I didn't think the challenge was all that bad to be honest. Two completely opposite characters should lead to drama naturally. It was challenging because I know very little about veganism, but I guess that's the point of the 'C' part of OWC.

What's mainly pissed me off about this is that my script isn't a pisstake *screams for George* and it's yet to be posted. Some people have said they aren't reading any more scripts based on all the joke ones - which is fair enough - so I'm wishing I spent the time on something a bit more productive than writing a script that probably isn't going to be read all that much.

Ste

Would it be fair to say that most of the 5 page scripts came from the Movie Poet writers? They limit themselves to five page scripts don't they?  What if the next OWC had a definite page count rule?  If we said a script must be ten pages long, then we can discard the five page and shorter scripts.  How does that sound?


Phil

Quoted from dogglebe Would it be fair to say that most of the 5 page scripts came from the Movie Poet writers? They limit themselves to five page scripts don't they?  What if the next OWC had a definite page count rule?  If we said a script must be ten pages long, then we can discard the five page and shorter scripts.  How does that sound? Phil

Just to give an example, the Sir Peter Ustinov Award I linked to on the 'Contests' board accepts scripts that are between 30 and 60 minutes long (which we can take as being roughly 30-60 pages). I think this 50-100% band might be a good idea. So, for instance, if the maximum limit is 12 pages, the minimum is 6.

That way, the longest script is, at most, twice as long as the shortest script. At the moment, we have a situation where some scripts are six times longer than others. That, to me, is too wide a range.

George, I apologize if I made a mistake in my review of your script, but I actually doubt I would purposely exagerate anything for no reason.  Would you PM me your script's name, so I can go back and give it another read?  I will not reveal anything about you being the writer.

Rick, I didn't try and sabotage anything.  I am hardly the only one who entered a pissatke...at least I hope not, cause it sure looks like a shitload of pissers to me.  In fact, I have never entered a pisser before this OWC, and we all know there have been many a pisser.

In response to either your script or any script that goes over the page length, IMO, it's a simple no brainer...you go over the page count, you're out.  Why is that hard to understand?  If someone is putting effort into their entry and they are running close to the page count, things need to get cut out to make the limit...plain and simple.  Anyone who decides not to do that, isn't playing by the rules set forth.

I remember very clearly having to cut out almost an entire page awhile back and posts all said that it seemed like the end had been rushed and things had been chopped.  If I hadn't have played by the rules, and just decided to run over the max page limit by 1 or 2 pages, then everything would have been fine and dandy.

Greg, no, that wasn't a pisstake post, either.  IMO, my pissers are very funny. In fact, I've been laughing out loud for over a week about them.  But then again, I do find really bad movies to be the best comedies out there.

What if Don starts by only posting the scripts from active board members, and the outsiders who have submitted an entry only have their script posted after they have commented on a certain number of scripts? If they don't contribute then their script simply isn't included in the challenge.

That's another great idea, Tim!

Also, as for page length, I think a 50/10 band is too big.  There is a HUGE difference between a 6 pager and a 12 pager.

If 12 pages is the max, I don't think anything under 8 pages should be excepted, and actually, I'd prefer the min to be 10 pages.

If you want to do a shorter version, have the max be 6 pages and the min be 4 pages.

Mid level version?  6-8 pages.

That way each script would be relatively the same length.  It would keep things on an even playing field.

I think 6-12 is a good figure as is the 50/100 split band. I've written serious drama scripts between 6-8 pages that felt full and developed. One of them was for school. It can be done.

I don't think many other rules have to be put into place. People start talking about new rules after every OWC because the whole thing is a shit show from the moment the genre/theme is announced. In the beginning, it worked out because there weren't as many people entering and people took it for what it's supposed to be: a fun exercise. Now there's 40-50 people entering each time around, some of whom just taking it way too seriously. I think more members enter than anything so excluding nonmembers is a waste of time. I think the whole thing's just gotten so big that you're gonna have to put up with some bullshit from time to time.

Quoted from Dreamscale Greg, no, that wasn't a pisstake post, either.  IMO, my pissers are very funny. In fact, I've been laughing out loud for over a week about them.  But then again, I do find really bad movies to be the best comedies out there.

How many pissers did you enter...?

Yeah, there are talks of rules every time, but few remember what this was in the beginning. It was mid-2005 and Phil had entered (or heard of) this New York midnight script challenge where the entrants were supposed to write a short script of no more than 15 pages over the course of a week based on a genre and theme. It was an actual contest, folks. He proposed that just for practice, we do the same thing. I think there might have been 12 scripts in all. Not sure. The original thread is gone.

All these extra rules for this tradition are unnecessary. It's supposed to be fun and you write what you want to write based on what you were given. I know there's no way I'll be able to read them all, but I'm reading a few of them. Once the names are revealed, I'll go back and be sure to read anyone's who commented on mine.

I take the OWC as seriously as we should take it. It's writing something for everyone else to read. It might or might not be used later. It would be a good idea, though, to write something that you can market later. There are always junk scripts. Always. But that's just par for the course. The junk ones will settle to the bottom and the better ones will rise to the top. Already, you can look down the list and find some with more comments than others. Why? Because some people look at the comments before they read to determine whether it's worth their time. Poor comments, and they skip. Good comments, and they read. This is not to say that highly commented ones are the best, though it sometimes works out that way.

I imagine we'll keep the OWC around for awhile because people do like it for its freedom. Why remove that freedom with extra rules?

Quoted from George Willson ...few remember what this was in the beginning. It was mid-2005 and Phil had entered (or heard of) this New York midnight script challenge where the entrants were supposed to write a short script of no more than 15 pages over the course of a week based on a genre and theme...(**ahem**) bert proposed that just for practice, we do the same thing.

Apparently very few remember haha.

Well, there you go. So bert made the original proposition. I just remember the genre and theme were Phil's doing. I believe it was a drama about a funeral home and a bully or something like that.

Greg, I've got 3 pissers in here...

I remember. I joined around the third OWC. The Western at a general store. Those were the days...

Going back to the NYC Midnight Script origins, it might be an interesting experiment to use their "heat" system for a future OWC, that is to say multiple genres and themes. Not sure exactly how that would work but like I said. An experiment. Like writers getting paired up for the Sci-Fi challenge a while back. Food for thought...

Quoted from George Willson Well, there you go. So bert made the original proposition. I just remember the genre and theme were Phil's doing. I believe it was a drama about a funeral home and a bully or something like that.

That was a good one actually. Martin wrote a script called Reqiuem that I still remember, about an albino boy.

I found the original wording on my own site. Here is what we had to work with in the first challenge: "write a drama about a funeral worker who has to prepare the body of a bully from his childhood."

This means that this challenge was fairly close to what we had to work with on the first one. I think some people found that too restricted, but it turned out some good entries. I'm also not sure what the page limit was then. My entry was actually 18 pages.