Screenwriting : Holiday Movie contest closed - who submitted? by Pat Alexander

I submitted , received my wonderful coverage, and am currently revising for my resubmission

Logline:

When a driven businesswoman, haunted by a childhood Christmas disappointment, reluctantly lands in a quaint Christmas loving village, she teams up with a community-focused toy store owner to save Christmas after a snowstorm threatens her grand gesture of goodwill. Amidst this challenge, they're aided (and occasionally hindered) by an AI-powered speaker with glitches, adding chaotic yet comedic elements to their journey while discovering the true meaning of the season and an unexpected romance.

(A hallmark channel style movie)

I did indeed submit to this contest. I'm excited about the possibility of seeing a strong South Asian female as the lead in a holiday movie. Basically, the kind of movie I feel is not represented enough in film. It's a family movie that has edgier bits and many extreme feel good moments that are associated with the genre. Bollywood meets Christmas!

I submitted to this, but didn't request coverage. Maybe I should have. "Snow Globe": After seeing his future in a magical snow globe, a businessman has only twenty-four days to turn his life around before his whole world falls apart. Dramatic and mystical elements combined, as the hero learns who his family really is.

I submitted to this contest and am very excited to be a part of the community. My script, "A Very Marinucci Christmas," is a rom-com about a West Coast couple, Dominic and Jenna, braving the quirky, dysfunctional family Christmas traditions of his East Coast Italian-American family for the first time together over four long days in Philadelphia.

Yes, I submitted to this contest and am so excited. What a gift from Stage 32 to provide Holiday writers with this opportunity. My script, Christmas at Holly Point Inn, is a Hallmark channel style movie.

Logline:

Charming Innkeeper and single dad, Heath, is determined to secure his family’s Inn a spot on the local heritage list, but time is against him, plus his dwindling Christmas spirit, that is until he meets Aussie botanist Clementine and her infectious holiday enthusiasm.

Why I wrote this, first and foremost, I love Chrsitmas. Family Christmas traditions have been an essential part of my life, with Christmas as the most magical time. My grandmother, a vivacious Christmas lover, lit up the season with her excitement about Christmas. She longed for a white Christmas, never getting to experience it. In most minds, Christmas is wintery and snowy, with fir trees, fires, and cold. However, in Australia, it is summer, and the temperature is hot. I aimed to combine both traditions of a winter wonderland Christmas with the infectious excitement of a white Christmas for an Aussie unfamiliar with snow, inspired by my grandmother. What better way to show that family traditions from opposite sides of the world can come together, filling the world with the Christmas spirit, just like my grandmother always did, no matter where you are.

Hi! I was thrilled when Stage 32 created this contest for holiday screenplays. My script SANDI CLAUS is one of my favorites. As a former teacher, I enjoy writing stories where kids and young people are in major roles and that speak with their voices. That's one of the biggest reasons why I wrote this--it's a kind of classic father-daughter story--wrapped up in Christmas mythology.

Growing up, I remember how hard it was for me to relate to my father. He was a school principal—even MY school principal when I was in elementary school. I didn’t care about his work or really anything of what he did. And he, absorbed in his school work, had no idea about who I was or what I did. Being an introvert, I spent lots of time listening to music and dreaming of a future that was anything but what he envisioned for me. This all led to many misunderstandings and difficult times, as it still does in many, many families today.

It’s my hope that SANDI CLAUS will one day not only bring a lot of Christmas music and cheer to audiences all over the world, but also inspire fathers and kids to seek more understanding of each other, maybe even by stepping into the other’s shoes for a while, and perhaps smooth out at least a few of the bumps in the rocky road that can be raising a teenager.

I also used to love watching joyful, fun, heart-warming Christmas movies in the cinema where magical worlds like the North Pole and the world of Santa can be created, people can escape reality for a while, etc. Families used to go to them together at Christmas time and have a blast. But it's been quite a while since the traditional Santa story has been in feature films at Christmastime. So I guess this is also my offering to bring the theatrical Christmas experience back again...or at least on a major streamer with everyone gathered around a big-screen TV :)!

I'm ecstatic to be sharing my story with you. Enjoy totally!

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When I was little, a Cinderella watch and glass slipper were on display in Woolworth’s window. I didn’t care about the watch, but that glass slipper had me mesmerized. I begged and pleaded to get it for Christmas. And every day I’d keep vigil looking under the tree. It was never there. Then on Christmas Eve, all the gifts were handed out. No Cinderella watch. But then my mother reached far under the tree. There it was! So excited was I, that I tore open the package. And devastation hit me like brick … now that I have it, what am I going to do with it?

Often as writers, our first stories are gleaned from childhood experiences, and that was the springboard for mine. Tracks in the Snow became an award-winning novel, which evolved into a trilogy, which evolved into a two-book prequel before I crossed over to writing screenplays. My adaptation of Tracks in the Snow made First Runner-Up in Movieguide’s Kairos Prize competition. Another submission, Sing Silent Night, is a faith-based Christmas romance with lots of beautiful music and scenery. And A Christmas Stocking is a heart-warming tale that I co-wrote with my award-winning author and screenwriter friend, Beverly Naught.

Thank you, Stage 32, for the opportunity to compete in your brilliantly targeted competition.

I submitted a screenplay about a wheelchair-bound writer who is pressed for a new book, returns home for a holiday stay with his dysfunctional family. Think This is Where I Leave You meets The Upside.

Although classing Die Hard as a Christmas Film and no fan of White Christmas or It's a Wonderful life, I wanted to write a traditional Christmas Film following the template of the genre. And it was fun, but it still took some plotting.. Christmas in Alaska is my snow covered, sleigh bells, holiday lodge, town with a secret, Christmas experience. But I wanted to have a bit of an edge so Santa meets English Investigative Journalist on the hunt for a big story. I see it as a Hallmark, Johnson Production easy to watch kind of film. But it was an easy relaxed competition, looking forward to the feedback, whatever the outcome. :)

A Second Santa? Nope. A Black Santa? No way. Yes, way!

I’m enjoying all the comments here. I entered a Christmas rom-com by my wife Deb and me: “The Christmas Klutz.” Here’s the logline: When the accident-prone activities director at a small-town retirement village has yet another holiday mishap, she finagles a handsome new doctor into helping with the Christmas concert, causing a zany clash of lovesick suitors and quirky seniors.

I feel like I'm bucking the trend here, but I went with Halloween instead of Christmas :) Still family-friendly though!

Night Of The Living Decorations

Logline: When a disgruntled spirit brings all the neighborhood decorations to life on Halloween, a timid fifth grader must devise a plan to capture it by midnight in order to save her family and friends from becoming decorations themselves forever.

Larry Portzline Sounds like a lot of fun!

I wrote a script that takes place on Christmas, but it's more Lady Bird-esque than holiday related. Christmas just provides the backdrop

Like Ryan, my script takes place with the backdrop of the Christmas school holidays (that lovely time during summer here in Australia). It is a time travel fantasy - two 14-year-old girls, one from the 1850s and one from the 1990s, meet on the Victorian goldfields and together try to defeat the Dullahan, the harbinger of death.

After making the semis in last year's rom-com conest, I decided to merge my love for the holiday, dogs, and rom-coms and throw my hat in the ring with "Ryder's Christmas Comeback".

Ryder is a 4 year old mutt who doesn't understand the human concept of love and is jealous of his owner's, Julie, new relationship with Nelson. Cameron, a client of Julie's interior design business, has sworn off men after his break-up but is being pursued by Quill, his playboy colleague.

After an ill concocted plan to chase Nelson away ends in a freak accident, Ryder finds himself in the afterlife where he learns Julie blames Nelson for his death and has broken up with him. Wanting to help Julie, Ryder makes a deal with his guardian angel; he can go back to the physical plane but he has to make two people fall in love by Christmas to earn his place in Puppy Paradise.

Ryder's spirit is sent back to the land of the living where he shockingly finds himself inhabiting Quill's body! As Ryder tries to figure out a way to complete his Heavenly assignment and help Julie, he may embark on his own romantic journey that could answer his biggest question...

Why do humans love?

Wow! These concepts!

Dieuwertje Deutekom I love your concept, so sweet!

I am thrilled about this opportunity of a Holiday movie contest. I submitted my script Holiday Sweetheart, about a struggling celebrity chef joins a Christmas reality show to save her restaurant, but now she must win against the man she just fell in love with.

When love and interest take a walk together, which path would you end up choosing? It is filled with new and old Christmas holiday traditions and diverse side characters, which can bring the main characters together and apart. Holiday Sweetheart is fun, romantic, and loaded with Christmas spirit.

I love writing Holiday movies. That's why I also submitted my script Best Christmas Ever.

"A small-town girl is obsessed with getting a boyfriend but struggles to find him in time for her arch-nemesis Christmas party."

The backdrop of this story is set in the small town of Baraboo, Wisconsin, which is straight out of a Hallmark movie. At Christmas, it transforms into the perfect holiday village. The small-town charm, abundant holiday activities, and beautiful state park proved the perfect place for this story, in which our main character, Addison, learns that the universe doesn't revolve around her and that the people closest to you are the most important.

I submitted a faith-based script that I wrote years ago (maybe 20) entitled A Christmas Remixed. I was hoping to use this opportunity to breathe new life into it. I was encouraged by my feedback. I'm pretty sure my reader didn't know I wrote the script so long ago - and had a funky experience uploading from the FIRST version of movie magic to the most recent. This experience has been HOPEFUL to say the least... as all Christmas movies should. Here is the logline of A Christmas Remixed: Hip Hop mogul Maximillian Macabees is on top of the world. He’s got it all – money, power and fame. He will soon learn that the same evil that enabled him to get his start and realize his dreams can just as easily destroy them. Max must find redemption before his shady past and selfish ways ruin him and the ones he loves forever.

Inspired by Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol," A Christmas Remixed tells a story about the transformation of a bitter, power-driven, self-absorbed hip-hop record label mogul, who lives in a mansion-sized prison of hurts and regrets of his devising. Maximillion Macabees a.k.a. Max A Million wants to “rule the world, or die trying.” Max is a highly successful hip-hop mogul driven by money and power and known to many as a despicable tyrant. Max's journey is an answered prayer that ultimately leads him back to the lost loves of his life, as well as releases the locks of the true feelings and goodness that lay latent within his heart.

I am so thankful for the contest that recognizes the Christmas Script! It's a different animal than features, and they hold a special place in my holiday heart. How many did y'all watch in December? I'm not one to watch-and-tell, but I did keep it in the double digits for the month.

My submission, It Happened One Christmas Eve, is an adaptation from a novella I wrote and published, but for the movie I layered with some serious Christmas stuff. Premise: Christmas Day marks the 30th anniversary of a woman’s murder. Can her daughter and the son of the accused killer solve the mystery in time to enjoy a happy holiday?

I know, combining Christmas and murder seems sacrilegious. But it truly is "murder-lite".

Cheering for everyone to get good news soon!

I Made the Quarter-finals!

Congratulations, Garison Piatt!

Congratulations to the quarterfinalists.

Thank you for the honor of making the quarterfinals!

Congratulations, Steffany Lohn Sommers!