This news popped up on Facebook for me today, and I found myself pretty disappointed to hear it.  I always considered Movie Poet kind of a sister site, and I know there are many members here who frequent both boards.

Movie Poet is the only other writing site I visited with any frequency, as corralling the crazy over here in our own house consumes most of my time online.

But it is a very good site, and our OWC competitions are largely modeled after their monthly contests.  The scoring system he uses is second to none in its fair play, and it doesn't cost a nickel to enter.

Chris Messineo, the guy who runs the site, does a remarkable job.  I often wondered how he managed to keep the ship afloat.  Seems he finds himself wondering that same thing these days.

Darn shame, too.  I played a few times, but second is the highest I ever placed.  I lost to some dreadful hack named "Matias".  I never posted my Movie Poet work over here, but guess I might consider that now.

Not sure why I am posting this, really.  I just felt like saying something about it, and I would be curious what the folks who shuttle between there and here have to say.

That, and maybe Chris might wander over here, and be sad in a happy way to find a few additional voices mourning the loss of such a great writing site.

Bert -

Is this a definite?  I know that Chris was having some troubles, but was hoping that they were surmountable.  FWIW - as a result of commandeering the STS showcase, I've have the honor of becoming well acquainted with many in the MP crew.  REALLY talented and sweet group of people.  It'd be a shame for them to lose their home there.  (Although, clearly, they'd be welcome at SS too!!)

Quoted from wonkavite ...the MP crew.  REALLY talented and sweet group of people.

I know, right?  They are so much better behaved than the crew over here.

The mods over there have to do, like, nothing.

I have often wondered why that was.  The only thing I can figure is that it must be the soothing purple over there.

Is it not a done-deal that he is closing up shop?  Hope I am not jumping the gun here or anything.

Maybe somebody who knows more than I do can fill us in.

I was over there for a bit as well.

Nice site.

The one small thing I did notice was the time frame you would have to wait.

A month to write a short, then a while to get all the feedback.

Where as here, our challenges are usually (for shorts) a week with immediate feedback.

I also think that's why this site is a bit more hot headed. You have the chance to respond immediately (on regular work) rather than wait for all the comments to be posted about your work.

I hope they don't close though. Seems like a nice site.

Shawn.....><

The details are here:

http://www.moviepoet.com/reply.aspx?thread=3921&forum=1

I, too, am sorry to see MoviePoet go. I have a great deal of respect for Chris and the work that he did.

Don

I was never a member over there. A lot of my friends were, though. I'm sorry to hear you're all losing something that meant so much to you.

Movie Poet was started many years ago. Maybe -06 or -07. It was started after a bunch of us from here and other places entered the NYC MM comp and we were completely floored at the scripts that advanced and the scripts that were cut. Pure incompetence on the readers part for sure. At least that year. Anyway, Chris Messineo was there too and decided to make a more fair competition where the voting was done by peers, but without knowing who wrote what. And, he insisted it be free. A bunch of us jumped right on to MP and it was a lot of fun. We all learned a LOT during our time there. Many of us became friends there too. But, like with so many things, once you get better and better, cranking out a lot of 5 pagers seems sort of like playing. Features is really where the game is. Like Chris Keaton said over there once, MP is like riding your bike with training wheels on. Eventually, you'll move on to a bigger bike without the trainees on.

I love MP, but I feel I have graduated now. I got a nice road bike, but what I really want is that awesome Ducati. If you know what I mean.

Always upsetting when these things happen. Seemed like a god crowd as well.

IF a solution can't be found, reckon it would be good to subsume the site into this one, if possible.

From a personal point of view, the 5 page thing made it seem a bit irrelevant. It seemed a very arbitrary, and odd length, not really geared towards any particular thing.

The 5 page length was intended to cater to filmmakers since a LOT of festivals at that time, maybe still, were having several shorts categories and 5 pages or shorter was one. That's how that came about. I don't know how many scripts were actually picked up from that site. All of mine reached their filmmakers once I posted them here at SS.

Yeah, very sad news.

MP is different from the other site - there's special culture there. I started with MP and grew up with it. It's very gentle toward a new writer. It's very gentle and caring period.

And the system doesn't permit any hard feelings - writers who read and voted don't know who they are voting for/against.
It's also not just writers who vote but anyone stumbled across the site and realized he can participate - I like that - same way movies are being rated by a regular audience.

And it's not just about anonymity during the contest. You also can't see other's comments to the scripts that are in the pile. Nor are you allowed to discuss the scripts. Mentioning the titles is not permitted either. Also, you get to read them in random order. If a friend asks you to read his you might have to go through a number of them to get to his script. So, cheating the contest is not easy, if possible at all. I was amazed with the thought Chris put into MP when I first came across it.

Very sad it's closing.

I can understand the 5 minute thing.

From a festival point of view, they can fit four five minute films in the same time as one twenty minute film...so the longer it is the better it needs to be.

That's three extra filmmakers who are happy, with their families and friends more likely to visit the festival.

They also say that shorter films are better for the audience...if you don't like a 20 minute film it's a long wait for the next film, whereas a five minute one is not so bad.

It's just that stories are the length they need to be...some are 10 seconds, some are many hours. Not every story can be either shortened to five minutes, or lengthened to five minutes....a lot of times the scripts I read there were five minutes because they had to be, not because it was the best time to tell that particular story is what I'm trying to say.

Better to have a mix, imo. Not that it matters!

Quoted from ChrisMessenio, Moviepoet founder 2. The code that runs MoviePoet is old and this is quickly becoming a big problem. The site is slowing down and showing it's age. It runs on software that I can no longer support and that even my hosting provider is moving away from. It desperately needs to be reprogrammed with some new features and a long overdue facelift. I actually got some bids to fix the site but the estimates to do the job are between $10,000 and $15,000 (it's a lot of code). This is money I don't have and considering only five people have hit the donate button in the last two years, I don't think I'm likely to raise it either.

I wonder if he could start a Kickstarter campaign.  

I've been a member of MP for many years but I'm not writing 5 pagers anymore so I haven't been participating like I used to. Those 5 pagers are  not only appealing to filmmakers, they really teach you to write better.

I'll be sad to see it go but I totally understand where Chris is coming from. He's moved on. He has a film school that takes up his time now.

Why doesn't he give the site away rather than close it?

I'm gonna pop in and say that Matias has written some of the best scripts I've ever read.