ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition
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About
Seeking great prose stories that have cinematic adaptation potential. Our Hollywood judges are looking for great stories to adapt. Does your short story have cinematic potential? Hollywood has adapted countless movies and TV pilots from great short stories. Our judges are looking for stories with potential to be adapted for the screen. We’re looking for true and fictional short stories, novellas less than 20,000 words in length. Submit your work for consideration today!
ScreenCraft’s past winners have gone on to sell their projects to major studios and have been hired by companies like Universal, Netflix, Amazon, Millennium, CBS and many more. ScreenCraft’s winners are also highly sought after by literary managers and agents who are open to signing new writer clients. Over 100 ScreenCraft writers have signed with top management companies and agencies like 3 Arts, Anonymous Content, CAA, WME, UTA, Paradigm, Lit Entertainment, Writ Large and many more.
Benefits
This year's judges include:
Navid McIlhargey -- the President of Scripted Content for Storied Media Group, behind Cannes winning film American Honey, Clint Eastwood’s The Mule, and John Carney's Modern Love. Previously, McIlhargey worked on movies ranging from Black Hawk Down to White Chicks to Broken City and was a Producer on Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla.
Eleanor Chandler -- an editor at Granta Magazine, a UK-based literary magazine and publisher that has published works by A.A. Milne, Stevie Smith and Sylvia Plath.
Heidi Pitlor -- the author of the novels The Birthdays, The Daylight Marriage, which was optioned for film, and Impersonation. A former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, she has been the series editor of The Best American Short Stories since 2007. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Lit Hub, Ploughshares, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere.
Sean E. Crouch -- the Showrunner of the popular Amazon Prime series, LORE, an anthology of short works. Previously he was showrunner of the critically acclaimed FOX series, THE EXORCIST and Co-EP on THE 100. He also wrote and produced numerous episodes for CBS's NUMB3RS, HELIX, UNFORGETTABLE and even VERONICA MARS.
Grand Prize Winner
The grand prize winner will receive a cash prize of $1000.
Circulation and personal recommendation of the winning book to our network of literary agents, managers, Film/TV producers and studio executives.
Phone call with ScreenCraft Development team to discuss your project and advise on option/purchase offers.
Second Place
The second place winner will receive a $500 cash prize.
50% off 2021 ScreenCraft Summit.
Accepted into ScreenCraft Development Program.
Top Quarterfinalists
The top quarterfinalists will receive special mention on our website when we announce in early January.
Announcements
Rules
At the program's request, Coverfly will automatically remove your title page for you if you include one when submitting to this program.
Submissions are accepted via electronic submission only, between September 1, 2020 and November 30, 2020.
Entry fee for each submission (regardless of pagecount) is $29 until the early deadline on September 30, 2020, then $49 until the regular deadline on October 31, 2020, and then $59 until the final deadline on November 30, 2020.
Optional feedback from a professional reader may be requested at the time of entry. Requests for feedback after an entry is submitted will not be accepted.
Short stories should be 20,000 words or less. Files should be in PDF format.
There is no limit to the number of projects you may submit.
Entries must be received on or before the deadline dates by 11:59PM Pacific Time, and submission fee payment must be made in full at time of the submission. All entry fees are non-refundable.
All submitted material must be original, and all rights must be wholly owned by the writer(s).
Material must be submitted by the writer. Material written by writing teams must be submitted by one of the writers, with consent of the other(s). All writers must be credited on the title page.
If a writing team is chosen as a winner, prizes will be given to the person who submits the project. Each team is responsible for dividing or sharing the prize money.
Substitutions of either corrected pages or new drafts of the entered material will be allowed for free within the first 24 hours, and for a $5 re-entry fee through our submission management platform Coverfly at any time until the finalists are announced. Please proofread your script carefully before submitting.
It is recommended that original material be registered with the WGA or The Library of Congress US Copyright Office before submitting to any competition, however we do not require WGA or Copyright registration.
Contact info may be included on the cover page, however it is not required.
ScreenCraft claims no ownership nor option on your work. All ownership and rights to the scripts submitted to this contest remain with the original rights holder(s).
- All writers at least 18 years of age are eligible. However, a writer who has earned more than $50,000 (or equivalent currency) from professional writing services for film or TV in the preceding year is not. (Contest winnings not included.)
- All material must be submitted electronically as a PDF or it will not be eligible.
- Adaptations are ineligible unless the underlying rights are owned by the writer or the work is in the public domain.
- Entries for this competition are managed on the submission platform Coverfly.
- We have no preferences regarding title page content. Title and name of writer would suffice.
- Material should be submitted in standard PDF format, with standard font, spacing and margin (Times New Roman is preferred font, but not required).
- Work and intellectual property must be wholly owned and submitted by the writer(s).
- There are no requirements as to when the material was written.
- All material submitted to other competitions or contests are eligible for this contest.
- All persons from anywhere in the world are eligible; however the material submitted must be in English (occasional dialogue in other languages is acceptable, if subtitle translation is provided).