Film Courage: What are some common mistakes that are not so much the content of the screenplay
but things that people should be aware of when they’re submitting?
Gordy Hoffman, Founder/Judge of the Bluecat Screenplay Competition: Don’t submit it
until you’re ready. It’s like don’t submit if you’re not ready and a lot of
people want to be ready. We’ve talked about being impatient, wanting the fight to end
(the fight for a great movie to end) and they’re like “Ahhh, I’m going to just submit it.”
And then they’re bummed out that the feedback comes back and their like “Oh? They didn’t
respond…Ugh.”
Work hard on your script and if you’re not ready to submit to BlueCat, if you don’t
think it’s your best work, don’t submit it. Don’t submit it. Just wait three months
and submit to Nicholl’s, submit to Austin, submit to Sundance, submit to something else.
Submit to the local state regional contest that’s six months from now when your script
is really good and you’re ready to do it and it’s like beautiful and you’re really
excited about it.
But if you’re not ready, don’t submit. That’s the thing where people send in stuff
where they’re not intimate with the material, they don’t know. You can tell that they
haven’t gone back through it, that they haven’t re-read it, that it’s overwritten,
that it’s too long and they’re sort of like “Well, I’m done…you look at it.”
It’s like well we have a response where we’re not connected to it because it’s
confusing or it’s not clear or whatever. And that’s the thing that I think most people…again
you’re in a rush to finish and so you want the adrenaline of “I’ve just entered a
competition. I’m making progress.” You know it’s sort of like stay with the script
and be patient and make sure that you know your script. Be intimate with your script.
I mean the scripts that always come out on top with BlueCat after all these years (we
get a lot more submissions) they are always scripts that are really tight as a drum. There
are people who have clearly worked really hard. Sometimes people write a draft and they
proofread it and they send it in and it’s like “that was my second draft of whatever.”
Generally you can tell people have worked really hard and they know everything in their
script like the back of their hand and I think that’s the biggest thing I would encourage
people, you should know your script really well and if you know your script really well
and you know if has problems or it doesn’t and if you know it really well you know that
if it does have problems that you shouldn’t be submitting it to a competition. Unless
you’re just like I just want Bluecat’s feedback or whatever and a lot of people just
do that and they’re just like I just want to get some notes back.
Film Courage: Would you say when you were writing LOVE LIZA that you were obsessed with
it? In that you were so in that world, where you weren’t working and you saw that one
woman [at the gas station which inspired his script], do you want that same obsession like
this is everything that you see on this piece of paper.
Gordy: Well yeah I think most people who have written something special that has done really
well they love it. The thing about screenwriting and going back to my mission with Bluecat
and the place of Bluecat in my life and the meaning is that everybody we deal with is
doing what they want to do, it’s their dream, it’s their passion, it’s really important
to them. So I don’t think that people are like “Well I’m doing this screenwriting
thing but I really, really like being a stockbroker. That’s what I really like doing but I’
just working on screenplays because I don’t know…I’m just doing it because I’ve
got to do it. My Mom wanted me to do it but I really want to sell real estate.” It’s
not like that. So everybody we deal with it’s important to them. Everybody that I talk to
is invested so there’s not really an issue of obsession, investment, priority, with everybody
entering Bluecat. Everybody entering Bluecat is thrilled and excited. They are not like
“Oh? I won. But I really wanted open that paint store and that didn’t go through and
that’s what I really wanted. And I won this screenwriting award instead.”
Film Courage: That being said, you say people rush to get their screenplay in. You can just
tell that they haven’t invested enough, so then what is that disconnected there? You
can tell that this is what they want to be doing but they submit something (sometimes)
that isn’t ready?
Gordy: You have to learn because when you’re a beginning writer and you ignore the feedback
you’re trying to give yourself but you’re like “No but I want it to done. And it’s
done! Let’s go shoot it.” And then you don’t get the response you’re like “Oh
I should have kept rewriting it. I knew it wasn’t good. I knew I had problems with
it. But I submitted it to Bluecat anyways and then I got feedback and clearly it’s
not ready yet.”
And then the seasons writer, the more developed writer, the one who is more mature is like
“I’m not going to submit that because it’s not ready.” Then I put my best foot
forward.
Film Courage: How do you monitor yourself in terms of wanting to put something out there
and knowing “Okay, I know myself. This isn’t ready yet?”
Gordy: I know myself like that it’s not good enough and then it’s or sometimes it’s
like I want to get feedback so I’ll have a table read and I’ll have somebody read
it and I’ll be like “What do you think?” And they want some feedback but you’re definitely
not going to send it off to the producer or the actress that is attached to your project
until you’ve done a lot more. So there are certain stages where you already know that
this is broken. You don’t need to send this out again. You already have given yourself
notes. We give ourselves notes, then we can get notes from other people then we can movie
it up the food chain but generally it’s all about being honest and transparent with
ourselves and knowing that. But you do learn that in sort of the early days when you’re
like “Well I’m just going to see…I want somebody to read this.” And then you’re
like “Okay, It think I’m going to wait next time until somebody reads this because
that wasn’t too pleasant. They didn’t really respond and by the way (P.S.) I knew
it wasn’t ready but I sent it to them anyways because I just wanted somebody to read it.”
You just want somebody to read it because it makes it real when someone else reads it
“I wrote a screenplay.” But after you sort of get over the novelty of that then
you start to want to write better work.