Short Screenplay Competitions

The post on the DC Shorts was quite informative and the statistics said you enjoyed it. Then i decided to seek through the entire Withoutabox for competition you may enter with your short film script. I might convert it into a page and update it constantly when i get back from a trip.

Here you’ll find the links for the festival rules and some of its rules. For a competition to be listed here it must have a limit of pages for your script as i’m dedicating this page to short scripts only. I hope this turns out to be a constant reference for you. Remember these aren’t all the competitions available worldwide, but those available on Withoutabox.

Also keep in mind that earlier you join the competition, cheaper you pay. Please read the rules of the competition carefully before submitting.

If you find any errors or have suggestions, please leave a comment.

ReelHeART International Film Festival
$ 50 ~ 80 USD
! January 4, 2013
¶ under 15 pages
* none
@ a trophy or medallion.

Bloody Hero International Film Festival
$ 20 ~ 50 USD
! January 5, 2013
¶ under 40 pages
* none.
@ a sculpture.

L.A.Comedy Shorts
$ 25 ~ 70 USD
! January 10, 2013
¶ under 30 pages
* comedy.
@ 1000 USD. goods/services: 1250 USD.

A Night of Horror International Film Festival
$ 16 ~ 58 USD
! January 15, 2013
¶ less than 45 pages
* horror.
@ none described.

FANTASTIC PLANET: Sydney International Sci-Fi & Fantasy Film Festival
$ 16 ~ 53 USD
! January 15, 2013
¶ under 45 pages
* none.
@ to be adjusted.

Steeltown Film Factory
$ 15 ~ 75 USD
! January 18, 2013
¶ under 12 pages
* none.
@ goods/services: 30000 USD.

Brooklyn Girl Film Festival
$ 15 ~ 35 USD
! January 19, 2013
¶ up to 30 pages
* written (or co-written) by woman.
@ yet to be determined.

Bare Bones International Film & Music Festival
$ 20 ~ 65 USD
! January 21, 2013
¶ under 40 pages
* none.
@ a medallion.

International Family Film Festival
$ 20 ~ 35 USD
! January 25, 2013
¶ under 44 pages
* must be registered or copyright, drama, comedy, animation, sci-fi/fantasy, musical.
@ a certificate

Canadian Short Screenplay Competition
$ 25 ~ 75 USD
! January 31, 2013
¶ under 15 pages
* screenplays must not be based on another piece of work unless public domain.
@ over $75,000 worth in prizes.

Kansas City FilmFest
$ 25 ~ 55 USD
! February 1, 2013
¶ under 15 pages
* must be written (or co-written) by a woman
@ 1000 USD.

Sacramento International Film Festival
$ 20 ~ 65 USD
! February 10, 2013
¶ under 20 pages
* none.
@ trophy and prize package.

Liverpool Lift-Off Film Festival
$ 15 ~ 50 USD
! February 14, 2013
¶ under 45 pages
* none.
@ goods/services: 10000 USD.

United Film Festival
$ 20 ~ 60 USD
! February 17, 2013
¶ under 45 pages
* drama, comedy, horror/thriller.
@ trophy and prize package.

deadCENTER Film Festival
$ 20 ~ 40 USD
! February 25, 2013
¶ under 15 pages
* none.
@ live table read.

California International Shorts Festival
$ 35 ~ 70 USD
! February 27, 2013
¶ under 50 pages
* none.
@ a title.

Hill Country Film Festival
$ 15 ~ 40 USD
! March 6, 2013
¶ under 10 pages
* none
@ to be adjusted.

St. Tropez International Film Festival
$ 137 ~ 226 USD
! March 14, 2013
¶ under 30 pages
* none.
@ you should read this one for yourself.

LA Comedy Film Festival
$ 25 ~ 70 USD
! March 15, 2013
¶ under 32 pages
* comedy.
@ 250 USD. value of good/services: 500 USD.

London Independent Film Festival
$ 49 ~ 89 USD
! March 15, 2013
¶ under 50 pages
* obscene, pornographic or illegal material is not allowed.
@ good/services: 500 United Kingdom Pounds.

Spirit Quest Film Festival
$ 20 ~ 55 USD
! March 15, 2013
¶ under 49 pages
* none.
@ none described.

Nantucket Film Festival
$ 20 ~ 55 USD
! March 26, 2013
¶ under 40 pages
* copyrighted or WGA registered.
@ 500 USD.

LAFF Vegas
$ 25 ~ 60 USD
!  March 31, 2013
¶ under 49 pages
* comedy.
@ none described.

Woods Hole Film Festival
$ 15 ~ 45 USD
! April 10, 2013
¶ under 30 pages
* hard copy required
@ yet to be determined.

Las Vegas Film Festival
$ 35 ~ 55 USD
! April 15, 2013
¶ under 75 pages
* none.
@ over 10000 USD shared among the winners.

Snake Alley Festival of Film
$ 20 ~ 60 USD
! April 15, 2013
¶ under 30 pages
* none.
@ wood sculpture.

Vegas Cinefest
$ 20 ~ 65 USD
! April 25, 2013
¶ up to 25 pages
* none.
@ none described.

DC Shorts Screenwriting Competition
$ 35~ 75 USD
! May 31, 2013
¶ up to 15 pages
* none.
@ 2000 USD.

Creative World Awards Screenwriting Competition
$ 24 ~ 69 USD
! June 1, 2013
¶ less than 40 pages
* screenplays must not be based on another piece of work unless public domain, no more than two authors.
@ 250 USD. Goods/Services: 1000 USD.

Columbia Gorge International Film Festival
$ 15 ~ 95 USD
! June 3, 2013
¶ less than 15 pages
* hard copies required, .
@ none described.

Denver Indie Fest
$ 15 ~ 50 USD
! June 24, 2013
¶ under 50 pages
* none.
@ it’s not a competition, so no prizes.

Eddie Bauer Jr. Screenplay Competition Benefiting the National Childrens Cancer Society
$ 20 ~ 65 USD
! July 1, 2013
¶ under 50 pages
* none.
@ value of good/services: 5000 USD.

2013 SF Shorts: San Francisco International Festival of Short Films
$ 25 ~ 55 USD
! July 7, 2013
¶ under 10 pages
* live-action, narrative, non-period, non-effects based.
@ value of good/services: 1900 USD. Script produced under 5k budget.

Action On Film International Film Festival
$ 30 ~ 55 USD
! July 20, 2013
¶ under 19 pages
* none
@ value of good/services: 100 ~ 2500 USD.

SoCal Independent Film Festival
$ 15 ~ 55 USD
! July 26, 2013
¶ under 30 pages
* none.
@ none described.

Manhattan Short Film Festival
$ 35 ~ 40 USD
! July 31, 2013
¶ under 20 pages
* none.
@ none described.

Hollywood Screenplay Contest
$ 25 ~ 55 USD
! August 10, 2013
¶ under 75 pages
* none.
@ over 20000 USD  in cash, prizes and services shared among winners.

Silent River Film Festival
$ 25 ~ 45 USD
! August 13, 2013
¶ under 50 pages
* none.
@ an award.

New York Screenplan Contest
$ 25 ~ 50 USD
! August 20, 2013
¶ under 70 pages
* none.
@ none described.

Eerie Horror Film Festival
$ 15 ~ 50 USD
! September 1, 2013
¶ under 69 pages
* horror, science fiction, mystery, suspense of the supernatural.
@ sponsor prizes.

West Field Screenwriting Awards
$ 30 ~ 50 USD
! September 30, 2013
¶ under 40 pages
* none.
@ an award.

WILDsound Feedback Film and Screenplan Festival
$ 35 ~ 40 USD
! Rolling deadline
¶ under 50 pages
* none.
@ a read of your screenplay for the audience.

DC Shorts Screenplay Competition

The DC Shorts Film Festival and Screenplay Competition is the largest short film event on the East Coast. In our 10th year, we plan on showcasing 150 films from around the globe — including the largest collection of Russian short films to ever be screened in the U.S. Hundreds of filmmakers and thousands of audience members to mix, mingle and explore the art of short cinema.

That’s what they say. How i see it? An opportunity for you to send your short film script somewhere and see if it gets anything.

It awards up to $2000 to a winning script. It must be under 15 pages and not in production. Entering the competition before March 31 costs you $30 when submitted through DC Shorts and $40 when through Withoutabox.

You must read everything in this page before sending anything.

If you have a short film ready to visit international festivals, please read this page. If you send the film before January 30 the price is $25 through DC Comics ($30 through Withoutabox).

The awards are not so appealing and i hate this concept of “paying to screen” (it is bad for the festival overall, as you’re obligated to screen poor films as long as they paid). But if you think you got a shot for the prize, do it.

Writing a Short Film: Characters

First of all, i hope you all recovered from the New Year’s hangover and i hope you had a great party and most important, that your 2013 turns out outstanding. But it is time to get back to work and i’ll be discussing my method to create characters.

Often people underestimate character development since they’re working on a shorter format. But your characters are always greater than your story and you must build this person. Your length doesn’t matter, it won’t stop being a person. This overall means that the process to create characters for short films is identical to creating for feature films. But why should we develop characters?

This is the story of a God.

A while ago we were discussing this subject on #scriptchat, someone agreed with me, “i know, you must be the God of your writing”, but i replied as it wasn’t like that. Being almighty towards your script means that anything is appropriate, and if anything is possible, then everything makes sense. Which is not the case. If you place yourself as the God of your story, it’ll end up as a platypus.

To avoid this we must place some boundaries and developing our characters is one of those things. I won’t come up with an example of a character that shouldn’t so something because it has certain personality, you’ll think of something as you read. But mostly because we develop our characters to stay out of these situations.

You should know your characters as a best friend. You may be able to predict their reactions, but they may still surprise you. You must know what ticks them and their flaws.

We should begin drawing our characters now. There are applications specialized on character development, as Persona, and a mere google search should lead you to several character sheets and questionnaires. I sincerely can’t work like that. The reason is that i few trapped in these forms and questions and i like to work freehand on my characters. I create by brainstorming.

Open up a text document and just type. Sometimes you’ll already have plot twists and a fate for this character, you must keep that in mind when you’re writing its biography as the decisions that lead to these twists must make sense. If you don’t have much more than an inciting incident, then developing a character properly will help you to come up with events to improve your stories. It’s like throwing mice in a maze.

I do most of my writing on iA Writer, but for character development i work on Scrivener directly. That’s because the smaller font makes me visualize the entire block of text. As i write on a single paragraph, it’s important to be aware of everything. I usually begin with tags which i’ll attain for the entire biography. “Isabella: Intellectual, stubborn, objective, overconfident“. These are my guidelines. I use the rest of the page to describe the past, reactions and justifications. Creating a background is to solidify the reason why pursuing your story’s goal actually matters for this character. “If John achieves his goal, he’ll be promoted” is a motive, “In his childhood, John was constantly bullied in school for achieving nothing” is what justifies the motive and humanizes our character, improving his empathy. My main character, Isabella, as i described, became an intellectual because she couldn’t settle down with her mother, drowned herself in books to run away into a decent university.

But my method is all about brainstorming, so it includes snippets of text that wouldn’t interfere in the story. Isabela remains quiet in the elevator, says there, but i won’t have any scene with Isabela meeting a stranger and having a chat in the elevator, but what motivates me into these sentences is that they bring clean images of the character, because a person that refuses to chat in elevators is reasonable and it takes our impressions someplace else. It’s what lies beneath. In my previous script (which will soon be posted in the blog), i wrote this on a character: has several books in the shelf, never read any of them. This is a person who cares for the visual impression he presents to others. These little things, images, that pop up in your head while you think about your character say more about they than the typical relevant information you would conventionally include in their description. And this is the main reason why i avoid all those techniques, i miss most of this when i get into forms and questions. I lose the imagery.

Developing your characters is not solely about raising limits, but also narrowing your path, drawing some guidelines when it comes to dialogue and reactions. In what situation would your character lie? How would he do it? Is he a natural liar? How does he react when someone finds out his flaw? These are not arbitrary questions, they don’t need an input in your development, however if you live with your character, sooner or later you’ll be able to answer these and many others. My brainstorming experience focuses on that: living among your characters, and that’s why i recommend it to you.

Quick notes on this subject:

1. Create a great character: Your job is not to ‘create a great character for a film’, forget about the media. Just create a great character.

2. Would this character pursue the goal of your story? Not an arbitrary question, but a reminder that your story must fit the character.

3. If you feel it is wrong, then it is wrong. This is a great advice when it comes to editing your story, but you could also put it in practice right now. If you write your character doing something that doesn’t seem right, then he probably wouldn’t do it. Stop thinking and let your character talk to you.

4. Use your imagery well. Your job is to create and induce images. How deep this image goes depends only on the dedication you apply to its layers. Start right now. Think in images.

5. Have a conversation. When you manage to have a fictional conversation with your character, then you’re ready.

6. Respect your boundaries. Don’t distort your characters because it would turn your story easier. Put some thought, otherwise we won’t bite it.