Tag: fandom

scifrey:

It’s now
been a year and a half since I first posted “To A Stranger”, based on Mad Lori’s Performance in a
Leading Role, on Archive of Our Own. The response was phenomenal and the
comments and kudos from the Sherlock Fan Community have been heartwarming. I
talk about the process of writing the script/ fanfic here, if you’re
interested.

(I’m currently
struggling with the rewrite of one of my non-fic novels, and sometimes when I’m
really bummed about it, I go back to the TaS comments and read through them all
again to remind me that my work is loved and that people can be generous and
kind, and that the hard work is worth it.)

It’s now also
been just over a year since I decided, with Lori’s permission and the
encouragement of Kelley,
Random
Nexus, and the rest of the Sherlock Community, to tighten the fanfiction up
into an original script and start submitting it around to film festivals and
screenplay competitions.

Yesterday,
I heard back from my final competition, so I thought I would give everyone a
snapshot of what has happened with the script.

Here are the
competitions I submitted to:

Toronto
International Screenwriting Competition
The Carmesi: International Screenwriting Contest for Diverse Voices.
2016 Launch Pad Feature Competition
Depth of Field International Film Festival
Vail Screenplay Contest
California Women’s Film Festival (Summer)
Hamilton Film Festival – Canadian Film Market
2nd Annual Stage 32 Happy Writers Feature Script Contest
Shore Scripts Screenplay Contest
Neu World Studios International Film Festival
Script Pipeline Screenwriting and TV Writing Competition
Toronto Independent Film Festival
Slamdance Screenplay Competition
Vancouver Lift-Off Film Festival
Canada International Film Festival
The Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting

Now, what
happens when you submit is that someone – usually an intern, a volunteer, or a
jury member – sorts through the submissions and organizes the selections for
the first-round readers to take a crack at.
At that point they either reject the entry for being incomplete or
incorrect, or at the next stage, decline to include it in the
festival/competition. The screenplay (or finished film if it’s a film festival)
is then moved out of consideration.

But if they
select it for consideration in the competition, then the screenplay is called an
“Official Selection” and you get laurels to use on posters, on your website,
and in media packages. Like this:

To A
Stranger was named an Official Selection / Finalist of the four festivals above.

However,
only three of those announcements were made public as it turns out that the Canada
International Film Festival had accidentally included and judged categories
that it had intended to eliminate. We finalists were informed and shouldn’t
have been. (You
can read more about that small disaster here.)

From there
the judges read the scripts and suggest their winners. Rejected scripts often,
at this point, receive notification that they weren’t selected as a winner, and
sometimes get suggested editing notes. My notes were… wildly contradictory. One
reader said they loved the distinct voices of the characters, and another said
they were unrealistic and that people never have such distinct voices. Some
were mad that it was a gay love story where gay issues weren’t the central
topic of the film, and some were relieved that it was a gay love story where
gay issues weren’t the central topic of the film. Some loved the mood and tone
of my descriptions, and some said there was too much “authoring” happening in
the descriptions.

From there,
To A Stranger was given two awards:

(The latter
being the “Rising Star Award” at the Canada International Film Festival that I
was informed I had won, and then immediately told that actually, they were
eliminating the category. Oops, sorry.)

In summary,
I entered 16 competitions over the length of one calendar year, was made an
official selection four times, and won two awards (sort of).

However,
what I really wanted out of the competitions – a producer to contact me to
discuss options – never happened.

The
producer who DID contact me about it, though… well, that’s a story for later.
Once the discussions that are happening can be made public and contracts are
signed.

I’ll keep
you appraised of what’s happening there. My hopes are up, but as they say in the
world of film:

Everything
is nothing until it’s actually something.

Thanks for
taking this journey with me, Fandom. I can’t wait until I can tell you about
what happened next.