Re: Nicholl 2008
Got my letters today: I made the top 15% with both scripts I entered (the only two feature length scripts I've written). Didn't make the Quarterfinals.
This was very disappointing because my first script made the Quarterfinals last year and was much improved (I know it's possible to screw something up with revisions, but trust me, this got better), and I think my second/newer script was a lot better than the first. Ah well, maybe I got a little lucky last year and a little unlucky this year. Once you reach a certain level of quality, maybe the top 15%, the subjectivity of it all is an inescapable aspect of a competition like this. It giveth, and it taketh away. Doesn't mean that for the most part the best scripts within that top 15% group aren't rewarded, but it ain't an exact science either, obviously. (We now conclude the sour-grapes-rationalizing portion of our program. Thank you for coming. Good night.)
It comforts me (and is simultaneously maddening) to consider the example of Brett Nicholson, a Finalist in 2007 for Queen of the Sky. According to his blog that same script failed to even make the Quarterfinals in both 2005 and 2006. Two years in a row he didn't make the Quarters, and then was a Finalist with the same script! Food for thought...
My thanks to Greg Beal and everyone else involved for running such an indisputably classy operation.
Nine months and counting till May 1st, 2009. Back to work on script number three...
Got my letters today: I made the top 15% with both scripts I entered (the only two feature length scripts I've written). Didn't make the Quarterfinals.
This was very disappointing because my first script made the Quarterfinals last year and was much improved (I know it's possible to screw something up with revisions, but trust me, this got better), and I think my second/newer script was a lot better than the first. Ah well, maybe I got a little lucky last year and a little unlucky this year. Once you reach a certain level of quality, maybe the top 15%, the subjectivity of it all is an inescapable aspect of a competition like this. It giveth, and it taketh away. Doesn't mean that for the most part the best scripts within that top 15% group aren't rewarded, but it ain't an exact science either, obviously. (We now conclude the sour-grapes-rationalizing portion of our program. Thank you for coming. Good night.)
It comforts me (and is simultaneously maddening) to consider the example of Brett Nicholson, a Finalist in 2007 for Queen of the Sky. According to his blog that same script failed to even make the Quarterfinals in both 2005 and 2006. Two years in a row he didn't make the Quarters, and then was a Finalist with the same script! Food for thought...
My thanks to Greg Beal and everyone else involved for running such an indisputably classy operation.
Nine months and counting till May 1st, 2009. Back to work on script number three...
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