Just a friendly reminder to anyone submitting a script for Amateur Friday. I recognize that this is a nice opportunity to get feedback for scripts that are works in progress. But I’m letting you know now that any pitch along the lines of, “I’m not really sure about this script. I’m hoping to see what people think” isn’t going to get chosen. This is the only place on the internet where random strangers willingly read amateur screenplays. So I’d prefer to put the best stuff up here I can find. There’s no hard and fast rule to this. If you send one of these e-mails and include a Jurassic Park level logline, then yeah, I might post it. But, generally speaking, I won’t. The scripts that win Amateur Showdown tend to be scripts that the writers have put a ton of work into. So you’re gonna want to bring your best anyway.
Oh, and I have one minor requirement for readers participating in this weekend’s festivities. Before reading any of the scripts, you must first perform The Git Up Challenge. Preferably with the shades up so that your neighbors can see you.
If you haven’t played Amateur Showdown before, it’s a cut throat single weekend screenplay tournament where the scripts have been vetted from a pile of hundreds to be featured here, for your entertainment. It’s up to you to read as much of each script as you can, then vote for your favorite in the comments section. Whoever receives the most votes by Sunday 11:59pm Pacific Time gets a review next Friday. If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in a future Amateur Showdown, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.
Title: The Above
Genre: Contained Thriller
Logline: Awaking on an unknown flight to find everyone else unconscious, a dazed baggage-handler must uncover his foggy past and save the plane before it falls from the sky.
Why You Should Read: Contained thrillers still today seem to remain one of the best ways to sell a spec. One possible issue with them is that they sometimes can feel like they’re stuck in place (which they usually are). Here’s my try at avoiding that issue by using a contained location that’s moving at the speed of hundreds of miles per hour. I went back to see Carson’s reviews on earlier contained material and tried my best to incorporate all the best parts of them, from clear GSU to steadily unfolding mystery. Very interested to hear everyone’s thoughts!
Title: The Final Solution(s)
Genre: Historical Fiction/Science Fiction
Logline: A centenarian recounts to his great grandson how he was secretly recruited as a WWII soldier to be transported to biblical times to counter Hitler’s plot to destroy a fledgling Jewish nation.
Why You Should Read: My day job is as real as it gets; I’m an urban public defender. I employ the persuasive power of words to desperate situations, often for societies’ outcasts. And while I feel generally fulfilled by my calling to serve the voiceless, the law is not my first love. Books and movies occupy that place. Fiction and philosophy are my particular favorites, but I partake in all levels of discourse, from Cable News to Cardi B, Stephen Hawking to Steven Soderbergh, James Fenimore Cooper to Jim Rockford. Currently, I am trying to discover how a late-forties father of two with a second marriage and two more step kids, nagging yoga injuries, an inflated mortgage, a stressful career and all the other normal trappings of middle-class American life can become a Dharma Bum. I doubt I’m the only one seeking that answer, but perhaps I’m the only one framing the question quite like that.
Everything I write at this point in my life strives to highlight the primordial human yearning for peace and love set against the grit and contradictions of our post-everything world. The attached screenplay reflects my personal appreciation for art and science as well as history and fiction. Hopefully it reflects my deepest belief about all art, namely, that art should seek simultaneously to entertain and to educate, to touch both intellectually and emotionally, and, most of all, should serve to nurture each of us to find our best, our most complete selves. If nothing else, this script represents the uniqueness of me, my life experiences and worldview, and in that way will be unlike anything else you have ever read. I can think of no other work in literature or the movies that weaves history, fiction and the bible together in such a cohesive and plausible manner. And yet, in the end, it is the relationship of storyteller to listener, ancient mariner to wedding guest, that forms the emotional center of the work and delivers the simple moral truth that drives this story forward.
Title: YEAR OF THE SPY
Genre: Spy, True Story, Thriller
Logline: In 1985, when CIA Officer Aldrich Ames sells what he believes to be useless intelligence to the Soviets to pay for his divorce, he inadvertently sets off an international Cold War crisis that finds him heading up a special CIA unit — a unit created to find out who sold secrets to the Soviets.
Why you might read: Being true, it’s a spy story that’s more grounded than most, but also barely believable in how it plays out. There are absurdities that could only come from real life. It’s based on research drawn from the Senate Committee report published after Ames’s arrest, as well as testimony from the Soviet Intelligence Officer who ran Ames as an agent. Personally, I could use some writerly interaction with my work as I’ve been more-or-less blocked for the better part of a year, and need to get back into the flow. I’d be very grateful for any and all response to the script. Thanks.
Title: The Crooked Tree
Genre: Horror
Logline: While staying on a rural plantation, a live-in hospice nurse, struggling with the loss of her daughter, must save her young patient from a mysterious intruder.
Why You Should Read: Before becoming a full-time Registered Nurse, I attended film school with a foray in horror screenwriting; my ultimate passion. I’ve always loved the genre and the craft, but, at the time, I felt that I could make a better living as a RN. But that writing itch never left! Over a decade since I wrote my last screenplay, comes The Crooked Tree, a unique combination of home invasion and occult horror. This is a love letter to my two favorite sub-genres and I hope you are willing to give it a chance! To quote recent WeScreenplay coverage, “The Crooked Tree offers a very fresh and horrifying vision that feels unique. A terrifying addition to the genre.”
Title: OFF-GRID
Genre: Thriller.
Pitch: Searching meets Nightcrawler.
Logline: An overprotective ex-cop discovers his daughter’s hidden life as an exam cheat sheet organizer after she goes missing from school.
Why You Should Read: Hey Carson, my name is Sylvester Ada. 2 years ago, you reviewed my pilot script CLUB LAVENDER about the cabaret drag queen caught up in a mob war. It received a worth the read from you and while you loved the writing, calling it one of the best written scripts of the year, you weren’t a fan of some story elements. Here’s my first completed feature. It’s a lean 81 pages with lots of white space, action and just an all round fun read. The perfect candidate for the age of streaming content and most likely going to be one of the most fun scripts you’ve read all year. It also deals with real world tech and grounds it in a fun way.
