Competition Feedback Examples

When you enter the Euroscript Screen Story Competition you will receive a Bullet Point Report on your treatment if you don't win.

Here are two examples of the kind of report you will receive. They are reproduced with kind permission of the writers. Names and titles have been deleted.

Bullet Point Report Examples

EUROSCRIPT SCREEN STORY COMPETITION 2008

NAME OF WRITER: [ ]

NAME OF SCRIPT: [ ]

NUMBER OF SCRIPT: 39

GENRE: Social Drama

LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH BUDGET: Low/Medium

BRIEF SYNOPSIS:

A corrupt, debt-ridden social worker forces a poverty-stricken teenage mother to take part in a bare-knuckle boxing match; she and her boyfriend deprive him of her winnings, and use them to set up a new, viable life for themselves.

LIST THE STRENGTHS OF THIS WRITER, IDEA AND TREATMENT:

1. Strong socially-conscious themes hinging around youth violence and vulnerable teenagers being failed by the care services.

2. The underground boxing match and criminal world associated with it offer good opportunities for some striking and unusual visuals.

3. Good potential for emotional involvement with the plight of the underprivileged and vulnerable couple at the centre of the story.

4. Optimistic, feel-good ending.

LIST THE AREAS THIS WRITER NEEDS TO FOCUS ON TO IMPROVE THIS IDEA.

1. First and foremost, there just isn’t enough material here for a full-length feature film. The plot needs to be greatly expanded and deepened if it is to be viable.

2. It would help the reader to believe in the characters as individuals if they are given names – and maybe brief descriptions - rather than being referred to as “the boy”, “the girl”, “the man in the suit”, “the guy from work”, etc – which makes them all seem a bit generic.

3. It isn’t necessary at this stage to use a couple of paragraphs to explain the thinking behind the story and its themes – these should emerge naturally and be fairly plain from your telling of the story.

4. The ‘fight club’ aspect of the story seems a little fanciful and takes the story away from realism, and the writer’s stated aim of tackling “stage-managed playground violence, the sort that is filmed and broadcast over the Internet”. Surely this is never anything like as elaborate as the underground world depicted here?

5. Is “the man in the suit” a credible antagonist? Can we really believe that social workers are as conniving as this – wanting not only to turn their female charges into bare-knuckle fighters but also to abuse them sexually? Can he be made more believable?

ANY OTHER ADVICE YOU CAN OFFER WHICH WILL BE HELPFUL TO THIS WRITER WHEN HE/SHE IS REWRITING?

Readers (and potential producers) need to feel that the writer has already invested a good deal of time and thought in their idea by the time it reaches them. The treatment should demonstrate this and clearly suggest that the writer is capable of writing a full-length screenplay. This treatment seems rather rushed and cursory.

The writer needs to learn more about the way in which feature films are constructed and the kinds of events and developments they should contain. Read basic texts like Robert McKee’s Story and Syd Field’s Screenplay to get useful tips on this.

EUROSCRIPT SCREEN STORY COMPETITION 2008

NAME OF WRITER: [ ]

NAME OF SCRIPT: [ ]

NUMBER OF SCRIPT: 34

GENRE: Historical Drama/Biography.

LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH BUDGET: High

MARKET: General audience.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS:

A slave in 18th-century England befriends the equally-oppressed wife of his abusive master and vows to free them all from his tyranny.

LIST THE STRENGTHS OF THIS WRITER, IDEA AND TREATMENT:

1. Firm knowledge of the period’s historical background.

2. Strong social themes, still relevant today (slavery still exists in many parts of the world).

3. The writer is clearly passionate about her subject and the historical era she wishes to depict.

LIST THE AREAS THIS WRITER NEEDS TO FOCUS ON TO IMPROVE THIS IDEA.

1. The treatment doesn’t tell the story clearly; rather, it gives us a lot of historical background and many characters and incidents which may or may not form part of the narrative. It’s like a pile of ingredients which lack any clear recipe telling us how they’ll be turned into a meal.

2. At present the story seems too broad and unfocussed. Remove the notes about [ ] and many of the facts and figures; focus your treatment on the central character, and what constitutes his ‘journey’. Try to grab the reader’s emotions.

3. Budgets for historical dramas can easily run out of control. Find a story which looks as if it can be made economically, which centres on a particular place and has a limited amount of characters – don’t make it sound like an epic which attempts to pull in every aspect of its time.

4. The last sentence lists many thematic ideas or abstract concepts; a reader needs to know what the specific central issue of the story will be.

5. Make sure your treatment is entirely written in the present tense.

ANY OTHER ADVICE YOU CAN OFFER WHICH WILL BE HELPFUL TO THIS WRITER WHEN HE/SHE IS REWRITING?

Read as many treatments as possible (many published screenplays include them). Watch and analyse films you admire or wish to emulate (particularly historical) and see how they work, how their dramatic shape illuminates the social issues of their periods.