I am not a social media person, nor do I ever give online reviews/ratings, but I hope some of you might find value in this review. Here goes...
I am one of those writers that's submitted to every major screenwriting contest out there. And I have done pretty good...been a finalist of some kind in all of them with several of my scripts. Cool. Gave me a little confidence.
But nothing ever came of it. Never won any of them. No one ever contacted me to read any of my projects. Nothing ever came of it.
Why did I keep spending my money on these things? Over the years it has added up to thousands of dollars (please don't tell my wife). It's kind of embarrassing. So I decided to quit doing it. I wouldn't let some random low-level reader determine my fate any more. I wouldn't be a sucker. Officially jaded.
Then I saw Stage32's script consultation service. This made sense to me. For roughly the cost of two screenplay entries I can get direct access to an actual decision maker? Seemed too good to be true. I mean, that was the prize in many of the screenwriting contests - to have a meeting with someone like that - but you had to beat 10,000+ other writers to get it.
I'm not gonna tell any of you how to think. And I'll never tell anyone how to spend their money (although I do recommend paying for extra meat on the meatball sub at Subway). But I wanted to share my experience so you can make an informed decision if you were on the fence about using this service. I personally won't ever enter another screenplay contest, but I WILL use this service again. So if you're like me and have done the contest circuit over and over with no results, this might be the next right move for you.
But you have to be ready. There should be some foundation of confidence that you are ready for the next step to be on the phone with a pro. And you should have another awesome script ready if they ask for more of your work.
CALLS
I paid for two consultations. One manager and one exec from a well known production company. I was given several potential call times over the course of several days and chose the ones that best worked for me. Both pros called me exactly on time. They were both phone calls, not FaceTime or Zoom. On my first call we organically went over the allotted time by quite a bit. On my second call we stayed to the allotted time. I felt both read my material completely and understood it (not a skim). They both answered all my questions. Totally satisfied with these consultations.
RESULTS
The manager gave me his direct email to send more stuff. The exec asked for my email in case she comes across a gig that might be right for me.
Will anything come of it? I don't know, but I didn't feel like they were blowing smoke. Doors are opened and I received feedback from real pros, instead of a template mass email from a contest. That's all I ever wanted. Money well spent IMHO.
Also, one of my consults had an unforeseen delay and Jason Mirch and his team took care of me every step of the way. You find out a lot about a company when something goes wrong and I'm happy to report they stepped up and I was completely satisfied. Respect.
Good vibes to you all and I hope you have a positive experience(s) like I did!
PS - this review isn't to poo poo on contests. I did them all for many years. They are fun. My review is simply stating I didn't find value in them anymore for me personally at this stage in my writing.
Subway? Come on, man.
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Thank you. I have considered several of the opportunities they present. For me it really is about the money.
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Congrats on the great consultation calls, MJ Fitzsimons. I've had great pitch sessions and a great consultation call through Stage 32.
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Basically I agree with. I too used to enter many festivals - won quite a few. It never did a lick of financial good for me - that was back in the 2005 to 2015 era (I've not entered any festivals since then). The only benefit I ever received occurred at a festival seminar that was being presented by a Hollywood Agent. During a break, he approached me and quietly said that (based on my participation in his seminar), he'd like to read some of my work - that was in 2013. He's been 'my' Agent (or I was his client) since then. We've done each other some good.
The point that I make is forget the contests and go where the real people hang out.
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I'd have to agree that the route of making connections is better than contests. But I guess contests have their place, they've been great launching pads for some.
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Both experiences had positive results, sounds like! I'm bypassing the contest entries and going straight to the consultation service this time, as well. If I can just stay off S32 and get the current screenplay completed....
Totally agree and I have had the same experiences with competitions also my scripts making all the way to becoming a finalist but I will say something about this site and pitching to the pros, just recently I got a feedback from one of my written pitches with “typos” which is telling me are they really spending the time and effort reviewing your pitch? Some thing tells me they may not be. It’s a worry.
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MJ, it is a tough business and everyone in Hollywood has their hands out. Jason and gang work hard to help, but there is only so much they can do. As a reader/judge for a major film festival, I can tell you how hit or miss it really can be. Many scripts get submitted and 90% of them are not very good. Still if a thousand enters, that leaves 100 to be weened to say fifty semi-finalists and then down to ten finalists.
After the semi-finals I have read scripts that I wonder, who the hell gave it high scores to get into the semi-finals.
That is the first part. Festivals make their money off of entry fees for films and screenplays.
Second part is the writer(s). As a production company we have only bought one script from outside, unsolicited (people we don't know). The two guys worked with us to make the script stronger and film worthy. Just need the money to move it into production.
Other writers we have tried to work with are difficult to say the least. They get in the way of selling their script. I had one guy with a good premise, but the script needed a complete rewrite. Not interested. His script was good (not really) according to him. We could have been filming right now if she was flexible. Ten years from now she will be moaning about no one buying her scripts.
That said, I am willing to read your script for free and give you some notes. Not a deep dive review, but an overview. I am between readings and mostly working on finding money for our next film, so I have some time.
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For me, contest are fun.
The only one I have heard has moved someone along in their career was the Nichol. All that did was shine a spotlight on them. If they were garbage, everyone was going to see it.
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Craig. #Me too!
Phillip, sorry I don’t get the reference. Did I miss something? I am being an unintentional dick?
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Craig: I was saying, I agree about contests being fun. That's why I said hash tag me too
I thought I had done some sexist thing or something exploitative. Sorry.
Thanks mate.
Matt, words well spoken my friend . Could not agree more . I share a lot of the same experience as you .
Craig, that's what I get for being a wise guy LOL.
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For those of you who are in a similar situation to me (done the contest route, with nothing to show except a lighter wallet), I'm curious, what is your plan?
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Greg Lyon - wow, such a gracious offer...thank you. I might take you up on that at some point. I have actually received a fair amount of pro feedback on my pilot and I have determined the best thing for me to do now is write another spec Another thing that contests do to me is that they make me lazy. I finish a spec, get hyped about it, enter it into contests, and sit on my hands waiting for results. I should be writing my next project during that six months to a year, but I wait for some reason. Not smart on my part. Waiting is torture and my new mantra is "no more waiting"...I plan to fill that space with writing. Thanks again for your comment, means a lot a stranger would take time out of their day to help another stranger.
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Stage 32 script reviews
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Chris Haslip thanks for the comments Chris. Good luck and let me know how the reviews go!