1st Annual ScreamCraft Screenplay Competition – only $20 entry for early submissions before end of April.

Judgest panel includes development executives at Lionsgate, Paramount and Sony.  Finalists will be considered for representation by CAA, WME, UTA, Bender Spink, Mosaic, Energy Entertainment, Anonymous Content and many more.

• First place prize is $1,000 cash, in addition to a phone call with a top literary manager and a producer.
• Runner-Up will receive $100 cash and a phone call with a literary manager.
• Top 10 finalists will receive a page of development notes from one of the studio judges.
• Early submission fee is only $20.  After April 30, the submission is $50.  Multiple script entries are welcome.  Final submission deadline is 12pm PST on June 1st 2013.

You can check out more info and enter the contest here.
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”  – Eleanor Roosevelt

Just as the pure art of architecture draws us into the wonder of a physical space, a film draws us into the wonder of a human journey.  And as architecture is at the service of some organization, also a film is at the service of some organization – either to advance a cause, make a statement, or to make money.  And just as many bricks, cement, glass, steel and sweaty effort goes into making an architectural wonder, so is the process of making a movie.  It’s an enterprise that encompasses much more than writing and physical production.  The business of financing, marketing and distribution are becoming the real key to getting a film “released” – now that cheaper and better digital cameras have made the means of production so democratized and accessible.  I wonder what the world would look like if the means to making buildings were so accessible and cheap.  Would be have a proliferation of cheap structures and monuments everywhere, but nowhere to put them?

Ozymandias

by Percy Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.

A very short film of David’s from 2008:

Wet Dream (DVF 2008) from David Lowery on Vimeo.

In the past several years, more and more franchises add a fourth chapter to their production line. As more screens compete for people’s attention – from Youtube to Facebook, the need for pre-awareness in the form of franchises is one of the few sure-fire models for getting butts in cinema seats.

As an aside, it’s interesting to note the explosive growth of online poker games that has in turn fueled brick-and-mortar tournaments and thriving casinos. New poker websites pop up every day, such as poker.dk, where people practice making money in the privacy of their own home. The industry booms, despite legal action against some of the most high-profile sites such as Full Tilt Poker. What used to be an intimidating game for pros, suddenly has become a private game where people gamble anonymously. Meanwhile, real-life poker has become a booming business. Similarly, I see a potential strategy for film producers to cultivate audiences with online shows and made-for-online movies that gradually build a franchise and following. These properties can then be produced for the big cinematic experience once the audience is sufficiently proven.

Here are three franchises that have ‘unexpectedly’ gone over the threequel limit:

Pirates of the Caribbean

For a film idea that had so many sceptics in the beginning, this franchise has certainly had legs. Based on the Disney theme park ride, the first film, spawned two immediate sequels, Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End. The third concluded the plot-line of two of the central characters who carried the weight of the films. It would have been enough. And then they made the fourth, On Stranger Tides without them.

Ice Age

It would appear that Ice Age are planning to make films up until the present day. So far they have had the ice age begin, a meltdown, and an adventure somewhere under the ice where the Dinosaurs still reign supreme. Have they left it there? Of course not. In Ice Age number four we will get to see the continents split.

X Men

The first film was OK. The second film was better, and the third was brilliant. The X Men franchise did the unusual and got better rather than worse with each release. So, of course they had to round it out with a fourth one. Only this time they went back in the past and made the prequel X Men: First Class. Different actors playing younger versions of the same characters. Genius.

The trend toward developing intellectual property with pre-awareness is quickly going to meld with the power of online audience-building. Small-scale, niche productions funded by brands and product placement will grown audiences that can then be tapped for bigger productions. A sea-change is just around the corner.

A great interview with Mark Cousins here.