won't tell you the number of times I've considered that.

Oh, and one last thing. If stay writing long enough you'll learn to love rejection letters because at least they bothered to get back to you. If you think a rejection letter feels bad, try sendling your work out only to never hear from them ever again. Ouch.

...listen to Clive, he's a 'playa'!

--spinner

playa as beach?

...as in 'play- YAH' (he's Rick James, B----h)

--spinner

jbrndee,

Like said above, the first one is the hardest . Consider you made it through and you're still pursuing your dream...that's a pretty good revelation from your first competition.

On Writing is a great book.

jbrndee,

I entered my script in the Illinois/Chicago screenwriting contest a couple years ago, thinking I was sure to at least make the first cut, but, alas did not.

I was told once, and i really believe, that the key to becoming a successful writer is perserverance (and knowing how to spell it). I've got a shitload of rejection letter (well, maybe ten), and I keep each one as a badge of honor because none of them were able to kill desire, want and will to write.

Just keep working hard and someday you'll do yourself proud.

"I wish I could have someone who knows about scripts read it and give me an honest feed back before I put it in the round file."

If you've got $220 to spare, Craig Kellem is a good script consultant. He was an original SNL producer, among many other things. Think his site is www.hollywoodscriptwriter.com or some variation of that.

Thank you everyone. You are all truely supportive; Indietalk is a great place to cry out for help.

do any of you guys live around chicago?

Downtown Chicago is my weekend retreat of choice.