Almost two and a half years now for the OWA's and they've yet to produce anything. At what point does it become reasonable to assume that there's no genuine opportunity there?
Indeed, these platforms have staff that need paying, running costs that need covering, and investors who need compensating. On top of that, what also often gets overlooked, is that people are using a resource for free purely because those services generate income. It amazes me how many people will sit on a free forum while grumbling the platform that provides that free space to them does anything for profit.
The break-in screenwriting world is reaping what was sowed years and years ago. Reddit mods pinned posts telling people that competitions were a good way to get noticed. The DoneDealPro forums pushed people toward paying script consultants. The Scriptnotes Podcast featured interviews with the Black List founder what, at least three times? All this has helped establish a rhetoric that people need to pay for feedback, get their scripts rated, and keep buying lottery tickets into the business. Those people, who had a responsibility to their communities, let them down, wittingly or unwittingly, and steered us toward a course which normalised activites that are often not only mostly ineffective but downright damaging to artists who are looking for direction, traction, and validation.
The path that has always worked and continues to work for pretty much every working writer is to study the craft, find their voice, and network until alignment happens. Paying someone to tell you how to improve a script is not studying the craft. Getting people to rate your material is not finding your voice. Entering endless contests is not networking. All of these methods are proxies designed to bypass the hardwork and patience needed, and they are proxies partly because little of what works can be easily monetised and partly because shortcuts appeal, especially to the desperate and naive.
Compounding the above is the fact you have this thick band around the industry full of people who can't quite make it but have one foot in the door, and to make up for that they cannibalise those who have no access at all. I'm not stupid; I know some of the people posting expert advice in communities are being paid to do so. I can connect the dots between a manager telling people they need to keep redrafting their work and the fact they sell script consultancy as a service on the side. I have enough insight to know that many people listening to pitches aren't looking to make an actual movie and are instead earning a fee by being there.
This time last year I was brought in by a producer to look at rewriting a script that was objectively dogshit. One of the worst I've read. The producer wanted to make it because it was a concept they liked based on a true story, and it had only gotten into their hands because the writer was the assistant of a very well known actor. The script read like someone's first attempt. It was meandering, full of exposition, and had some of the most clunky dialogue I've ever witnessed. When I Googled the writer, guess what, they were available to pitch to. Suddenly they were a producer who specialises in feature film and TV scripts with ten years experience at an oscar-nominated company. This is an assistant who cannot get her own scripts made, never mind produce anybody elses.
I cannot begin to describe just how utterly insane the break-in world feels to someone who makes movies. It is like entering the upside down. What's said by writers, what's said by "experts", what's said by "consultants", what's said by "pros". It's part madness, part delusion, and part manipulation with everyone who knows better gradually giving up and checking out, because in a world that's crazy, it's the sane who look deranged.
Also, to clarify: I'm not accussing or suggesting Stage 32 et al. are engaged in any illegal behavior. I list sites like that among the get-rich-quick schemes or miracle weight loss drugs of the world.
Perhaps not illegal. But legality is also based on jurisdiction. NSW Crimes Act 192g say. Making a false statement that cause a financial loss or financial gain has committed a fraud and is open to a 5 years prison sentence.
Are they engaged in a false statement? Who knows. Are the OWA for real funded producers? Again who knows.
It doesn't have to be one or the other, and this is what's frustrating. Most platforms have to make money, and thus they are inherently cynical in operation in some form. It doesn't mean they are a scam or they are doing anything illegal. The most extreme form of cynicism is where there's a conflict of interest, usually in the form of a customer getting what they need, meaning they will stop using the product/service entirely. Dating apps are the posterchild of this paradox, where it could be argued that it's poor business to generate results and better business to keep people trying and failing for as long as possible.
Well, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the policing should have been done in some part by opinion leaders and platform moderators. Reddit mods should not have pinned posts that pushed competitions. Scriptnotes should not have been so fascinated with the Black List. Bang2Write should not have jumped up to defend Coverfly when nobody knew anything about it. Even many of the "top" consultants were pushing meaningless competitions ten years ago, and guess why, because they were judges and able to push through their own clients, all while offering Final Draft discount vouchers and touting that every screenwriter needed the "industry standard" to be taken seriously. All this helped validate the world we have now.
This is going to sound shitty. But many writers are willing victims. I have done an episode on why competitions are a waste, I have called a lot of the "services" a scam. These are my lowest watched videos.
If I do a "three things that make you a pro", everyone watches no matter how low the quality.
People, I think, are willingly delusional. Which makes me sad-ish.
Craig, that's very interesting that those videos are your least viewed, but it certainly tracks and makes sense. I have writer-friends in their 50s and 60s who've been at this game for decades and still think screenplay contests and the like are the way "in". They'll post or talk about how they're a quarterfinalist in some competition I've never heard of and if I don't congratulate or acknowledge this then I'm a bully or a hater or whatever.
"A fool and his money are soon parted" is the quote that comes to mind for me regarding all this. I'm embarrased to admit it, but for years I was one of those fools, paying money that I didn't have to contests or coverage sites because I didn't know what else to do. I've been fortunate enough to win or advance in many over the years and the net result wasn't very much, if anything.
I see people posting about awards on Facebook and some screenwriting forums all the time, and it's kinda sad because, while they are pleased as punch, we all know, deep down, it's next to meaningless. The worst is when people call themselves an "award-winning writer" off the back of it. The merit has no substance anymore. If anything, it now makes people look bad.
I've watched people obsess with that strategy for over a decade. Same people banging on about when the entries are open and results are in. Same people talking about redrafts. Same people talking as if there's some prestige in paying to enter. It's like a gambling addiction.
Some certainly are incentivised to push bad information, but I wonder how much of it is simply the Dunning-Kruger. People learn some surface information and they push what seem like easy solutions onto others, sometimes in the guise of giving "professional notes" or being a consultant. Then they hit the valley of dispair when they see how things really are and check out, leaving their bad advice behind them to circulate to the next person.
It's starting to look like OWA submission rules are flexible. I've noticed the need to participate in the VIP room doesn't apply to some. Also noticed that one of the more successful submitters is a prodco reader. That doesn't surprise me too much. Readers tend to know what other readers want. It also perhaps means the whole formatting and typos thing isn't ridiculously strict.
As I understand it, a lot of those scripts are actually in some stage of production anyway. That was always the man behind the curtain moment with the annual list. It was just a way for a clique of producers to draw attention to projects that needed some kudos to help their marketing, while in turn helping the stats for the list because, of course, lots of those scripts "go on" to be produced. I checked out when that parody "Yet Another Lax Mandis" script from an exec was included.
I would have thought the writing is good, but I haven't read any of them. I did read a script rated as 10/10 on the website and I was pretty shocked at how mediocre and derivative it was. It was a female-led western though, so perhaps there was some political motivation behind pushing it up the system.
I do remember when the platform launched and the top script turned out to be an ex-employee's.
Rejected for another OWA with what's probably my best script. People selected definitely don't chat in the writer's room, so I checked the terms and conditions and that rule has indeed been dropped.
Well, that was a bummer to the start of the new year. Checked my phone in the middle of the night to find both OWAs I'd seen scripts selected for have had passes. I think that takes me completely out of the running now.
It's proving to be a very odd psychological experiment. I've had the most remarkable validation this year from the likes of Mario Kassar (Total Recall, Terminator 2, Basic Instinct), Brad Wilson (Days of Thunder, Falling Down), and Frank Langella (Robot & Frank, Frost Nixon) all saying my work is some of the best they've seen. Yet, these OWAs really knock me down in terms of self-confidence and leave me feeling really frustrated.
It's really taken me back to just how futile things can feel when you take part in these kind of systems. I know we're supposed to learn to live with rejection, but I feel people who say that are either not being rejected that often or are the ones doing the rejecting in the first place.
For me, it's also highlighting the power of a respected recommendation and previous credits. I feel that the perception people have before going into a read strongly impacts their enjoyment. It's the old benefit of the doubt issue. I don't know if the OWAs carry much weight at this time, especially with the lack of success stories being posted.
I think saying the OWAs have nothing of value to offer anyone after six pages of explaining how they work is an odd conclusion to draw. Kinda feels like we're going in circles now. At least one listing isn't a scam or illusion at all. The only thing we don't really know about is the vetting process.
Personally, I have all the validation I can ever imagine. 2024 has been an amazing year and included not only shooting my fourth feature film but a previous one going to #8 globally on Netflix. Two Oscar-nominated actors have now wanted to attach to the same script. However, these OWA rejections do still sting in the moment, and they sting a lot differently to people passing in the traditional sense. I don't know if it's the waiting around and the sudden email out of nowhere, I don't know if it's the paranoia that comes with having gatekeepers, or the way you don't get a reason for the pass, but it feels like a futile process. What it does is make my heart hurt for writers who only participate in these kind of services. I did it for a year after I first started writing and got out of it. I only do the OWAs because they are there and it costs me nothing more to participate. When you throw in the thought of writers paying for all those competition entries and BL evaluations, only to feel they aren't good enough, it just makes me want to weep for them and the writer I used to be. I mean, this is a big part why Script Revolution was originally built - to try and give people hope and keep in the game long enough to refine their craft and plant the seeds of networking.
It's certainly a small world out there and it's many of the same names behind success stories on multiple platforms. That can be a strange beast too. I was recently handed a script to potentially rewrite which was originally penned by a writer who's been showcased on Stage 32.
I am brand new to the world of screenwriting, but have plenty of success collecting rejections in music and both fiction and nonfiction writing, sprinkled along a few actual successes. I understand the highs and the lows, and getting those two "rejections" was a blow (bad timing with the new year as well), but you're putting in the work and keeping an open mind (taking the good advice and recognizing the bits to gloss over). I hope the rest of the year works out better. In the meantime, you got this.
I appreciate the sentiment. 2025 is looking promising, and it's a welcome turnaround after a couple of years of stasis. I now have a rep/manager, and that went on IMDb last night, which felt good.
It's now been a year since I started this thread to voice my misgivings about the S32 OWA's. A lot could've changed in a year but unfortunately nothing has. The OWA's have yet to produce their first paid option or writing gig. I'm wondering if it will still be the same story a year from now and if so, how many people will still be buying into the OWA mirage?
The OWA asking for Pulp Fiction type material has caused me some concern. That's my wheelhouse. Everyone says my work is like early Tarantino and I've never met another writer, in thirteen years, leaning into that kind of tone. You're telling me there's at least ten active writers' room members doing better in that niche? I dunno. I know my concern is coming from an arrogant place, but this is one of the few times I feel I can stand up and say, WTF?
is access to these OWAs "free" (after shelling out US $39 / month to be a member of the Writers' Room) or is there an added charge?
what about the other perks? – i'm guessing acces to their "A Thriving Community of Screenwriters" is free – but what about the "Direct Access to Industry Professionals" and "Exclusive Access Every Week (to webcasts)" – what sort of additional fees are we looking at and what's been people's experiences?
The OWAs are part of the Writer's Room, so no extra charge. Basically, all Writer's Room members can submit to as many as they want, but only with one script for each submission.
The Writer's Room itself is supposed to be a one-stop solution giving everything a new writer needs to learn the craft, network, and submit work. It does that pretty well. There was actually a webinar the other night talking about craft, and the person giving that lecture referenced my book and the part about writing endings.
If Amazon Studios felt the need to shut up shop then what chance, in an ever decreasing pool of buyers do the other folks at the table have at making a sufficent noise to get noticed.
I haven't had much luck with the OWA's yet, but I recently paid for a pitch session and got some pretty good feedback. It made me realize I was missing some key elements of the story. I got high marks on it but it still ended up getting a pass. I will definitely resubmitt to the reader if he offers another opening.
Indeed, these platforms have staff that need paying, running costs that need covering, and investors who need compensating. On top of that, what also often gets overlooked, is that people are using a resource for free purely because those services generate income. It amazes me how many people will sit on a free forum while grumbling the platform that provides that free space to them does anything for profit.
The break-in screenwriting world is reaping what was sowed years and years ago. Reddit mods pinned posts telling people that competitions were a good way to get noticed. The DoneDealPro forums pushed people toward paying script consultants. The Scriptnotes Podcast featured interviews with the Black List founder what, at least three times? All this has helped establish a rhetoric that people need to pay for feedback, get their scripts rated, and keep buying lottery tickets into the business. Those people, who had a responsibility to their communities, let them down, wittingly or unwittingly, and steered us toward a course which normalised activites that are often not only mostly ineffective but downright damaging to artists who are looking for direction, traction, and validation.
The path that has always worked and continues to work for pretty much every working writer is to study the craft, find their voice, and network until alignment happens. Paying someone to tell you how to improve a script is not studying the craft. Getting people to rate your material is not finding your voice. Entering endless contests is not networking. All of these methods are proxies designed to bypass the hardwork and patience needed, and they are proxies partly because little of what works can be easily monetised and partly because shortcuts appeal, especially to the desperate and naive.
Compounding the above is the fact you have this thick band around the industry full of people who can't quite make it but have one foot in the door, and to make up for that they cannibalise those who have no access at all. I'm not stupid; I know some of the people posting expert advice in communities are being paid to do so. I can connect the dots between a manager telling people they need to keep redrafting their work and the fact they sell script consultancy as a service on the side. I have enough insight to know that many people listening to pitches aren't looking to make an actual movie and are instead earning a fee by being there.
This time last year I was brought in by a producer to look at rewriting a script that was objectively dogshit. One of the worst I've read. The producer wanted to make it because it was a concept they liked based on a true story, and it had only gotten into their hands because the writer was the assistant of a very well known actor. The script read like someone's first attempt. It was meandering, full of exposition, and had some of the most clunky dialogue I've ever witnessed. When I Googled the writer, guess what, they were available to pitch to. Suddenly they were a producer who specialises in feature film and TV scripts with ten years experience at an oscar-nominated company. This is an assistant who cannot get her own scripts made, never mind produce anybody elses.
I cannot begin to describe just how utterly insane the break-in world feels to someone who makes movies. It is like entering the upside down. What's said by writers, what's said by "experts", what's said by "consultants", what's said by "pros". It's part madness, part delusion, and part manipulation with everyone who knows better gradually giving up and checking out, because in a world that's crazy, it's the sane who look deranged.
Also, to clarify: I'm not accussing or suggesting Stage 32 et al. are engaged in any illegal behavior. I list sites like that among the get-rich-quick schemes or miracle weight loss drugs of the world.
Perhaps not illegal. But legality is also based on jurisdiction. NSW Crimes Act 192g say. Making a false statement that cause a financial loss or financial gain has committed a fraud and is open to a 5 years prison sentence.
Are they engaged in a false statement? Who knows. Are the OWA for real funded producers? Again who knows.
It doesn't have to be one or the other, and this is what's frustrating. Most platforms have to make money, and thus they are inherently cynical in operation in some form. It doesn't mean they are a scam or they are doing anything illegal. The most extreme form of cynicism is where there's a conflict of interest, usually in the form of a customer getting what they need, meaning they will stop using the product/service entirely. Dating apps are the posterchild of this paradox, where it could be argued that it's poor business to generate results and better business to keep people trying and failing for as long as possible.
Well, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the policing should have been done in some part by opinion leaders and platform moderators. Reddit mods should not have pinned posts that pushed competitions. Scriptnotes should not have been so fascinated with the Black List. Bang2Write should not have jumped up to defend Coverfly when nobody knew anything about it. Even many of the "top" consultants were pushing meaningless competitions ten years ago, and guess why, because they were judges and able to push through their own clients, all while offering Final Draft discount vouchers and touting that every screenwriter needed the "industry standard" to be taken seriously. All this helped validate the world we have now.
This is going to sound shitty. But many writers are willing victims. I have done an episode on why competitions are a waste, I have called a lot of the "services" a scam. These are my lowest watched videos.
If I do a "three things that make you a pro", everyone watches no matter how low the quality.
People, I think, are willingly delusional. Which makes me sad-ish.
Craig, that's very interesting that those videos are your least viewed, but it certainly tracks and makes sense. I have writer-friends in their 50s and 60s who've been at this game for decades and still think screenplay contests and the like are the way "in". They'll post or talk about how they're a quarterfinalist in some competition I've never heard of and if I don't congratulate or acknowledge this then I'm a bully or a hater or whatever.
"A fool and his money are soon parted" is the quote that comes to mind for me regarding all this. I'm embarrased to admit it, but for years I was one of those fools, paying money that I didn't have to contests or coverage sites because I didn't know what else to do. I've been fortunate enough to win or advance in many over the years and the net result wasn't very much, if anything.
I see people posting about awards on Facebook and some screenwriting forums all the time, and it's kinda sad because, while they are pleased as punch, we all know, deep down, it's next to meaningless. The worst is when people call themselves an "award-winning writer" off the back of it. The merit has no substance anymore. If anything, it now makes people look bad.
I've watched people obsess with that strategy for over a decade. Same people banging on about when the entries are open and results are in. Same people talking about redrafts. Same people talking as if there's some prestige in paying to enter. It's like a gambling addiction.
Some certainly are incentivised to push bad information, but I wonder how much of it is simply the Dunning-Kruger. People learn some surface information and they push what seem like easy solutions onto others, sometimes in the guise of giving "professional notes" or being a consultant. Then they hit the valley of dispair when they see how things really are and check out, leaving their bad advice behind them to circulate to the next person.
It's starting to look like OWA submission rules are flexible. I've noticed the need to participate in the VIP room doesn't apply to some. Also noticed that one of the more successful submitters is a prodco reader. That doesn't surprise me too much. Readers tend to know what other readers want. It also perhaps means the whole formatting and typos thing isn't ridiculously strict.
As I understand it, a lot of those scripts are actually in some stage of production anyway. That was always the man behind the curtain moment with the annual list. It was just a way for a clique of producers to draw attention to projects that needed some kudos to help their marketing, while in turn helping the stats for the list because, of course, lots of those scripts "go on" to be produced. I checked out when that parody "Yet Another Lax Mandis" script from an exec was included.
I would have thought the writing is good, but I haven't read any of them. I did read a script rated as 10/10 on the website and I was pretty shocked at how mediocre and derivative it was. It was a female-led western though, so perhaps there was some political motivation behind pushing it up the system.
I do remember when the platform launched and the top script turned out to be an ex-employee's.
Rejected for another OWA with what's probably my best script. People selected definitely don't chat in the writer's room, so I checked the terms and conditions and that rule has indeed been dropped.
Okay, make that two OWA rejections tonight LOL!
It's certainly going to get interesting anyway, as I now know a producer on the other side of these.
Well, that was a bummer to the start of the new year. Checked my phone in the middle of the night to find both OWAs I'd seen scripts selected for have had passes. I think that takes me completely out of the running now.
It's proving to be a very odd psychological experiment. I've had the most remarkable validation this year from the likes of Mario Kassar (Total Recall, Terminator 2, Basic Instinct), Brad Wilson (Days of Thunder, Falling Down), and Frank Langella (Robot & Frank, Frost Nixon) all saying my work is some of the best they've seen. Yet, these OWAs really knock me down in terms of self-confidence and leave me feeling really frustrated.
It's really taken me back to just how futile things can feel when you take part in these kind of systems. I know we're supposed to learn to live with rejection, but I feel people who say that are either not being rejected that often or are the ones doing the rejecting in the first place.
For me, it's also highlighting the power of a respected recommendation and previous credits. I feel that the perception people have before going into a read strongly impacts their enjoyment. It's the old benefit of the doubt issue. I don't know if the OWAs carry much weight at this time, especially with the lack of success stories being posted.
Hi CJ, Happy New Year! or not?
Sorry about your two rejections at the same time. It's enough to knock the wind out of anyone's sails.
Looking at the success stories on the ISA site I see some names I recognize from Script Revolution.
I think saying the OWAs have nothing of value to offer anyone after six pages of explaining how they work is an odd conclusion to draw. Kinda feels like we're going in circles now. At least one listing isn't a scam or illusion at all. The only thing we don't really know about is the vetting process.
Personally, I have all the validation I can ever imagine. 2024 has been an amazing year and included not only shooting my fourth feature film but a previous one going to #8 globally on Netflix. Two Oscar-nominated actors have now wanted to attach to the same script. However, these OWA rejections do still sting in the moment, and they sting a lot differently to people passing in the traditional sense. I don't know if it's the waiting around and the sudden email out of nowhere, I don't know if it's the paranoia that comes with having gatekeepers, or the way you don't get a reason for the pass, but it feels like a futile process. What it does is make my heart hurt for writers who only participate in these kind of services. I did it for a year after I first started writing and got out of it. I only do the OWAs because they are there and it costs me nothing more to participate. When you throw in the thought of writers paying for all those competition entries and BL evaluations, only to feel they aren't good enough, it just makes me want to weep for them and the writer I used to be. I mean, this is a big part why Script Revolution was originally built - to try and give people hope and keep in the game long enough to refine their craft and plant the seeds of networking.
It's certainly a small world out there and it's many of the same names behind success stories on multiple platforms. That can be a strange beast too. I was recently handed a script to potentially rewrite which was originally penned by a writer who's been showcased on Stage 32.
CJ,
I am brand new to the world of screenwriting, but have plenty of success collecting rejections in music and both fiction and nonfiction writing, sprinkled along a few actual successes. I understand the highs and the lows, and getting those two "rejections" was a blow (bad timing with the new year as well), but you're putting in the work and keeping an open mind (taking the good advice and recognizing the bits to gloss over). I hope the rest of the year works out better. In the meantime, you got this.
doug esper
I appreciate the sentiment. 2025 is looking promising, and it's a welcome turnaround after a couple of years of stasis. I now have a rep/manager, and that went on IMDb last night, which felt good.
It's now been a year since I started this thread to voice my misgivings about the S32 OWA's. A lot could've changed in a year but unfortunately nothing has. The OWA's have yet to produce their first paid option or writing gig. I'm wondering if it will still be the same story a year from now and if so, how many people will still be buying into the OWA mirage?
The OWA asking for Pulp Fiction type material has caused me some concern. That's my wheelhouse. Everyone says my work is like early Tarantino and I've never met another writer, in thirteen years, leaning into that kind of tone. You're telling me there's at least ten active writers' room members doing better in that niche? I dunno. I know my concern is coming from an arrogant place, but this is one of the few times I feel I can stand up and say, WTF?
questions for those who know:
is access to these OWAs "free" (after shelling out US $39 / month to be a member of the Writers' Room) or is there an added charge?
what about the other perks? – i'm guessing acces to their "A Thriving Community of Screenwriters" is free – but what about the "Direct Access to Industry Professionals" and "Exclusive Access Every Week (to webcasts)" – what sort of additional fees are we looking at and what's been people's experiences?
The OWAs are part of the Writer's Room, so no extra charge. Basically, all Writer's Room members can submit to as many as they want, but only with one script for each submission.
The Writer's Room itself is supposed to be a one-stop solution giving everything a new writer needs to learn the craft, network, and submit work. It does that pretty well. There was actually a webinar the other night talking about craft, and the person giving that lecture referenced my book and the part about writing endings.
They come, they go.
If Amazon Studios felt the need to shut up shop then what chance, in an ever decreasing pool of buyers do the other folks at the table have at making a sufficent noise to get noticed.
Jay.
Just been notified I've had a script selected for an OWA I can't find any record of submitting to LOL!
No details on who it's been submitted to this time either.
things that make you go, "hmmm"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfZRfw92K78
I think they'll publicly post who has been selected tomorrow and for what, so maybe I'll be able to work out which OWA it should have been for.
I haven't had much luck with the OWA's yet, but I recently paid for a pitch session and got some pretty good feedback. It made me realize I was missing some key elements of the story. I got high marks on it but it still ended up getting a pass. I will definitely resubmitt to the reader if he offers another opening.
The reader
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm8299996/
hey CJ – did you find out "which OWA it should have been for"?
Nope. They announced the finalists in the Writer's Room and the one I'd been picked for wasn't included. All very strange, and frankly worrying.
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