Hi Wayne
What's heartbreaking for us is that people have put hours and hours of effort into their scripts, and it's all wasted because they've written a TV script with lots of outdoor shots and we can't stage it.
Cheers, Declan
The Sitcom Mission 2011 Page 102
It is a sad fact of life that people don't read rules, or they read what they what to see. Trust me. I spend my life dealing with people who don't understand the simple concept of handing stuff in by a deadline of 6pm. Not 6.01. Not 6.02 or even the next day but 6pm. And its not a question of the same day. Notice has been given.
However, that said it is always good if the rules are set out clearly and consistently. No reflection on Declan and Simon. I think their instuctions were fine. However, I'm just about to send off to another comp and I have found the following: references to the closing date being in 2010, different lengths given for the script extract (big difference between 7 and 12 pages!), different font requirements and different editing packages specified. also there are different requirements for the documentation to be supplied and even two different versions of the entry form. If I follow one set of rules rather than the other, will I be penalised and my script thrown on the slush pile because it didn't comply with the other set? I'm hoping that the latest is the correct version.
Anything can be staged. Look at Henry V. 
But I guess you wanted people to have taken the medium into account, and the limitations. I guess the problem for a lot of people is that they have never staged anything, and maybe not written anything before, so don't know how to think these things through and would depend on a director to do it. And if you have 1200 scripts to reject bar a few - that is one early factor I guess. BUt it is the writers job to write business into a stage play, perhaps more so than a TV script. In fact quite a bit more even though a play is 80% dialogue to 20% action.
I don't think all read the rules Rwayne, even on this thread further up, posters were asking questions constantly, to which the answers were plainly in the rules.
So much so at one point, I felt like saying just read the f*ckin' rules. I'm glad I wasn't drinking at the time 
Quote: bushbaby @ March 25 2011, 11:55 AM GMTI'm glad I wasn't drinking at the time
Were you asleep?
Quote: Marc P @ March 25 2011, 11:59 AM GMTWere you asleep?
you do mi 'eart good Marc
Quote: KLRiley @ March 25 2011, 11:43 AM GMTIt is a sad fact of life that people don't read rules, or they read what they what to see. Trust me. I spend my life dealing with people who don't understand the simple concept of handing stuff in by a deadline of 6pm. Not 6.01. Not 6.02 or even the next day but 6pm. And its not a question of the same day. Notice has been given.
However, that said it is always good if the rules are set out clearly and consistently. No reflection on Declan and Simon. I think their instuctions were fine. However, I'm just about to send off to another comp and I have found the following: references to the closing date being in 2010, different lengths given for the script extract (big difference between 7 and 12 pages!), different font requirements and different editing packages specified. also there are different requirements for the documentation to be supplied and even two different versions of the entry form. If I follow one set of rules rather than the other, will I be penalised and my script thrown on the slush pile because it didn't comply with the other set? I'm hoping that the latest is the correct version.
Shall I ask The Orb of Enlightenment for you?
You're right, Marc, anything can be staged, and in our workshops we get the writers to come up with alternative ways of staging things, such as a close up on a handwritten letter in a TV script.
When we're reading a script, we're reading the author just as much as the work, so it helps if it's someone we can work with.
Quote: Declan @ March 25 2011, 12:05 PM GMTYou're right, Marc, anything can be staged, and in our workshops we get the writers to come up with alternative ways of staging things, such as a close up on a handwritten letter in a TV script.
When we're reading a script, we're reading the author just as much as the work, so it helps if it's someone we can work with.
Yeah it just takes a bit of thinking outside of the box. If I were to get mine recorded for example, I would redo it again in a pure radio format which wouldn't be easy - but problems often throw up solutions that improve the piece.
Quote: Declan @ March 25 2011, 11:38 AM GMTHi Wayne
What's heartbreaking for us is that people have put hours and hours of effort into their scripts, and it's all wasted because they've written a TV script with lots of outdoor shots and we can't stage it.
Cheers, Declan
I totally understand that but I wouldn't say that it was 'wasted'...clearly it's unable to progress in the competition...but people will learn from that. The fact they have spent those hours writing is positive.
I entered this competition last year, my first offering anywhere, I thought it was great, it wasn't. You learn as you go.
It's easy to forget, I suppose, that everyone on these forums, everyone who writes (no matter how successful) has made mistakes along the way. Mistakes that seem obvious to them now...I'm sure they weren't quite so obvious when they were making them.
Absolutely Wayne, I agree about making mistakes and learning from them. We do it all the time. As Lord Sugar says, "Someone who never failed never tried anything."
I don't mean 'wasted' as in pointless in itself, but 'wasted' as far as trying to win the competition is concerned.
While I'm here, just to let you know that the script reading for April 16 has now sold out, so we're doing another one on April 23 for anyone who's interested.
While it sounds like a good service Declan, where do you go from there?
I only ask as I'm interested in submitting something but would I be better doing this or submitting to a script doctor who as well as giving feedback could also possibly recommend my work on to production companies should it be of a good enough standard.
In an ideal world I'd attend a workshop of course but all of these options cost money and there's precious little to spare at the moment.
Things are so bad I might have to move in with my OCD afflicted half-brother who will forever bemoan my slobbish ways and curse our dysfunctional father.
Quote: sean knight @ March 25 2011, 12:04 PM GMTShall I ask The Orb of Enlightenment for you?
Do you want your script reading or not?
Declan, I agree with you totally, the 'technicalities' are important if you hope to progress in the competition. The beauty of it, for me, though is the opportunity that it offers. Not so much the chance to win but the chance to enter. In reality most people will hope to do well, few will genuinely expect to do well. What we all have though is a place where we can have a script read by people who actually know what they are talking about...for people very new to writing that is a very difficult place to find.
What I have 'learned' through entering this competition, last year and this, is huge... now that 'knowledge' comes partly from the books I've read, the scripts I've read and obviously from actually writing more. What I think, too, that what's important when you are starting out writing (I'm a middle aged man with decades of working in dead end factory jobs) is to 'feel' like a writer. A competition, such as this, gives us that...we get to 'rub shoulders' with people who have varying degrees of ability and successs on a totally level playing field...that is great!
So really it's a big 'thank you' to yourself and Simon for the opportunity and the encouragement. I shall spend time today 'drooling' over another Frasier script and continue to write a life history for 'Sam'. I'm a writer now don't you know!