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Interview with Heather Waters on CWA's New Production Award

Heather is the Co-founder of CWA & the Director of the 2014 Grand Prize Winner's Film, The People V. God, Screenplay by Paul Undari.

What prompted you to start the new production opportunity for the Grand Prize Winner?

Since forming CWA eight years ago, our goal has always been to run a great competition. We also wanted to provide a bridge between the writers and our colleagues who are always on the lookout for talent and new material. Our aim continues to be three-fold: Go the extra mile when it comes to developing writers, run a top notch contest, and lastly assist writers in the promotion of their work, hopefully getting them one step closer to securing representation or an option deal.

We've had many successes at this over the years, and yet we felt it was time to do even more and take an aggressive and proactive approach in-house as well. Because Marlene and I are both filmmakers, it made perfect sense for us to provide a short film production opportunity that we produce ourselves. We couldn't think of a better way to go the extra mile in our efforts to be a launch pad for writers.

Can you explain the process of how it works?

Sure, each year the Grand Prize Winner gets cash and prize package as part of their winnings. With the short film production, they now have the opportunity to forgo a small portion of the package and in turn opt for the opportunity to have a short adaptation of their winning feature script produced. CWA covers the production costs, and the short film also gets a guaranteed premiere at the Richmond International Film Festival, which is a fest I founded four years ago. If the winner chooses the production route, we work with them the month following their win to help them carve out a short script that will be compelling for the screen, and one that can also be used later as a tool to help generate interest in their feature script. It's a fun, unique process that's collaborative. In fact, I think the writers take a lot away from the experience, even above the premiere, imdb credit, the promotional tool, etc. It's really the perfect win-win platform.

Although it's time consuming to produce and direct it, the first year it has proven to be a big success with The People v. God (written by Paul Undari). As a writer, Paul was a fantastic contributor to the creative process, and it has been a pleasure working with him. For his, we decided to actually option the feature version ourselves outside of CWA, and are currently working on securing financing for that production.

What can we expect from you next?

Well, mainly a whole lot more of what we've done in the past - working with writers, developing and advising them wherever we can - and of course we're also helping finalize option deal arrangements for many of last year's writers (four outside of The People v. God are very close to signing). Other than that, we're eager to see how this season plays out as well. The industry is always hungry for great new material, and getting to play a part in seeing stories come to life is incredibly rewarding. We're always trying to brew up something fresh and new, so from there, folks will just have to stay tuned. We promise to keep doing our part as long as the writers keep doing theirs - and that's writing great, new material.

To check out the trailer of the short for The People v. God, check out the Vimeo link below!

The People v. God trailer: https://vimeo.com/95340488 Password: peoplevgod

Updated: 05/22/2014

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