Screenwriting : Is there any genre that judges favour the most? by Polina Urvantseva

Can we say that the rule of thumb here is not to send comedies to any contests? What could be other smart ways to break through then?

Polina, I think it's a good rule of thumb to not enter comedies in contests that allow for all genres to enter. I don't ever recall seeing a comedy win in a prestigous contest like the Academy's Nicholls Award, or any of the other reputable contests. Unless you wrote a very serious comedy, like "As Good As It Gets"....I'd stay away from those. I write comedies, and I do stay away from them. Dramas rule at those competitions that allow scripts of all types. I would consider the Page Awards. It has different categories for each genre, and a First Place Award for each category. It then has a Grand Prize Award for the best one of all the winners. I'd also consider Screencraft's Comedy Screenplay Contest. You can't go wrong with those two. If you're looking to "break through", I would pay for a script consultant to analyze my script, and then I'd pay for a Pitch Session here on Stage32 with the appropriate type-of producer or manager who is looking for comedies. You can't go wrong with those two, either. Udachi!

Hi Polina, in my own experience as a volunteer (unpaid) judge for the nonprofit CineStory Foundation, we have no genre bias whatsoever. Our winner this year was a drama based on well-known public figure, 2nd place was a foreign drama, tied for 3rd were an action/comedy in the tone of a Coen Brothers movie and a big budget post-apocalyptic action/thriller in the vein of a Roland Emmerich movie. I think we had 2-3 comedies in the Top 10. I would argue that comedies can be more enjoyable for judges to read, so a good comedy actually has a GREAT SHOT.

One of our Top 10 was a script called "F*cking Jane Austen." A comedy. No genre bias. Trust me.

"F-g Jane Austen"? Oh boy, I'm dying to watch this film if it ever gets produced :)

@Bill, spasibo! Thanks for advice! Can you recommend any consultant specializing in comedies?

Polina, Neza chto! You've come to the right place for comedy help. If you're ready to take that next step, I'd check out the Stage 32 list of comedy specialists. Check out the names - there are some major movie comedy producers, executives and managers with a lot of proven success in comedy on this list. Here's the link - scroll down a bit to the middle right: https://www.stage32.com/happy-writers/coverage Udachi!

I've been thinking about the features a comedy needs to become a solid competitor to drama. Here are my first ideas: 1. A hero who incarnates a painfully truthful and embarrassing side we can relate to. 2. Circumstances bringing out the worst and the best of this side. 3. Either a morale which teaches us to be humane and kind-hearted to our fellas.

Or the appalling absence of any morale whatsoever.

To those who don't think comedy does well in prestigious competition, please click: http://www.oscars.org/events/2014-academy-nicholl-fellowships-screenwrit... CTRL-F "comedy" The Nicholl is a $35,000 fellowship. No bias against comedy. Why is there even any doubt?

Sorry, but I'm slightly offended that people believe contest panels are stupid enough to have genre bias. Genre bias is not professional. And it's not true. A deserving script is a deserving script, genre notwithstanding. Please, I respectfully appeal to you to Google before giving sketchy advice to aspiring comedy writers. I was the studio exec on American Wedding (American Pie 3), Bridget Jones 2, and other comedies. I will fight the good fight for a good comedy!!

https://www.facebook.com/notes/academy-nicholl-fellowships-in-screenwrit... CTRL-F "comedy" - another Nicholl Fellow for comedy. Please Google it if you don't believe me.

Two writers in the last 2 years have been awarded $35,000 fellowships for COMEDY.

Polina, I don't think comedy needs to become a solid competitor to tragedy, since they are two different parts of the drama mask. I hear what you are saying, though, and appreciate people who want comedy to kick tragedy's ass! Heh-heh. Remember, for the most part, comedy is tragedy turned upside down. Looking at your four points...those are all good points. Take the classic comedy-tragedy "As Good as It Gets." All four of those points are perfectly illustrated by Jack Nicholson's character, Melvin Udall. He hated everyone (in the beginning and middle), and suffered from misanthropy. Misanthropy, by the way, is a condition used as a vessel for comedy (and tragedy) for hundreds of years. The circumstances in Melvin's life - his relationships with Carol, Simon and Frank, among others - brought out the best and worst in him. He has a lot of other issues - OCD, fear of intimacy, stubborness, to name a few - that we all (or most of us) can relate to. Eventually, he overcomes his fears and tendencies (the best he can) and makes a whole lot of other peoples' lives better. And his own. When he said, "you make me want to be a better man" to Carol...wow...what a knee-buckler. What a seriously evocative and profound line in a movie that, for the most part, is a romantic comedy. That is as good as it gets, and it's no wonder why both Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt won the Oscars for Best Actor and Actress. That is one kick-ass movie.

In terms of knowing the market, it's become much tougher for Hollywood studios to produce comedies. Why? Because the foreign box office for American comedy can be tough - not always, but sometimes. (Whereas, the foreign box office for Transformers 4 is enormous, and studios tend to look for tent-poles or movies based on IP with preawareness more so now than ever before.) So there is a legit argument that screenplay contests, which are not box office-driven, are a safer harbor for comedies than studios might be. Nothing is black and white, and this argument is certainly not black and white. I don't mean to fly off the handle. I have to respectfully disagree with some previous posts, I've backed up my argument by citing the Nicholl record (the most prestigious US screenwriting contest), and I'm speaking passionately because I fear that some posts could do some harm to an aspiring comedy writer's understanding of the market.

2014 Academy Nicholl Fellows Alisha Brophy & Scott Miles $35,000 Fellowship for an R-rated comedy "The final award of the evening went to the rowdiest script of the bunch, United States of Fuckin’ Awesome, penned by Alisha Brophy from Los Angeles and Scott Miles from Austin, Texas. The script’s freewheeling, rapid-fire humor was epitomized by a scene in which Thomas Jefferson and George Washington hunt down a naked Benjamin Franklin, who has lost the Declaration of Independence after a wild night at a brothel. Legally Blonde screenwriter Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith savored the “equal opportunity award to a very broad, R-rated comedy,” whose creators first met at the University of Texas at Austin. Brophy and Miles wrapped up the evening expressing their greatest hope for their award-winning collaboration: “One day a kid would watch this instead of doing his homework and fail a test.” Now they are well on their way." http://www.oscars.org/events/2014-academy-nicholl-fellowships-screenwrit...

Regina, With all due respect, I don't see anyone mentioning that "contest panels are stupid enough to have genre bias." The fact remains that there are reputable and prestigous screenwriting contests specifically for comedy, just like there are reputable and prestigous screenwriting contests specifically for other genres. The group you are a part of is a great group, no doubt. But if I'm submitting comedies to contests, I'm aiming for genre-specific contests. The fact also remains that those contests are going to have winning scripts that are comedies every year - from 1st place to 10th place. You can't guarantee that about any other contest - Nicholls, CineStory or any other contest that you name. The contests that are comedy-specific can guarantee that.

Bill, also with all due respect, you implied that a comedy had never won the Nicholl. I fear that is potentially harmful to an aspiring comedy writer. "I don't ever recall seeing a comedy win in a prestigous contest like the Academy's Nicholls Award, or any of the other reputable contests." That is the part I'd love to amend for impressionable young writers. As to your point that comedies will certainly win in comedy contests. Yep!

You're right, Regina, and I stand corrected on that one statement. According to the Nicholl's website, of the 128 Fellows from 1989 - 2014, 15 of the 128 had won their fellowships with comedies (9);romantic comedies (5); and animated comedies (1). And 18 of those 128 scripts have been produced into films. Those annual contests have received upwards of over 7,000 contestants most recently. Any aspiring comedy writers who feel potentially harmed by my incorrect statement now have the correct data to draw their own conclusions and make the most appropriate choices when entering comedy scripts in genre-specific contests like the Page Awards and Screencraft's Comedy Screenplay Contest, and contests that mix all genres like the Academy's Nicholls Screenplay Competition.

Put another way, 1 out of 5 of the 2013 Nicholl Fellows won with a comedy. That's 20%. 1 out of the 4 of the 2014 Nicholl Fellows won with a comedy. That's 25%. Bill is right - the odds of winning $35k from the Academy are long odds, but that's for anyone in any genre. In my experience, I have seen no overall genre bias against certain genres. That said, if a writer has $40, I would encourage her to enter the Nicholl. Being a Nicholl Semifinalist or Quarterfinalist gives at least as much credibility, if not more, as being selected as a Screencraft Comedy Script Contest Finalist, a PAGE Award Comedy Finalist, etc.

If a Stage 32 team member is around, perhaps you could please enlighten us as to the percentage of comedy semifinalists in this year's S32 screenplay comp. My $2 bet is that there's no genre bias against finding great voices! And I think we can all agree that the S32 contest is both prestigious and useful to career-building.

@Bill C - thank you for taking the time. If a reader reads your extremely well-written advice, doesn't scroll down, and takes it at face value that the Nicholl doesn't award fellowships to comedies, that's a misleading message that none of us want to perpetuate. You're such a strong, convincing writer, I know your words will sink in for a lot of people. I just hope they scroll down for more citations that tell a fuller story (despite long odds).

For independent companies, I just heard in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUpH9JDKmOQ that family films w/ kid heroes, action films w/ aging male stars, and thrillers w/ female stars are sought.

This was such an interesting discussion, both here and in the YouTube comments. While there is plenty of compelling evidence that comedy doesn't bring in fellowships, I am also curious if comedy is the relative minority among submissions. That's some data we really don't have access to. I'd never write comedy, because I have zero confidence in my ability to do something funny. There are kids at my college who make funnier films than I could ever make. For those of you who can do it, I'm impressed! But to build on Regina's $2 bet(even though I don't have $2) I'd like to see what percentage of entries actually classified themselves as comedy. Maybe the 15/128 that Bill cited above are actually indicative of how many people even have the guts to write and submit a comedy screenplay. Curiouser and curiouser.

Hi Perry, I can only speak for CineStory. In features, we don't ask for a genre classification on our entry forms because we like to read "blind" and as unbiased as possible. We don't even know if the writer is a male or female, because of possible gender bias. In TV, we have to ask if the entry is Comedy or Drama, because the comedy scripts are half-hours and the Drama scripts are hour-longs, and they are judged separately. :-)

$50 is not something I can just throw away. I agree with something that Regina mentioned though, if your comedy is excellent, you could place in the quarter or semi finalists in the prestigious contests, and that's something potential producers or agents would pay attention to.

I would like to thank everybody contributing to this discussion. I appreciate a lot all the information and links you've shared here. That's definitely a valuable material to consider. Hope this thread will be helpful to all aspiring screenwriters.

CJ, I agree ansolutely that you should stay true to yourself and not adjust your style to please anybody. I just want to figure out smart ways to get started in Hollywood. I live in Sweden, so obviously my only "weapon" right now is Intrnet. That's why screenwriting contests seem like the most logical thing to try.

Yes, I've been thinking about it. And what about Happy Writers Coverage? It's quite costly, so I wonder if it's worth the money.