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I know it's frustrating. It would be nice if there were more reviews. But...
Not a fan of adding more bureaucracy to this. It's an exercise. The challenge is to write.
Yeah, those who review all only get around a 1 to 3 exchange from the review process. But the reviews we are getting are from predominately experienced writers and really the ones you want to hear from the most. In terms of quid pro quo, with one rare exception that I can recall, the winning scripts are typically from active reviewers. I may change my mind and agree with you if I start seeing a pattern of winners that were not reviewers. i.e., folks that just bomb in to take part of in the challenge to get exposure without returning anything to the boards. But again - in my experience that is really rare.
I have empathy for the newbies. More than likely their scripts are getting pounded and as such they may feel their reviews will as well. I know that is not the case - but I can see it percolating in their minds.
I agree with this. We get plenty of reviews as it is and the ones reviewing are leaving good notes. We aren't missing out on anything, so it's really about entering the free and casual challenge and not following through on the community aspect, but so what? The ones who see the value in it will be back for more, and the more they participate and the better they get, the more they'll give back in the long run.
Leaving reviews for the sake of it promotes weak or unhelpful reviews. Let the new writers learn as much from the reviews as from the challenge. Give them a chance to build confidence in their abilities as readers as well as writers and before long they'll be an active part of the community.
So on a totally different matter, but entirely related to the one week challenges, my short script "Skip" from the Quickie challenge last year was filmed last week in L.A. So proof once again that these one week challenges do matter and they are looked at by up and coming producers and directors.
It was shot with an all-African American cast and crew, which I'm also proud of. The film is going into a lot of black film festivals, and once that's out of the way, I'll post the video here on the site.
But it's just another indicator that this is the best site anywhere for getting people to see your work!
Thanks, Matthew, and glad you were such a willing reader in this contest, which seems to be the opposite (per usual) of most of the noobs that have entered.
I don’t know whether it is fear of expressing their opinion for the first time or they just want to enter a contest but not but any other effort into it, we always seem to have this issue arise. So here is my very modest but completely wacky proposal to address this for future contests:
1. Anyone who enters who doesn’t review at least a third (33%) of the entires is DQ’d. That might be viewed as harsh, especially if life’s circumstances sometimes get in the way, but a lot of life is unfair, and the film business itself is particularly unfair.
2. Any noob who doesn’t actively participate in their first contest by reviewing can’t enter another contest until they actively review at least 20 short scripts on the general board. You need to contribute to the community. That’s how this site thrives. More than one word reviews are also required. “Interesting” isn’t really a review, IMO.
I’m sure there are other methods of incentivizing reviews, but those were the first two that came to my head. I know that it would be likely impossible to enforce, and we don’t need to add any more to Don’s or the moderators plates, but It’s frustrating putting the effort into reading 42 scripts and yours only get 15 in return. Something’s wrong with that picture.
Fire away with your criticisms. I’m know I’m just an old man yelling at clouds here.
Gary
I'm with you, bro. I've said this same kind of thing for years.
To call it frustrating, is missing the point...it's actually maddening.
We've now had basically a whole week, and most of these scripts have less than 15 actual reviews, as some have a few back and forths, a few reviews that mean absolutely ZERO, and a few others that don't say much of anything.
Sounds reasonable, but not likely. Although I do agree the dude who just wrote one word or one sentence for his reviews needs to step up his game and provide a little more insight. Like, maybe, two sentences.
I have a feeling his script is getting hammered because he doesn’t have much good to say about anything.
I wrote 2 one-sentence reviews this time. I greatly praised the script in one.
The other script with my one-sentence - I got somehow offended by the script. It's not a bad script, but I acted on emotion I guess and I shouldn't have. But that one-sentence said volunes - I made sure of that. Probably shouldn't have done that either.
Those OWC's are all in good fun, we shouldn't take it all close to heart I think.
Thanks, Matthew, and glad you were such a willing reader in this contest, which seems to be the opposite (per usual) of most of the noobs that have entered.
I don’t know whether it is fear of expressing their opinion for the first time or they just want to enter a contest but not but any other effort into it, we always seem to have this issue arise. So here is my very modest but completely wacky proposal to address this for future contests:
1. Anyone who enters who doesn’t review at least a third (33%) of the entires is DQ’d. That might be viewed as harsh, especially if life’s circumstances sometimes get in the way, but a lot of life is unfair, and the film business itself is particularly unfair.
2. Any noob who doesn’t actively participate in their first contest by reviewing can’t enter another contest until they actively review at least 20 short scripts on the general board. You need to contribute to the community. That’s how this site thrives. More than one word reviews are also required. “Interesting” isn’t really a review, IMO.
I’m sure there are other methods of incentivizing reviews, but those were the first two that came to my head. I know that it would be likely impossible to enforce, and we don’t need to add any more to Don’s or the moderators plates, but It’s frustrating putting the effort into reading 42 scripts and yours only get 15 in return. Something’s wrong with that picture.
Fire away with your criticisms. I’m know I’m just an old man yelling at clouds here.
Gary
I’m counting about 33 reviewers total at the moment, and at least 2 don’t actually have a script in the comp, so potentially 31 participants at a minimum. There is also the chance that people wrote multiple scripts, although I can’t see much of a link between any of them.
So I think 15 reviews is pretty low, but there is still another week, so it is early days.
I don’t think you're ever going to get as many as you would like, but at the very least it would be nice if they were roughly the same across the board.
I have no idea how the scoring works, but how does a script with 15 reviews compete with one that’s had 25?
I have a feeling his script is getting hammered because he doesn’t have much good to say about anything.
There is another new member - I won't name him but if he reads this he will probably know - Who was very enthusiastic leading up to the challenge, and at the very start was jumping in with reviews - and to be honest, the reviews he did were good (By that I don't mean they were right or wrong, but you could see actual effort was put in)
But then, the reviews stopped - and I can't help thinking, is it because his entry is getting slammed that he has stopped? Do other newbies see the bad reviews on their entries and think "screw them Im not joining in" - because thats not really in the spirit of things.
Now I may be assuming, and there may be other reasons the reviews stopped - but I can see that member is still logging in a lot - who knows
There is another new member - I won't name him but if he reads this he will probably know - Who was very enthusiastic leading up to the challenge, and at the very start was jumping in with reviews - and to be honest, the reviews he did were good (By that I don't mean they were right or wrong, but you could see actual effort was put in)
But then, the reviews stopped - and I can't help thinking, is it because his entry is getting slammed that he has stopped? Do other newbies see the bad reviews on their entries and think "screw them Im not joining in" - because thats not really in the spirit of things.
Now I may be assuming, and there may be other reasons the reviews stopped - but I can see that member is still logging in a lot - who knows
Said most of the OWC writers in every OWC before the reveal.
I can imagine.
But it's the strangest thing. None of you know me, I don't know any of you, but because I have been trawling the boards so much, reading everyone's posts and conversations, I feel like I do know some of you. So when some members haven't liked my entry, I kinda feel like I have let them down lol - think I need to get out more
I’m counting about 33 reviewers total at the moment, and at least 2 don’t actually have a script in the comp, so potentially 31 participants at a minimum. There is also the chance that people wrote multiple scripts, although I can’t see much of a link between any of them.
So I think 15 reviews is pretty low, but there is still another week, so it is early days.
I don’t think you're ever going to get as many as you would like, but at the very least it would be nice if they were roughly the same across the board.
I have no idea how the scoring works, but how does a script with 15 views compete with one that’s had 25?
2 comments here...
You say "it is early days", as in we still have alot of time to receive feedback, but let's understand that in the past, it was pretty much always 1 week to read and review, then voting and reveal. When these types of things "drag" on for over 2 weeks, interest is gone...both from the individual writer, looking at his feedback, and the reviewer, who sees x amount of reads under every script. Whatever comes in next week is merely stragglers, IMO.
As to voting, if someone who is voting didn't read/review a script, they shouldn't be scoring it, so if Reader A reads 42 scripts, he'll score 42 scripts, and if Reader B reads 3, he'll score 3. In theory, no one is "hurt" by having less reads and scores, but the reality is if someone reads 3 scripts and thinks to himself 1 should be a high score, 1 should be a middle score, and 1 should be a low score, then they are skewing the score, because they have no clue if the 3 they read were good, bad, or middling compared to all the scripts. Know what I'm saying?
I have no idea how the scoring works, but how does a script with 15 views compete with one that’s had 25?
Irrelevant. The only review that matters for your vote is your own. Granted, you might glean something from the other reviews, but how many other reviews to do need to get a point you might have missed or something you didn't think of?
There is another new member - I won't name him but if he reads this he will probably know - Who was very enthusiastic leading up to the challenge, and at the very start was jumping in with reviews - and to be honest, the reviews he did were good (By that I don't mean they were right or wrong, but you could see actual effort was put in)
But then, the reviews stopped - and I can't help thinking, is it because his entry is getting slammed that he has stopped? Do other newbies see the bad reviews on their entries and think "screw them Im not joining in" - because thats not really in the spirit of things.
Now I may be assuming, and there may be other reasons the reviews stopped - but I can see that member is still logging in a lot - who knows
I know exactly who you're talking about and "he" even said in a post before the scripts were posted, that he would read and provide feedback on every script and it would be very easy for him to do that.
There is another new member - I won't name him but if he reads this he will probably know - Who was very enthusiastic leading up to the challenge, and at the very start was jumping in with reviews - and to be honest, the reviews he did were good (By that I don't mean they were right or wrong, but you could see actual effort was put in)
But then, the reviews stopped - and I can't help thinking, is it because his entry is getting slammed that he has stopped? Do other newbies see the bad reviews on their entries and think "screw them Im not joining in" - because thats not really in the spirit of things.
Now I may be assuming, and there may be other reasons the reviews stopped - but I can see that member is still logging in a lot - who knows
Yes I noticed this as well, but I do think it would be easy as a new member to say "screw this I'm not joining in".
I know when I first started here I struggled with bad reviews, and there were a lot of them, but I used the advice that was given to me and improved my writing. I still don’t like seeing a bad review, I don’t think anyone does, but it’s all about finding the useful stuff and applying it to your writing. Surprisingly, I even got something useful from Jeff when I was a very-new newb that I still apply to my writing today, but don't tell him that. Take the good, toss the bad.
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