Monday’s Screenwriters Showcase will feature student scripts from the MFA screenwriting program, but there’s more to the competition than winning, organizers said. Graduating students’ goal is to get their scripts read by industry professionals who have the power to give them their start in entertainment.
The annual showcase is judged by almost 300 entertainment industry professionals, who volunteer to offer their guidance and expertise. Students submitted about 100 scripts written in MFA classes and volunteered their time to help organize the showcase, said Fior Fabian, a graduate student in screenwriting.
Winners will get a table read of their scripts by a mix of student actors in the MFA acting program and professionals recruited from Backstage.com, as well as win a trophy sent by the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
For Fabian, Alice Dennard and Shoshana Sachi, this is their last year participating in the showcase before they complete the MFA screenwriting program in June. Their contributions to the showcase included making posters, assigning scripts to judges and overseeing production of the awards ceremony. Fabian, Dennard and Sachi will also be honored at the event in different categories for their script submissions.
Those who are not honored will still have the chance to receive notes on their scripts from the judges. Although the judging is blind, afterwards the judges can request contact info for any script they’ve seen, Dennard said. Many screenwriting students, even those who don’t place in the competition, find managers or agents, Fabian said.
“You could end up getting these (connections) even if you don’t place, if your writing catches someone’s eye, that’s all you need, really,” Sachi said.
Dennard was part of a group that matched scripts to judges, who were allowed to request genres and media such as workplace comedy television pilot or a horror movie, but did not know who wrote each script.
Fabian helped oversee the showcase preparation and book events and a venue.
Tom Nunan, a lecturer in the MFA producers program, helped Fabian get in contact with Adam McKay’s publicist to get the Oscar-winning director of “The Big Short” and “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” on board as a guest speaker.
In addition to producing the event, many of the students will also be honored at the event for their scripts.
Sachi, who made a series of posters for the event, will receive an honorary mention in the showcase for her pilot about the intrigues of dueling hacker groups.
“(The judges’) day job is reading, so you have to have a writer’s voice that stands out and on top of that have characters that aren’t two-dimensional,” Sachi said.
Fabian and Sachi’s scripts were written as part of a class that pitched scripts to Sony’s online channel, Crackle. They targeted action elements to appeal to their demographic, age 25 to 45 white males, Sachi said.
After UCLA, Sachi will continue to pitch her hacker group screenplay to studios.
Fabian plans to pursue a future outside of screenwriting, since producers have more control over the final product and she wants more creative freedom after the initial script, she said.
Dennard said she plans to continue writing and submitting to screenwriting fellowships similar to the workshops at UCLA. Though the professional screenwriting world can often be a cutthroat environment, the goals of the showcase are focused on growth and collaboration, she said.
“People in this industry say you’re out for yourself and yourself only, but at showcase we’re all trying to help each other,” Dennard said.