How to Sell Your Screenplay Pt. 2: Contests & Festival

How to Sell Your Screenplay Pt. 2 – Contests & Festivals As we talked about last week, there are no easy answers to how to sell your script and break into the film industry. In this series of podcasts, I’m not going to give you a simple five step program for selling your screenplay that’s going to instantaneously change your life.  But I am going to give you some techniques and skills I’ve developed in my own career that have been successful for my students, as well as a whole new way of thinking about what it means to break into the film industry in the first place. Remember, breaking into the film or TV industry is different for every single writer. Breaking in is a marathon, not a sprint. If you are looking at selling your script as a way of changing your life and fixing all your problems, you’re probably looking at it backwards, not to mention putting so much pressure on your writing that success is going to be very difficult for you to find. Last week, we talked about laying the groundwork for success as a screenwriter by building a lifestyle that supports your writing, cultivating a process in which every day is a good day because you are showing up and doing what you love, creating the space for your writing, and building your infrastructure so that you can keep writing and working your business plan as an entrepreneur until the luck you need to break into the industry matches up with the work you’re putting in to open the door for you. This episode, we’re answering one of the most popular questions for screenwriters and TV writers hoping to break into the film industry: Do screenwriting contests and festivals actually help you sell a screenplay or TV pilot? One of the wonderful things that exists for screenwriters today, that didn’t exist when I was coming up, are screenwriting contests and festivals. Back in the day, we didn’t have this stuff. In fact, I have never competed in a screenwriting contest or a film festival in my life.  Today, we have what seems to be an amazing resource, but it’s also a really expensive resource. All those application fees for festival after festival raise a few questions. Are all those festivals really helping? How do you get the most out of them? How do you know which festivals to apply to and which to run from? Like with many aspects of this industry, there are a lot of sharks in these waters. There’s a lot of gold in them hills (to mix my metaphors a little bit). There are also simply a lot of well-intentioned and less well-intentioned people out there trying to snap up money from desperate writers who are trying to break in.  It’s important to know what screenwriting festivals and contests are likely to do for you and what they’re likely to not do for you.  It’s important to know which ones to apply to and which ones to run away from.  It’s important to understand the business model by which contests and festivals can both help writers and also inadvertently hurt writers.  We’re going to talk about all of this so that you can get the most out of screenwriting contests and festivals.  The first thing to understand is that not all film festivals and screenwriting contests are created equal.  There are many different kinds of screenwriting competitions. There are festivals and contests where it’s just amateur writers competing against other amateur writers. There are other contests and festivals where you’re competing against emerging writers and even professionals.  Then there are contests and festivals like Disney/ABC, the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, or the