Well, The Allure of Black Fish short script did it again. It made the semi-finals in the 2023 Outstanding Screenplay Shorts Competition!
It didn’t advance to finals, but it beat out my other short, The Cora Factor, which had made the quarter-final round.
Of the two scripts, The Allure of Black Fish is my favorite. It was written on a whim – as a genre mash-up for a $5 Facebook contest. My assigned mash-up genres were Sports and Horror.
The sport in The Allure of Black Fish is ice fishing. The central horror element – two contestants, fishing for souls in a supernatural world, competing to become DEATH.
The Cora Factor is a fantasy short I wrote while taking part in a 48-Hour Film Project here in Pittsburgh. It wasn’t selected to be the film script for the 48; it did make quarter finals in its first time out to contests. So, for that, I’m proud of that story.
What scripts do you have in contests? Do you find the contest wheel worth the entry price?
I think they’re worth it – the top 15 contests anyway.
But I don’t pay for coverage or judge’s notes on my short scripts. Most of my short scripts are 9 pages long. Not worth the judge’s time to write up a note or worth the added contest fee of $25-$50.
