ScreenCraft Virtual Pitch
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About
- 1. Submit your best elevator pitch - a written, typed pitch of no more than 350 words.
2. Semifinalists will be asked to submit a 2-minute video pitch.
3. The selected finalists will pitch virtually to a panel of A-list industry professionals.
Benefits
The overall Grand Prize winner will receive a $500 prize, and receive personal introductions and phone calls with one or more top Hollywood industry professionals who are looking for talented emerging TV screenwriters.
Judges
Kristen Kiasaleh
Executive
Big Beach
Kristen Kiasaleh previously worked in development at Neflix on the Original Series, Drama team, Charlize Theron’s Denver & Delilah, and Amblin Entertainment.
Lyra Tan
TV Literary Coordinator
Gersh
Lyra Tan works in the TV Lit department at Gersh, the major literary and talent agency who represents award-winning talent and filmmakers such as Sam Elliot, Anna Paquin, Sam Rockwell, J.K. Simmons, Mark Hamill, and John Goodman.
Elizabeth Newman
Partner/Literary Manager
Literate Management
Elizabeth Newman is a Partner/Manager at Literate, a boutique, independent management & production company representing unique and diverse voices in film, television, and theatre. Literate’s clients have created and executive-produced critical and commercial hits such as SUITS (USA), BRIDGERTON (Netflix), SUCCESSION (HBO), THE WALKING DEAD (AMC), ONE PIECE (Netflix), LUKE CAGE (Netflix), SINGLE DRUNK FEMALE (Freeform), LA BREA (NBC), JOE VS. CAROLE (Peacock), and more.
David Baggelaar
Literary Manager
Good Fear
David got his start at Benderspink in 2012 where he remained as the company transitioned to Good Fear in 2016. On the production side, he’s worked in some capacity on New Line’s WE’RE THE MILLERS, HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 and VACATION, Disney’s MULAN, and A24’s UNDER THE SILVER LAKE. As a manager, his clients have worked at most of the streaming platforms, networks, and film studios.
Javier Chapa
Literary Manager
Inclusion Management
Javier Chapa’s debut feature film, Harvest of Redemption a true story and bilingual depiction of the struggle of Migrant Farm Workers won Best Foreign Drama at the 2007 International Family Film Festival. In 2021, Chapa and Fifth Season produced the film Blue Miracle starring Dennis Quaid. His film The Long Game, starring Jay Hernandez, Dennis Quaid and Cheech Marin premiered at SXSW last year where it won the Audience Award. His most recent release, The Black Demon a shark thriller starring Josh Lucas was a hit on Amazon Prime and has been in the top charts in the US and LATAM for weeks. Chapa is very proud of his heritage and was selected to be part of Latino Leaders Magazine and in 2017 was asked by Academy Award Winning Director Alejandro González Iñárritu to participate in his virtual reality project Flesh and Sand (Carne y Arena).
Writer Success
Announcements
Rules
Rules & Info:
350-word pitch submissions are accepted via electronic submission only.
Entry fees are as listed on the site and checkout form. No coupon or discount is applicable on a previous entry.
There is no optional feedback option from a professional reader applicable to this competition.
All participants must first submit a written, typed pitch of no more than 350 words. Your written pitch can include a brief description of characters, plot, themes, tone, writer background, comparable projects, etc. Any submission of more than 350 words will be disqualified from the competition.
Pitches should be for feature films, episodic series, or short film scripts only.
There is no limit to the number of projects you may submit.
All semi-finalists will be required to submit a filmed video pitch of themselves, via a private link.
Instructions for submission of video pitch will be sent only to Semifinalists. Only submissions with a filmed video pitch will be eligible to advance to the finals.
Semifinalists will be selected from the written submissions.
Video submission guidelines for Semifinalists:
Video can be hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, or any public-access video hosting platform.
Video must be 3 minutes or less in total, including stop/start time and a brief introduction. We ask that the pitch itself be no more than 2 minutes, but if you go over by a few seconds you will not be automatically disqualified.
There is no judging criteria based on video quality other than the clear ability to see/hear the writer(s). Self-filmed pitches via your smartphone are fine.
No additional props, guests or support materials may be in the video, only the writer(s).
Writers should - and the judges will - consider this video pitch a rehearsal for pitching live.
The finalists will be invited to pitch live to the Panel of Judges, over Zoom.
Finalists must be available for the Pitch Finals online event. Finalists who are not available for the event will be disqualified.
Winners will be selected and announced at the Finals Event .
Pitch 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).
If a writing team is chosen as a winner, both members of the writing team must be available to live-pitch at the Finals event.
It is recommended (but not required) that original material be registered with the WGA or The Library of Congress US Copyright Office before submitting to any competition.
Contact info may be included on the pitch, 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).
The decision of the judges will be final and cannot be contested in any manner. There is no score on a scorecard that guarantees advancement to the next level as advancement will be based on all scores in the competition.
In the event a juror, partner organization, mentor, or prize partner is no longer able to serve in their specified capacity, ScreenCraft will make its best effort to secure a replacement. ScreenCraft is not responsible for the failed delivery of any prize package by a juror, sponsor, or partner organization.
ScreenCraft reserves the right to change deadline and announcement dates at any time.
ScreenCraft reserves the right to amend these rules at any time.
For detailed terms and conditions, please visit ScreenCraft's Virtual Pitch Competition Page.