A Tale of Two Movies

Earlier this year, I first became aware of the 72 Hour Film Fest, now in its seventh year, and the associated 72 Script Fest (in its first year) - a time-limited, assigned topic screenwriting competition.

The finalists from the 72 Script Fest would be given to the 72 Hour Film Fest participants, who would have 3 days to make short films based on those screenplays.  Not to mention cash prizes for the first and second-place screenwriting contest winners.

When the time came, all the screenwriters (90+) were given three random criteria, which had to be used in crafting their short screenplay. Mine were:

1) Set in the future
2) One man (or woman) against the world
3) The last match (a litteral match, or a contest)

I took the criteria literally, and created a post-apoctolyptic story featuring a lone woman survivor.  I tried to fill it with a solid story, character, suspense, surprise and emotion.

It won first place - Best Screenwriting - and was one of 29 finalists to be given to the 72 Film Fest participants.

There were 34 participant teams.  Two teams, Chiet Productions and Missing Link Productions, both chose The Flame for their project. I volunteered to help both teams.  Both ignored me.  One was sort of polite.  The other went completely "radio silent'.

From what I understand, this is par for the course, unless you're the producer/director or have the reputation of a Terry Rossio or M. Night Shyamalan. As a screenwriter, once you hand off your "baby", you have no control of its destiny. It is quite possible that you will turn over your sensitive, carefully crafted emotional character-driven work of art - and someone will turn it into a zombie movie.

I'm not kidding.  A...zombie...movie. With 'the walking dead' limping around and chewing on your characters.  ZOMBIES!!!

One famous screenwriter defined success as selling a screenplay, and having the check clear the bank.  Anything else is just luck, unless you're J.J. Abrams or George Lucas.

To be fair, the zombie movie took the Best Cinematography award at the 72 Film Fest.  Even WITH the zombies...(sigh).

But, the other film stayed very true to the script and storyline.  It took the Best Acting award.

And some audience members even cried a little bit near the end.  That was a huge ego boost.  There's nothing quite like having the words YOU wrote come floating down from a 30-foot tall screen and touching someone.

Here are the two movies, for your viewing pleasure:

• The Flame, by Chiet Productions
• The Rising, adapted from The Flame by Missing Link Productions

And here's a link to the original screenplay.

Enjoy. And, remember - when you sell your screenplay, my best advice is to simply cash your check, then go write something else.  And keep telling yourself, "It's only a screenplay.  It's only a screenplay.  It's only..."