Friday, January 27, 2006

Mayday

Although it's a few months down the road, The Writer's Arc has announced the application schedule for the August 2006 fellowships. I note it only because that one starts on the same date (May 1) by which submissions for the Nicholl competition must be postmarked.

If you are submitting the same script for both programs, no big whoop. If you anticipate submitting different scripts for each, that gives you about a month between May 1 and June 9th (the date that second round full-length feature screenplays are due for Writer's Arc) if you make the first cut.

Because the Writer's Arc fellows are named by July, and Nicholl's not until October, there is also the issue of whether you want to potentially take yourself out of the running for the latter if (knock on wood) you should succeed with the former. But I throw it out there for scheduling purposes nonetheless.

3 Comments:

  • Chris,
    I'm sure there needs to be some clarification of this but I don't think the Writer's Arc fellowship knocks you out of the Nicholl.

    From the "Rules" section of the Nicholl...
    "Applicants may not have received a screenwriting fellowship or prize that includes a "first look" clause, an option or any other quid pro quo involving the writer's work."

    I can't find anything that says the Writer's Arc requires a "first look", an option or any "quid proquo". Based strictly upon what I was able to find out, via thier website and the web, I think they help you market it, and get a "producers" credit if it sells but I don't think WA is involved in any "quid pro quo" for the work produced during the fellowship. I imagine that Ami and Amy would have structured their fellowship so as to not hinder anyone from another contest. Perhaps someone should ask the Nicholl people for some clarification... or the Ami/ys.

    By Blogger writergurl, at 12:48 PM  

  • WG, although it doesn't appear in the Rules as you point out, the news story from Variety on TWA does note that "If any of the fellows scripts are picked up, the foundation will have the option of taking an executive producer's credit." My understanding is that Greg Beal at Nicholl's position was that a TWA fellowship did preclude you from theirs. And since TWA does not allow you to hold another fellowship at the same time, it would be a question if Nicholl would let you defer until after TWA concludes in November in any event. But that's only my understanding as to how the two would work. And it would be a good problem to have if it ever came to it.

    By Blogger Chris, at 1:49 PM  

  • Hmmm, veddy interesting.

    Something to think about, for sure.

    By Blogger writergurl, at 3:59 PM  

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