IFH 785: Unveiling the Art of Screenwriting: A Journey with Kristin Overn
56:00 Share

today's show is sponsored by next level souls ascension conference our first ever in-person live event happening march 28th through the 30th in austin texas join us for two transformative days of spiritual awakening featuring world-renowned speakers like james van praag kyle cease and sarah landon plus live channeling sessions

sound bath guided meditations and much much more don't miss your chance to connect with like-minded souls expand your consciousness and awaken your higher self now tickets are selling fast so visit nextlevelsoul.com forward slash ascension to learn more and secure your spot today

You are listening to the IFH Podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork.com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, episode number 785. Cinema should make you forget you're sitting in a theater. Roman Polanski.

Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood, it's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, how to turn your independent film into a profitable business.

It's harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films. From predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who prey upon them, the odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model of making money with your film is broken and there needs to be a change.

The future of independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the filmtrepreneur. In Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, I break down how to actually make money with your film projects and show you how to turn your indie film into a profitable business. With case studies examining successes and failures,

This book shows you the step-by-step method to turn your passion into a profitable career. If you're making a feature film, series, or any other kind of video content, the Filmtrepreneur Method will set you up for success. The book is available in paperback, e-book, and of course, audiobook.

If you want to order it, just head over to www.FilmBizBook.com. That's FilmBizBook.com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host, Dave Bullis. My next guest began her career as an assistant and script reader at Davis Entertainment. And she's also a Producers Guild member. She's a Directors Guild member. And she's been running this competition now for about 14 years now.

and a record high 6,364 scripts were submitted last year. This is a fun episode, especially for all you screenwriters out there. This is purely about screenwriting with guest Kristen Overn.

Okay, yeah. Many moons ago, I was a student at Northwestern University studying theater, and I focused very much on directing and playwriting, and I loved that side of the entertainment industry. But I stayed in Chicago for a couple of years, but then very shortly discovered theater.

not only how difficult it is to make a living doing theater, but I was repeatedly encouraged by many friends of mine who had moved out to the West coast to come out to Los Angeles. And one guy in particular was telling me that I'd make a great, uh, what they call a D girl back then. That was the early nineties. And, uh, D girl was a development girl. A lot of women were working, reading scripts, doing script evaluation at the time. Um,

And advancing through the ranks in that way. And I was fascinated by that. I love story. I love storytelling. And I love the weather out here. It was cold and snowy in Chicago. So I finally made the move. And I started out as an assistant, like so many people do. I worked in television on a show called Chicago Hope.

And I also worked at a place called Davis Entertainment, which John Davis's company made some major movies and television at the time as well, and did development for some other companies.

slowly kind of worked my way up, but then took a little detour. I ended up being invited to co-produce a feature film, a little independent movie, million dollar feature that a buddy of mine was producing and directing. And he wanted me to work with him. He needed somebody on his side who he could trust and who he felt could help make the movie happen. So I jumped on board and suddenly I was working in production, in film production. And it was, you

you know, education by trial by fire. Uh, but it was a great experience. And, um, so then I started working more and more in production and, and learning more and more about that. And, uh, I produced theater, but film of course has its own quirks and problems and issues. And, um,

Um, it was, it was a fabulous education and I did that for several years. Um, but all the while that I was working in production, doing budgets and hiring crews and working on these low budget features, um, my real passion has always been storytelling, developing scripts, um, editing, working with writers. And, um, I discovered a real need because

Because one of the things I learned as I was working with all these little independent movies is that there were, and still are, many up-and-coming new producers and junior agents and new managers, people who are honestly looking for new writers.

who have a hard time connecting with them because the new writers don't know to pitch them. They don't know how to get to them because they don't even know in many cases that they exist. And, but these are the people who are truly open to working with new writers because they're also new and they want, they're looking for that fresh voice. And, um,

I conceived of the idea of the Page Awards as a contest, using a contest as a means to be like a development department. When I was at Davis Entertainment, John had money and they had a big staff and they had a lot, a lot of people reading scripts and evaluating them, moving them up the ranks to the point where they would eventually, hopefully, finally get to his desk. So I thought we could use a contest the exact same way.

And so that's when I founded the Page Awards. It was back in the fall of 2003. And we've been going hot and heavy ever since. It's been growing and building. And it's actually worked beautifully in the way I hoped, which is that it's connected a lot of new writers with new up-and-coming managers who are looking for new clients and producers looking for new scripts.

You mentioned, Kristen, about new writers finding producers and producers sometimes don't know where to look or maybe, you know, new screenwriters don't know how to pitch them. And in today's marketplace with where we have all these different, you know, websites and, you know, not meaning like, you know, social media and you have all these different contests and stuff like that. Do you think that it's interesting?

easier now or it's harder now for that connection to happen simply because there's so many producers and there's so many writers and producers are getting hit by so many different directions. Is it harder for talent to sort of stand out? That's a really good point. In some ways it can be. It may be easier for you as the writer to find

people who are looking for new material online. However, as you said, they're getting a barrage of material and it's not vetted. And the thing that a contest will do, for example, like ours is vet the material for the producer. And the reason we have a lot of these people reading the final round of our contest, they'll say, I want to read your top 10 thrillers or your top 10 TV dramas or whatever it is. And they know that by the time these scripts have advanced to the top 10 to the final round, they've been vetted by four or five, six,

eight other people. And so they know that the material is really strong. So that's, that's the extra sauce that we add to the process at this point. Yeah. You know, I always hear about, you know, all the different, like different avenues that people could use to, and I know I'm kind of getting away from screenwriting, but just use an, as an example, you know, all of the different avenues that people could use to distribute their film, you know, going onto YouTube or Vimeo, et cetera. And,

And as I've talked to different guests on here, that's something that we've always come back to is, how do you get the attention of buyers? How do you get the attention of certain people that you're looking for? How do you get the attention of your target market? And I remember there was an interview with Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, and they were kind of talking somewhat similar about that. And Tarantino was

was very adamant in the fact that the best quality material, whether it be a screenplay or a movie or a piece of music, will always rise to the top and will sort of get above the noise, so to speak. Absolutely. I believe that.

And so the more people that you have reading it and kind of giving it a stamp of approval, if you will, the more people in the industry can sort of trust that, yeah, other people like this. So, you know, I can take a look and there is, you know, there's a certain amount of what everyone else likes. I should like as well. There's a Hollywood is a funny, funny place in that regard. You know, opinions. Sometimes people aren't always as sure of their own opinions as they are of other people's opinions. Yeah.

If that makes sense. And so that's when you hear about situations like if one manager wants to wants to sign you, suddenly three others are chomping at the bit as well because they feel like they don't want to miss out on something good. It's competitive and it can work to your benefit. It could work against you sometimes, but it's just the nature of the beast, I think.

Yeah, very, very true. And, you know, I know we were kind of, you know, as we're talking about distribution, I'm kind of getting ahead here. But I wanted to sort of ask, too, about, you know, getting started in your career, you know, because you produce a lot of things. You know, you've produced a lot of films. You've worked as a production manager and you work as a location manager. You work as a line producer. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

And I wanted to ask, has this experience when you started out and as you have gone through your career, how has this experience sort of helped you out your current position at Page? I mean, have you sort of – well, you know, I'm sorry. I shouldn't add to that question, Kristen. So I'll just keep it at that. How did all this experience help you with Page as you are the executive director now?

No, it's a great question because it does. I mean, a lot of people, I think, sit in offices reading a lot of scripts and that's great. That's one thing. But when you've actually been in the trenches on the set, sat there figuring out budgets, seen what actually happens on the set with certain issues,

in the script that began day one when the script was presented, you learn a lot about what works and what doesn't in production. And it is helpful in terms of evaluating material. That said, I will tell you, I mean, the projects I did were all small. They were low budget projects. And a lot of the scripts that win the contest in the action adventure category or historical film are big budget movies.

So in that sense, you know, it's, it's like, I don't know that the writer should think of limitations always. I mean, you know, especially depending on the type of movie you're writing, you know, don't be limited if you have a vision for a huge big movie. I mean, if that's what it wants to be, that's what it wants to be. But if you are trying to write a film that a,

a new producer can do for a million dollars. You know, there are, there are budgetary constraints. There are certain things you don't, you can't usually afford tons of a cast of thousands, you know, huge numbers of extras CGI is becoming more and more affordable. So that's less and less of a constraint than it used to be. And there will be our people who can do it very inexpensively, but still, you know, there are a lot of things you want to keep in mind if you're trying to write something low budget.

I think that's a good point, Kristen. And I wanted to just sort of follow up that question. If somebody did have a script, whether it be a short screenplay or a feature-length screenplay, and they said they wanted to make it themselves, and since you have the producing experience and the screenwriting experience, have you ever had friends or clients or people you just met? Have you ever had anybody who's had a lot of experience

I don't want to say luck. I want to say success. Thank you. I was trying to find that word. Have you had anyone who has had a lot of success doing something like that? Because the reason I ask is that also I've seen more and more where somebody, like we were just discussing, somebody wants to produce their film

Somebody wants to produce their screenplay. Well, hey, I'm not going to – I don't want anyone to have to say yes or give me the green light. I'm going to give myself the green light and go out and do it. So I wanted to ask you, Christian, have you had any people that you know have any success in doing this? Yeah.

Absolutely. Many of our winners actually have gone ahead and done that. They had that in mind all along for their project, and they wrote it for themselves to direct, and they have, in fact, done so. A lot of short films, obviously. We've had a few people who have been maybe grad students at UCLA, USC, wherever, and perhaps the script they sent us was their graduate thesis or just a project that they wanted to produce coming out of school, and they're very aware of, you know,

what it's going to take and how much it's going to cost. And usually they're putting up the map money or their families putting up the money or whatever. So, uh, yeah. And they've been very successful shorts. We also had, um, a script that a couple of scripts that won the contest that had been produced by, um, features by the writers themselves and directed by the writers themselves. And, um, one that I can think of right now is landed distribution. And I think we'll become, be coming out on Netflix and, um,

A couple of other places. It's been around the festival circuit. One of our winners, Lori Welts, wrote a script called Scout. It was produced by another producer, but she directed it. And that has had a really nice distribution in the festivals. And it was on Netflix a few weeks ago. I saw it on Netflix.

And so, yeah. And that's really exciting. We encourage it. We were so excited by writers who are willing, able to do that because that's, you know, that's it's such a it's it's such a huge learning process. And it's, you know, taking your career into your own hands. And that's wonderful when you can do that.

Yeah, very, very true. And just to continue with that question, Christian, as just as we talk about producing films right now, I wanted to ask if we took it the opposite way, which is meaning that somebody did something that was they

they aimed way too high, uh, and they, and w w w for the resources that they had. And, and honestly, I'm guilty of that as well. Um, I've done that before where I tried to make, you know, this action, shoot them up at short film. And it's, and you realize you don't have the crew for it. You don't have the, the CGI people for it. You don't have, you know, the time to set up all these, you know, uh, you know, gunplay, uh, uh, scenes and stuff like that. So have you seen that too, Kristen, the, where, where, um,

You've had people who just, you know, they said, hey, Kristen, can I show you my movie? And it's just, you know, you could tell they fell short.

Yeah. I mean, well, of course you, every once in a while you see a short film or a project that has somebody's attempted to shoot and they just ran out of money at some point. Um, and you know, that's always too bad when that happens, but again, it's a, it's a big, it's a big learning experience. And, uh, you know, we all, we all go through our learning experiences, whatever they are and, uh, hopefully come through it and, and continue despite whatever problems you might've had with your first project. Yeah.

Yeah, and see, that's what happened to me. Just speaking from my own personal experience is what happened was –

I am too high. You know, I, I made a student short film and I got, you know, very, very, uh, comfortable with, you know, you know, making, you know what I mean? You make a student film and then suddenly, you know, you're like, Oh, okay, I got this. I can now, I made a very simple student short film. I can now make a John Woo type movie. Why not? Right. So then all of a sudden, you know, you're, you're falling short. And I think we learn a lot more from our failures and our successes. Um,

Because as the saying goes, sometimes, you know, with successes, you, you, sometimes people get lucky. They, they really do. As I've learned in life, sometimes you get lucky and you have the right crew in front of you. Uh, sometimes you get lucky and you find the money. Sometimes you get lucky and the location pops up, but with failures, you realize, Oh, wait a minute. This isn't my time to make this film or, or, uh, for, and I'll give you another example too. Uh, Kristen is, uh,

I had a friend who was making a time travel movie and she wanted to make it where, you know, I think it was like the 1800s, I think, or the 1700s. And I was explaining to her, you know, you're going to have to buy all these, you know, or I'm sorry, not buy, but rent all these time period clothes. You're going to have to worry about cars and everything like that. You're gonna have to worry about planes. And I said, you know, how are you going to pull this off? And, and, and she was gung ho about it. And when we saw the final project, she,

She said, oh, now I see what you were talking about. And she admitted, too, because you could spend a couple grand on colonial era clothes in a flash, you know what I mean, in the blink of an eye. And all of a sudden you're like, well, okay, that's just a handful of clothes. And what else are you going to spend the rest of your – you don't have any money to spend the rest of – to buy anything else for this movie. Right.

So that's another learning experience. So that's just what I mean by falling short. You learn a lot from your failures, and sometimes we learn more from our failures than our successes. Absolutely true. God knows that's true for me. And I have to say, she had the opportunity to learn from your failures, which is even better because I always say I'd rather learn from someone else's failures. So I listen very closely to other people. And she...

made the mistake perhaps of not listening to you in that case, but she learned the lesson anyway, and she had to go through it. And I'm sure she got a lot out of it despite whatever happened, you know, because that's what, that's what life is all about at the end of the day.

Yeah. And trust me, there's one thing I know, it's how to fail. So it's how to fail, how to fail often. But you meet different people, you learn that almost everyone has made some kind of mistake like that, where they try to do way too much too early as they started making their films. I've learned that from just doing this podcast. They make a simple film to begin or they maybe hit

Again, maybe they were in the right place at the right time, and they got an amazing crew or what have you. And the second film and the third film were like, wait, what happened here? You're taking steps backwards. The sophomore curse or something like that. I don't know. But yeah, that happens a lot. We have that in the contest as well. I've seen situations where writers, somewhat rare, but it happens. Because of their...

Just basic writing talent, somehow what they piece together almost by intuition, accident, whatever is just really works. But then they try to write that second and third and fourth script and somehow it kind of all dissipates. And, and, you know, you wonder, well, then they have to go back and learn the lessons that they learned.

And solidify the understanding of why the first script worked, why the first script worked and, you know, how they can replicate it. Although I hate the word replicate, but replicate the elements of that that worked, you know? So it's, it's fascinating. Yeah. That's actually really interesting. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show.

If somebody writes a script, the first one, let's call it the freshman script, and they hit it out of the park, it's a home run, everyone loves it, the people want to read it, and the second and third script aren't there, is it usually because...

maybe they were trying a different method. Is it maybe because they, they just tried to just rush things out too quickly? I mean, is that some of the things that you've seen? I have no, you know, I honestly have to say, I have no idea why it doesn't work the second time or the third time. I have no idea what it is that sparked the first one that just somehow didn't work in the second, third, fourth. It can be probably any one of the things you mentioned, you know, but, uh, but,

But we have a situation recently, I don't think the writer would mind because I think he's talked about it himself. He won the Page Awards in 2007 with his very first screenplay. And he's been working on it ever since. And his subsequent efforts haven't

quite worked as well. And he says himself, he's just had to go through a huge learning kind of relearning process to really understand what it is that makes a screenplay work, even though intuitively he did something wonderful the first time out of the gate. And now this year he won another prize with us. He's kept

He's getting notes. He's kept reading. He's gone to conferences. He's just really continued to work and stuck with it. And at the end of the day, that's brought him back to maybe where he began. But now with that basis of really solid understanding of the process, the writing process, a better understanding of screenplays,

As a craft, you know? Yeah. And that's interesting, too, because you mentioned he he wrote his first screenplay and that's what he he ended up winning with in 2007. So does that happen a lot in your experience?

No, no, it doesn't. Most of the time, to be honest, people's first screenplays are going to be kind of a train wreck. I mean, sometimes they just haven't bothered to really study the form at all. They sometimes writers think they know how to format a script better than writers.

the people who do it every day, you know, or they think they don't have to study, know anything about structure or what, I don't know what it is, but they think they've seen a lot. I guess what it is, they think they've seen a lot of bad movies. And so their movie is bound to be better than all these bad movies they've seen.

But most of the time, people's first efforts are not, you know, they don't reveal their full potential. It's only after most people will tell you it takes many scripts before you really achieve something wonderful and special and something that's going to get you signed or something that's going to get produced. But there are exceptions. Like, I mean, every once in a while that you run across somebody whose very first script is just somehow magic.

I don't know what to tell you. There's a little mystery to the whole thing.

Which is what makes it fun. It reminds me of what Shane Black once said. He was doing this Q&A session and somebody asked him a question and he said all the time he gets a lot of... He'll get an email or he'll get a note sent to him via his agent from a fan or filmmaker or what have you. And it's always, hey Shane, I saw this movie in a blockbuster on Netflix or whatever and

I could write better than that. So I decided to write. And then Shane usually goes back with, well, I'm glad that you think your mediocrity is better than some other mediocrity that you saw. And he said his advice is instead of, you know, using that as saying, oh, I could write better than this. How the hell is that a movie? You know, he's like, you should really just want to do it in general, regardless of, you know, if you think you could write better than than some other movie that's out there.

Exactly. It's got to be at the end of the day, it's got to be a passion that you're willing to stick with. And that's, again, why I admire this writer who stuck with it all these years, even though his second and third and fourth efforts were not as successful as his first. I mean, his first script did not end up selling, but it got a lot of good attention. And it's still a viable movie from my point of view. So.

But it takes that kind of dedication and passion. And if you've got it, stick with it. Keep at it and study and read and talk with other writers and be part of a writer's group. And don't be afraid to get notes. A lot of beginning writers are really afraid of getting feedback on their scripts because, honestly, they're afraid of what –

the person reading their script is going to say, and they don't want to hear it, you know, deep down. It's like, you don't want to hear that you have cancer or something, you know, it's, it's, you don't want the bad news, but the truth is, um, that's, what's going to help you grow again. It's your mistakes that, you know, learning from your mistakes that is going to get you to the next level as a screenwriter. Yeah.

That is 100% true. I actually used to run a screenwriting group and we would have people who would want to join. Every so often somebody would come in and say, hey, I have a friend or I have somebody else who wants to join. And

This one time somebody came in, he was a first time screenwriter, and he actually had illustrations within his screenplay. And I and I, you know, something I was a little nicer about it. I was like, hey, you know, I wrote a little note on there. Hey, don't put in, you know, illustrations of a design in a screenplay. Like, you know, you're not you're not you're not like a director.

James Cameron level where he could just do whatever he wants and no one's going to bat an eye. If you're using this as a calling card or what have you, it has to follow certain guidelines. Other people just put in the script, they were like, no, an exclamation point and stuff like that. You know what I mean? It is very hard, especially when you put all this effort and time into a screenplay and you get feedback immediately.

And, you know, people tell you, hey, you know what, it just isn't good. Or some people will say, hey, look, it just sucks. And I think that what happens is, Kristen, I think we kind of view it as an extension of ourselves. So we think, hey, look, this screenplay sucks. Therefore, I suck. Exactly. You know, it's your baby. And I know that, for example, the folks who read for us, the judges who read for us and write notes, and we talk to them about this a lot. You know, it's critical, right?

that they understand that each script is a writer's baby and they believe in it and love it. And our job is to help them make it better and advance as writers. And I think our judges really try to do that. But I have also heard a lot about writing groups where things can get pretty brutal. Sometimes other writers can be

you know, your toughest critics, you know, I don't know. It's, it can be really great to be part of a writer's group. I've heard some horror stories too. So it's all about putting together the right group of people that are going to, you know, grow together as a group.

Yes. Very, very true. And about if everybody is really a part of the same goal, which is to be a professional writer, a working writer. And I was a part of another group where every meeting, every month, we met once a month. And every month, we would have a whole new batch of people show up. So

So we would have to explain like the beginning of screenwriting, you know, be, Hey, this is what formatting is. Hey, go by final draft. Hey, you know, make sure that you're, you're all set. You know what I mean? Like it's all, it's all these things. And finally we started, you know, me and the guy who ran it at that point in time, we said, wait a minute here. You know,

We're kind of like spinning our wheels in the mud because every meeting we're just briefing these new people and then they leave and then we're getting a whole other group and then we're explaining it to them. So it's like – somebody once told me that the best way to run a writer's group is to gain entry.

you have to submit a screenplay, a feature-length screenplay, and every member sort of takes it and gives their feedback, and then you take a vote on it. But that's the key, is they have to have written at least one screenplay. That's very smart. Yeah.

I think that's a great idea. Or if it's a group of people, none of whom have written a screenplay, that's fine too. But then you're on the same level and you're learning together, you know, but the commitment is the other part. It sounds like it sounds brutal to be losing people all the time and bringing in new people all the time. That would be really hard. Yeah. You know what I think it was, was because the reason we had that, that constant flux of people leaving and coming, leaving and coming was because of the, the, the time did change every month.

And also, I think that a lot of people weren't really ready for like, oh, this is a real writers group. You know what I mean? Because like everybody, like about the three or four people who were, I would say, were at this sort of like,

I guess, top of the group, you know, uh, there, I mean, we all, I mean, it was myself and through the guys and we, we all are doing stuff now, you know, I, I, in, in the, uh, in the business one way or another. But the thing is like everybody else I think was more long lines up. They wanted to start like a beginner's group. You know what I mean? Like, Hey, I, you know, cause it's kind of like, you know, if you want to go play a sport or something, you know, you want to start on a team with

Are there people that are, you know, you're like, you know, around like your your skill level, you don't want to start and all of a sudden you're you're playing with people who've been who are veterans playing for years. You know what I mean? It's just kind of you get a little intimidated, if you will. Absolutely. And it needs to be mutually beneficial for everybody involved, you know, so it's best if you're all kind of on roughly the same level, I think.

Yeah, exactly. And I'm not saying like I'm some expert either, Kristen. I'm not. I'm just saying, you know what I mean? It's just like sometimes, you know, in this business, sometimes things can get intimidating, period. You know, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

You see a film in a film festival you're a part of, and you're like, oh, well, goddammit, that person's better than me. I have no shot of winning. And I think it's happened to everybody. Sure, sure. And it's understandable that people get intimidated, because it's hard. And you're vulnerable, because it's your baby. And that's what makes it great, though. When you have that kind of passion for your project...

and you care that much, it's both a curse and a blessing because it's what is ultimately going to make your writing special and that project special. It's also what's going to make you vulnerable to taking notes personally or driving people away because you're too difficult to deal with or whatever the situation is. So...

There you go. It's just part and parcel of the business. Yeah, very, very true. And I wanted to ask too, Kristen, as we sort of get into this about Page in general, as we were talking in the pre-interview, there was an impetus for you to start Page. And I wanted to ask, what was that point in time in your life where you decided to actually start the competition?

It was a time when I was doing a lot of producing. I was working as a line producer. I was doing a lot of budgets for people, reading a lot of scripts. And I really realized that I just missed the writing aspect, working with writers and evaluating scripts and helping writers develop scripts and all of that. That was more of my passion than all of the

work I was doing on movies to get movies made that that's a grueling life. And I have friends who are great at it and who love it. Um, but you're working 20 hour days, uh, for weeks at a time. And then suddenly the project is over. You got to have another gig right away and move on to the next. And it's, it's a, it's a tough life and it wasn't the kind of creative life that I wanted. Um,

So I wanted to get back into working with writers and reading scripts and working with people who evaluate scripts, which is what all our judges are. And also being a little bit of a matchmaker, I have to tell you, I love the

the opportunity to take our winners and introduce them to certain judges. Sometimes I have a hit, hit that a certain judge is really going to love a certain script. And maybe if they even read a different category, it's like, Oh yeah, I know you read the comedies, but I think you're really going to love this family film. And so I slip it to them in the process. And sometimes that works out and it's really exciting when that happens.

So when you actually started Page, what were some of the responses that you first got? I mean, again, like when you start anything, like we were just discussing, it's very nerve wracking. You get very nervous because there's always that feeling, what if I fail? So what were you feeling when you first started Page? Well, yeah, you're nervous that it's not going to work, of course.

And luckily, because we did something unique with Page at the time, which has since become pretty common, which is that we split the contest into these different genre categories. Initially, we had nine. Now we have 10. And we have the judges evaluate scripts only in the genre that they're most interested in reading, sometimes three.

people like reading several, but we focus, we have them focus on one. And, um, so basically they're kind of comparing apples to apples, if you will. Um, of course not every drama is like every other drama, but at least you're not comparing a drama to a sci-fi film or whatever. So, you know, that, that, that has been a real help on every level, both in terms of

the judging process, the writers love being able to submit in a certain genre, knowing that their script is really going to be read by people who love that particular type of script. And that way we can also present awards in the different categories and send out promotions. And so if people are looking for our top 10 sci-fi scripts or whatever, we can send them those. It's, it's ended up

working out really well over time and sort of the when you talk about the beginnings of the contest that was that was one of the key things that I saw working right away and I felt was really important and so that's kind of kind of kept me going through the first couple of years even though of course the first couple of years we got about a thousand entries which was pretty good but you know it was tough to make ends meet it was we were still operating at a loss but it was

I could see that this could really work and people were starting to find projects that they liked and that kept me going, you know, in the beginning because I felt like, yeah, this idea is good. This idea will work. We just have to get the word out and it has to become better known.

So just to go now to sort of flash forward to today, 2017, how many submissions do you get a year now? We got about 6,300 both the past couple of years.

So that's, we're almost peaked out. I, I, I think the nickel receives just over 7,000. Um, lately the past couple of years, I think Austin has received something like 9,000 submissions, which is massive. We, our judges, the way we structure things, we would have a hard time handling too much more than we get right now. So we're kind of, we're at a good place. I feel like,

some people say that you have to read about 100 even 200 scripts to find a great one well if we get about 6 000 entries and we give 30 prizes 31 prizes that's about right then i figure

when you get like, you know, uh, you know, 6,000, 7,000 entries, you know, I, I could just imagine, you know, that there's a, you know, that just all these screenplays sitting in a room and, and it's like, my God, where do you even start? Uh, you know, so, you know, how, how is the process? I've always been interested, you know, even with, with the, uh, Nicole and the, um,

and the Austin Film Festival one, and some of these other screenplay competitions that are getting high four-digit submissions, how do you start to sort through them as they come in? Well, it's well systematized now. And luckily, because everything's online, things are doable that would not have been doable 10, 12 years ago. So

As the scripts come in, they come in in a certain category. We have certain judges reading certain categories and they get assigned to them online and everyone's reading everything online now. So it makes it makes it relatively easy. But we do have over 90 judges over the course of the five rounds of competition. So it's a lot of people going through it. But it's it's all it's all handled through a little online system that that works pretty well, pretty well.

So just to sort of continue with that same question, do you ever get like so much digital traffic then and you start to sort of lose track of things? I mean, again, with all the submissions, I mean, I could just imagine with, again, high four-digit submissions, it's like how do you keep track of everything? And I imagine – so do you have like a whole team behind the scenes sort of like, okay, this is an action adventure, this is a comedy, this is a horror?

Yeah, absolutely. But it's all online too. It's all recorded when the script comes in so that the scripts can be automatically tracked to the right judges. And Zoe and Jennifer are very hands-on, our team behind the scenes. And Zoe handles all the submissions and she does a fabulous job. And she's very much on top of it, watching as things come in and making sure that they're tracking to the right judges. And when writers request feedback, she'll be careful to, she actually assigns those individually. So yeah,

she makes sure that it's a script that that particular judge has not read before. It's the type of script that she thinks they'll like based on the log line, you know, that kind of thing. So we're, we're very hands-on, but by the same token, we've got it pretty well systematized now so that, so that things keep moving, which it has to do. You know, when you, as you say, when you have 6,000 entries and you have, um, basically from January through October is the whole process, but the vast majority of them are, are read by the middle of July. It's, it's,

It's a lot of scripts to read and a lot of people reading. Yeah, and I mean having to get all the feedback and stuff like that. I've had friends who even started their own screenwriting competitions on a much smaller scale, obviously. And even then it was just like, my God, what the hell have we gotten ourselves into? Well, that's it.

That's very true. I think a lot of people think, oh, let's start a screenwriting competition. We'll make some money. It'll be easy. In some cases, it's like we're looking for a script. Let's start a contest. But it's actually, if you're honest about it and if you do it with integrity, it's a lot, a lot of work.

And it takes a lot of, you know, kind of caring people behind the scenes, the administrative team and the judges to make it work well. Otherwise, it ends up being pretty much a ripoff for the writers. And I've seen and heard a lot of horror stories in that regard. So, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, because I've entered screenwriting competitions before, and I haven't entered Paige yet, but I'm actually hoping to get something done in time to enter. I hope we'll live up to your expectations. But yeah, I mean, your own experience, I'm sure, would be really educational for your listeners because, you know, what's the range of experience you've had with contests? Well, I think Paige already meets my expectations because, like, honestly...

We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now, back to the show. My experience, because I've heard of the competition before. Obviously, we were just discussing this whole conversation. I'm familiar with Paige, Austin, The Nickel. But in my experience, by the way, the ones I just mentioned I've not entered before, I entered one. And I'm not sure if I've ever entered one.

I got back maybe half a page or a page of like, of course, you know, of like feedback. And that's what I really wanted was that feedback. So I wanted to hear what the writer was going, I mean, I'm sorry, the reader was going to say, and, and,

basically at the end, she admitted that this screenplay wasn't for her and just kind of, you know, let me down easily because she, she just didn't know where it fits, so to speak. And I forget what language she used, but you know, I felt like, okay, I don't really know if this was worth the extra money to pay for the, for the, for the feedback. Uh, but what I did was, uh, and this is a part of the funny story was I took this screenplay and I knew a producer and, um,

He said, hey, you know, if it's a horror comedy. And I sent it to him. And he goes, Dave, this is so over the top. He goes, I don't know how to even market this thing, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera. Well, a couple months later, I ended up bumping into him again. And he goes, you know what?

I should have went with you on that screenplay. He goes, I don't know what the hell I was thinking about. He goes, I, I, I've been thinking about that opening. He goes, and the, and the funny parts were funny. The horror parts were scary. He goes, but he goes, I, I just don't know. He goes, I, I,

I just don't know how to actually market it. And I said, it would be tricky. It would be very tricky, but it could be done. And so I told him that the feedback I got from the screenwriting competition. And he said, yeah, he said, you know, we talked about what competition it was. And he said, yeah, they oftentimes either don't give any feedback or they just sort of give like this very homogenized feedback.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, feedback. What can I say? We work really hard to give our writers great feedback. That's a very important part of our mission, because, you know, it helps writers grow. And that's what our goal is. We'd love to see.

we love it when writers enter a few years in a row and they keep doing better and better and they've got more and more scripts and a stronger body of material. And so that finally, when they do win, they end up getting signed because they have a body of material to show a agent or manager. And, and,

things are launched from there. That's actually kind of an ideal scenario. And we love to be a part of that. We love to help writers do that. Um, and feedback is, is a huge part of it. I think getting professional feedback is so helpful for writers when you can get it from someplace that's supportive. That's going to really, that's where the goal is to help you improve as a writer rather than just trash you or tell you, you know, why the script doesn't work. Um,

So, you know, but there's the whole range out there. It's writers, you know, I think as much as you can get my, my bottom line advice would be get as much as you can and take it all with a big grain of salt, because that's really at the end of the day, when you're working as a professional writer, you're getting notes.

all the time on everything. You do eight sets of rewrites on a script by the time it gets into production or more. I mean, it's, it's crazy how much, and you have to be able to take all these opinions from the producers initially and the financiers and then the director and the actors and somehow incorporate that into your script and keep the integrity of your script and keep, make sure it continues to work because often the notes you get aren't,

even if the person offers a solution, often it's not the right solution, but maybe they have their finger on the pulse of something that's problematic. So you have to, as the writer, interpret it, interpret that and make the note work within your vision of the script. It's very complicated and hard to do. So the more practice you get at taking notes, even if they're bad notes and just figuring out, Hmm, what was this person really saying? And

you know, is it something I want to do? Is it something that I want to incorporate in the script or, you know, and when you start hearing a note from more than one person, really pay attention because something's not working, you know? Yeah, I concur. And one of the things I wanted to say too was sometimes, you know, that note could be that something's not working. And one thing I've noticed too is also something could be working because one, I wrote a screenplay years ago and I remember I, the one,

positive I got out of it was that everyone, there was one note I always got. It was like, oh, this is actually working pretty well. This is a really nice way to open this movie. And only one person out of everyone I let read it said, oh, no, that's too, that's overdramatic. Don't do it that way. And everybody else disagreed. And I was like, all right, I think I'm going to go with that, with the, just going to keep it in there. The majority. And that's, again, you make my point for me, which is get as many opinions as you can.

And ideally professional opinions, but your friends is fine. As long as they know something about reading a screenplay, if your, your writer's group is great, but get as many opinions as you can and get as many professional opinions as you can from wherever, because the more you hear, the more things will start to make sense. And then that one oddball opinion is,

will stand out as like, oh, no, no, that was just that person who had a bad dinner that night or whatever, but or just didn't understand something about this, whatever the situation might be. But if you just get notes from one person and you take those as gospel, you know, you could potentially be led astray.

Yeah, very true, Kristen. Very true. You know, Kristen, I know that the Page Screenwriting Awards opens this year, which is December 1st, 2017, which is in about two weeks, give or take, and probably about a week from when this podcast actually is going up. But I just wanted to ask, just while I have you on here, because I've always heard this about screening competitions. I heard that the better the chance is

to sort of win or even just to get noticed is to get your screenplay in earlier. And the reason they say this is because they say, you know, judges and everybody has to read so many screenplays that they end up, you know,

pulling their favorites out first you know what i mean like they'll have that in their meaning in their mind you know they have like oh man i remember reading this script and uh you know and it really stood out and then versus handing it in later and you know you have less of a chance to sort of stand out you know what i mean like we were talking about earlier on where the where the top always goes the cream always rises at the top so is there any truth to that in your experience

No, no. So, you know, that's one of the myths. And, you know, I do think that the judges have less to read early on and they're fresher, if you like, in a sense, although most of these people keep in mind are reading books.

for their companies all the time anyway. So this is just something they incorporate into their schedule over time. But here's the thing. Like for us...

we have five different rounds of competition. So your first round judge will read your script pretty much soon after it comes in. Right. And then this, we also have the second round that starts right about in March. Once there's enough buildup of stuff moving forward from the first round. So those people start reading in March and they read through the middle of the summer. But once you get to the third round and fourth round, they're kind of reading things all at the same time and not necessarily in order that it was submitted. So, um,

And basically what we have found, and I've tracked this because people have asked this question a lot. We've had scripts with over the, you know, with the 31 prizes we give, usually one of them will have been submitted on the very first day of the contest. And one or two of them will have been submitted on the last day. And they pretty much are scattered all throughout. So it really that is not.

It saves you money to enter early. We push you to enter early because we want to get scripts in for the judges to read. We want to give them enough time to read everything. We don't want everything coming in in May, at which point, you know, we wouldn't be able to get everything read in time to make our announcements. So that's why we give, you know, all kinds of incentives to enter as early as possible. But it does not affect your chances of winning.

that's another sort of false myth out there put down. I'm glad, I'm glad I asked that question because you know, you see all these false myths online about, about screenwriting in general. And, uh, I'm just glad that, that, that, that,

I think at least in our experience, that's one of them. I mean, maybe other contests, I can only speak for us, but, but that's, that's the way things run here. And I honestly have seen a lot of the scripts that are submitted in the last couple of rounds of competition win as well as some that are submitted early on. So it's, it's, it's pretty well spread out throughout. Yeah.

And, you know, Kristen, we've been talking for about, you know, 50 minutes now. And I just wanted to ask, you know, is there anything that we can get a chance to talk about that maybe we want to discuss right now or just even anything you want to say to sort of put a period at the end of this whole conversation? I think the only thing is, you know, people ask me a lot. What does it take to make a winning script? What is it that puts the winners over the top? And it's a very, very complex.

hard question to answer and I've tried to sort of distill it down over the years but um I would say that for us the scripts that advance up to the semi-final and final round they're all really strong they're strong writers they're interesting ideas they have the scripts have a lot of strengths but every script has certain what somebody would call a weakness you know if one judge read it they might say oh I love this character we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor

And now back to the show. To me, you know, so everyone, I mean, opinions differ in that regard. But at the end of the day, what I hear over and over when we're down to the final, final decisions is people saying this script. The thing that's so special about it is this is a character that I know perfectly.

10 actors who would love to play this role. It's so compelling. And so story moved me and, and it will move an actor. So the script has a real shot of getting made and it, it, the voice of the writer is just so clear and so specific and so special that, um, they feel like they've read something that is unique and will stand out from the crowd. Yeah.

So whatever its other flaws might potentially be in terms of that, they can work on in development, which as I said, it'll end up probably going through however many rewrites in the course of development and into production. But that the true thing that's there, that the core of an idea that's really special, a role for an actor that's really unique and compelling and, and something that's really going to make an actor sit up and take notice is,

And just something in the voice of the writing that makes it stand out from the crowd, whatever that is. Yeah, and that's very true too because –

Whatever gets you to stand out from the crowd. And you've seen examples all throughout, even in the 90s, for example, when Shane Black wrote Lethal Weapon. Quentin Tarantino, you can really tell he really enjoys writing his scripts because they just sort of pop their own style of popping out at you. And then even some of the screenplay competitions, the award winners, like they just released the screenplay for Mudbound.

Um, they released a couple of other screenplays that, you know, uh, how the, you know, you can, you, and you, when you read them, you can kind of see how, you know, they did what they do with their screenplays, how, what, what causes them to be unique. Absolutely. When Juno came out, that was such a special script and movie because she had such a strong voice, um, on the same sort of note, but the flip side of it is that please do not try to copy Juno.

Quentin Tarantino or David Mamet or somebody else who has a really strong voice because really the judges roll their eyes at that industry readers roll their eyes at that. They, you know, they've seen a lot of copycat scripts. It's really about finding your own vision, your own voice, your own approach to the world and to your story that is unexpected and fresh and

And that's where you hear the phrase familiar but fresh. You know, it's like an idea that perhaps people in the industry can understand and say, oh, yeah, I know we did. We know about movie that some movies like that. But this particular script has such a fresh twist on the idea. And that's the writer's voice, the writer's point of view that makes it stand out.

Yeah, and that's a really good point, by the way, Kristen, about not trying to copy anybody else. I once had a friend of mine who started before me in the film business, and he started before me, and he ended up calling himself the next Quentin Tarantino, and he kept labeling himself as that. And finally, I think he bumped into a manager or agent, and they said –

why are you marketing yourself as the next Quentin Tarantino? They were like, do you think Quentin Tarantino went around and said he was the next whatever? They're like, he just wanted to be Quentin Tarantino. That was it. Like, you should be focused on that and not trying to be somebody else. And I think...

Oh, I'm sorry. Absolutely. I'm just agreeing. Because it's, yeah, it's so important. You have no idea. I mean, I can't tell you how many times. Oh, that's another Guy Ritchie script, you know, or something. They, they, they're, they're just, and people do it. So you have no idea how many other writers are trying to copy some of these iconic writers. And it just doesn't, it doesn't work. Um,

So find your voice, find your own voice. Oh, but you know, one good exercise if writers want to play with it, and this is a fun thing to do is write a script in the style of just for fun as you're learning, maybe a short film, even just as you're learning, as you're growing, just to, to, to kind of, um, strengthen your chops, you know, write a script in the style of Quentin Tarantino or Diablo Cody or whoever, you know, just to see how different writers might approach, uh, um,

a different subject, a different basic storyline. That's a really fun thing to do. And it teaches you a lot doing something like that. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And I've seen, but I do like the idea too, is just to be unique and be yourself. Because at the end of the day, you have to be yourself, right, Kristen? Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think that's a great sort of sign off. It's like, be yourself.

Yeah, I just want to ask in closing, though, is where can people find you at online? PageAwards.com is our website. Kristen, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Dave. Oh, my pleasure, Kristen.

I want to thank Dave so much for doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at indiefilmhustle.com forward slash 785. And if you haven't already, please head over to filmmakingpodcast.com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening, guys. As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive. Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at IndieFilmHustle.com. That's I-N-D-I-E-F-I-L-M-H-U-S-T-L-E.com.