Screenplay awards

[soulfilms]

Ok, so every year there's an award dedicated to the best screenplay at XYZ awards. My question is how do they decide or judge which screenplay wins the award? What sort of judgement merits do they place on a screenplay? Is it seen as its own work or is it assessed as part of the how the overall film?

[miker]

The truth is it depends who your friends are and if you need to be kept sweet. Sometimes you win because you have talent, but because true talent is miles ahead of everyone else it gets misunderstood and rarely wins anything. That's how I rationalise anyway. Fuck the system, fuck awards, just wait to join the filmmaker's club.

[soulfilms]

I wasn't interested in any screenplay awards (well at least not striving for one), I was more concerned about how they were decided. But now that I think about it, how does awards judge best directors? They are both fairly intangible things with their only outcome being the end result, the film. So again, that sets me thinking, if direction is so fundamentally linked to the end result, why do they bother as you can't really have a best picture without a best director. Can you?

[miker]

who knows what the award givers agendas and motives are? most likely the bottom line is $$$

i would rather make films popular with people than appease any critieria for an award

and rarely does a single person ever make a film entirely on their own anyway

[Ralph Snart]

Contests, LOANS, GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, STIPENDS, AWARDS, Research allotments, PUBLIC BROADCASTING, PUBLIC ACCESS, GOVERNMENT and private.

I am not planing on going hollywood. saw a guy wearing a popcorn bucket as a helmet there once.
but I am giving this a serious if somewhat gonzo try as a way to earn a decent living.
Earn being the key word for a number of reasons.
and if I didn't really enjoy even the bad times I would have given up, well actually this started in earnest about a year ago. In concept and waiting for the right time 10.

This is an edited version and I am being verbose for a reason.

This part was just conjecture when I first wrote this:
AS VOICE RECOGNITION and other accessability technology becomes more streamlined and formats become more compatable, my guess is that you will see a chunk of this international money heading tward the seriously disabled at first, as a way of leveling the playing field.
The technology already exists for the seriously disabled to make a "technically" superior "STAR WARS" or "Breakfeast of Champions" content and force of concept are another matter all together, willing suspension is easier said than done.
WE all know this is work, amusing and rewarding but a job none the less. and therefore not something to be foisted on someone without interest.
And I do not mind losing if someone is better than I am in a given area or style.
Like I have to worry.
Later:
As I said Like I have to worry.

Perhaps it was common knowledge, but what I mentioned above is quite a bit closer to fruition than I would have thought.

I blundered through freeware this and voice recognition that on the web and it seems that not only are there a few downloads text to voice and speach recognition type things but microsoft itself is going after this in a big F****ng way.

Whispers, Whistles, and Dr. Who the Dr. Who engine. (gotta love it)
They are, if I understand correctly offering free downloads of prototypes. If you have 18 or so hours for it to do its thing.
I down loaded a six meg "engine" to the tune of thirty minuits. but it seems as with with anything worth it a given it is not going to be.
It had me read this diatribe "I have not seen anything unusual in the sky this evening"
It went squeak once and hasn't been heard from since. Additionaly I can find no instructions, I suspect I have but one chunk of a larger program that works with something call Microsoft agent. It lurks there now doing christ knows what.

anyway. three last points
1For most people this whole thing may just be a flash in the pan like super 8 or the lightweight vhs camcorder. but it's nice to be right about something so potentially cool and benificial.
2In a recent article and this is taken in context. one of the creators of the video toaster said,
"I am fond of saying that within five years your favorite television show will be made by someone you know..."
3I do not know how connected this board is with the Exposure TV program nor do I have designs on submiting but that is where I did get the address to this board and it seems unlikley given the very nature of the corporate structure that our conversations have gone un-noticed.
and on that note.
You know the hard part about making a movie about a guy making a frog smoothie in january.
I kept running out of frogs.
or death of an ant. Its about this ant killed by a candy bar dropped from an excesive hight. He thinks it is god come to give him his every wish. until it smashes him flat with a resounding thud and a little fat kid carrying around an orange and blue pinwheel picks it up off the street and eats it. see because for a second there he is walking with his aunt.

off line for a while
good luck all
Ralph Snart
DARK MATTER

[This message has been edited by Ralph Snart (edited January 15, 2001).]