Contest Comments

You must login to post a comment.

First-time user? Register now to receive FREE email contest updates, news, results, deadline reminders and more. Rest assured, information submitted here is held in strict confidence. MovieBytes never sells or in any way distributes email names or addresses. We promise!

Contest News

Screencraft Names Sci-Fi Winners

Out of more than 700 submissions, No Man’s Land by Michelle Davidson and Jeffrey Field has been selected as the winner of the inaugural ScreenCraft Sci-Fi Screenplay Competition. No Man’s Land is a grounded, emotional and character-driven sci-fi feature set in a future when boys have been driven nearly to extinction because of their genetic disposition to mature into lethal monsters. The story centers on a spunky teenage outcast who forges a secret relationship with the one person who understands her – a boy on the brink of his transformation.

Gaia by Autumn Stapleton-Laskey has been deemed the runner-up. It also deftly balances concept and character-driven pathos. Unfolding in a near-future world where human clones are grown in gardens to provide organs for non-clone citizens, it centers on a non-sentient being whose existence becomes threatened when she unexpectedly becomes sentient.

There is often a danger when working in sci-fi to let imagination and scale run beyond feasibility and to emphasize concept at the expense of engaging characterization and grounded emotional conflict. These winning screenplays and finalists all succeed in balancing imagination and concept exploration with human drama and clear arcs.

The following imaginative screenplays were selected as the competition finalists:

• Mind Mirror by Matt Eskandari & Mike Hultquist
• Eurydice #5 by Christopher Runyon
• Zoe Jones: Spectral Drifter by April Rouveyrol
• Surface by Frank Edward Kelly
• Area 51 by Dylan Brann
• Oliver Clark & The Future Unknown by Nick Sheperd and Toni Wynne
• Residual by The Brothers Lynch
• Black Ice Below by Peter Fraser

In addition to the ScreenCraft team, the judges included: Jeannette Francis, development executive at Universal-based Bluegrass Films and Warner Bros. shingle Atomic Monster; Alden Dalia, development executive at Sony Pictures; and Fred Specktor, legendary talent and literary agent at CAA whose clients include Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Jeremy Irons, Dan Aykroyd, John-Henry Butterworth (writer: Edge of Tomorrow), Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, Lost in Space) and many more.

Grand prize winners Davidson and Field will receive a $2,000 cash prize and hand-picked industry consultations, while Stapleton-Laskey will receive $500 and a phone call with a literary manager. The top 5 finalists will receive feedback and a lifetime license to use WriterDuet Pro real-time collaborative screenwriting software. The semifinalists, meanwhile, will all receive a 50% discount to WriterDuet Pro.

Updated: 11/05/2015

Submit Report Card

You must login to read or submit report cards.

First-time user? Register now to receive FREE email contest updates, news, results, deadline reminders and more. Rest assured, information submitted here is held in strict confidence. MovieBytes never sells or in any way distributes email names or addresses. We promise!