Nektonic
Veteran
Since the mods just recently announced Monsterfest and Scriptfest V, I had a crazy idea. Would it ever be possible to do a feature length scriptfest on here someday? I'm not saying they should go announce one all willy nilly. Obviously waiting at least until the current two 'fests' are complete would be the earliest reasonable time.
Also, the writing time would have to be longer. Scriptfest usually works out to about 4 weeks to write a 6-10 page short screenplay, then about 1.5 weeks to rate and discuss, then another week til the winners are announced. So a total of about 1.5 months for the current scriptfests.
I'm thinking a reasonable amount of writing time for the fest would be 3 to 4 months, then another 1.5 to 2 months to read, rate, and discuss all the entries, due to their length (90-120 pages). So about a 4.5 to 5 month period in total. This is just an estimate too. Maybe 4 months is too long for some and too short for others. I don't know. My reasoning for this approx. 5 month fest period would be so that two feature scriptfests could be held every year. Then again, maybe it is wiser to have only one per year, meaning that we'd all have more writing time and more time to read and rate the scripts.
One thing that I think would need to be different would be the whole idea of a common theme and required element. Past scriptfests, just like the DVX-film fests, have had themes or genres consisting of pursuit, sci-fi, pulp, and western. I think those were great for writing short scripts, because part of the challenge was to work within the theme or the genre's boundaries and limitations. I think that for a feature writing fest, that there should be no limitations on theme or genre. Let's face it, it is a ton of work to complete a well written feature script. I feel it would be unfair to ask writers to limit themselves to a theme on a feature writing endeavor. I'm not saying it wouldn't be beneficial, but since we aren't a cadre of established Hollywood scribes, the little time we have to carve out of our workdays for writing a feature screenplay really shouldn't be limited to a genre we might not want to write in.
So maybe this would make it more of a workshop than a competition, but then again, some of the world's top screenplay competitions don't force their entrants to write in a certain genre or include a specific thematic element or prop. Also, this way there could be a grand prize, as well as genre-specific winners as well.
As for page range limitations, I think 90 to 120 pages, the spec standard, would make perfect sense. What to name the fest? Calling it featurescriptfest is just too long and would confuse it with the current model of scriptfest, so I submit the title of "SpecFest". This makes the most sense to me because those that chose to enter would in essence be writing a spec script. If anyone has better title ideas, please chime in.
Alright, I've went on long enough.
Basically what I'm asking is... would anybody out there in the land of DVXUSER be interested in this concept? If so, just say yey or ney. Feel free to also throw out any ideas on how this would possibly be organized. Then we can alert the mods to this thread and see what they think about it.
Also, the writing time would have to be longer. Scriptfest usually works out to about 4 weeks to write a 6-10 page short screenplay, then about 1.5 weeks to rate and discuss, then another week til the winners are announced. So a total of about 1.5 months for the current scriptfests.
I'm thinking a reasonable amount of writing time for the fest would be 3 to 4 months, then another 1.5 to 2 months to read, rate, and discuss all the entries, due to their length (90-120 pages). So about a 4.5 to 5 month period in total. This is just an estimate too. Maybe 4 months is too long for some and too short for others. I don't know. My reasoning for this approx. 5 month fest period would be so that two feature scriptfests could be held every year. Then again, maybe it is wiser to have only one per year, meaning that we'd all have more writing time and more time to read and rate the scripts.
One thing that I think would need to be different would be the whole idea of a common theme and required element. Past scriptfests, just like the DVX-film fests, have had themes or genres consisting of pursuit, sci-fi, pulp, and western. I think those were great for writing short scripts, because part of the challenge was to work within the theme or the genre's boundaries and limitations. I think that for a feature writing fest, that there should be no limitations on theme or genre. Let's face it, it is a ton of work to complete a well written feature script. I feel it would be unfair to ask writers to limit themselves to a theme on a feature writing endeavor. I'm not saying it wouldn't be beneficial, but since we aren't a cadre of established Hollywood scribes, the little time we have to carve out of our workdays for writing a feature screenplay really shouldn't be limited to a genre we might not want to write in.
So maybe this would make it more of a workshop than a competition, but then again, some of the world's top screenplay competitions don't force their entrants to write in a certain genre or include a specific thematic element or prop. Also, this way there could be a grand prize, as well as genre-specific winners as well.
As for page range limitations, I think 90 to 120 pages, the spec standard, would make perfect sense. What to name the fest? Calling it featurescriptfest is just too long and would confuse it with the current model of scriptfest, so I submit the title of "SpecFest". This makes the most sense to me because those that chose to enter would in essence be writing a spec script. If anyone has better title ideas, please chime in.
Alright, I've went on long enough.
Basically what I'm asking is... would anybody out there in the land of DVXUSER be interested in this concept? If so, just say yey or ney. Feel free to also throw out any ideas on how this would possibly be organized. Then we can alert the mods to this thread and see what they think about it.
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