With only 13 hours left to vote, 168 scripts out of 302 are still unread.
They want fair play, they want the best to win, but how can that happen when 55% of the scripts haven’t been read at all? That means 55% of the writers has read others work without getting anything for it, while others drown in feedback. Fair? Hardly.
The only way to make it fair is to make sure all scripts to be read an equal amount of times. Should you be able to invite friends and family to vote for your script? Of course, they will give 5’s on everyting, they want you to win! Does that mean the script is better than the others? No. Only the participating writers should be able to vote, at least for top 30. After that, we know only the best are left, if they have been read the same amount of times. When you let people chose on their own, most will read what others have already read, to avoid spending their precious time on crap. If it had not been possible to see the points during the competition, this would have been less of a problem and I’m sure more scripts would have been read.
Suddenly, a mail dives into my inbox, showing of the top 10 scripts with a prompt to go in and read what others have liked. Instead, show us how many unread scripts there are, tells us their names. No, they show us top 10, as if any of those needed more reads.
I feel sorry for all writers with high hope and good intentions who have spend hours and hours on reading and voting for others’ scripts without receiving any themselves. After reading and voting four scripts, I quit, eventhough I had decided to read many more, for the good cause. Why should I read others when no one reads mine?
I was tipped to join this competition and it’s a faboulous idea, but with the current rules I won’t participate again and I won’t recommend it to anyone else. 168 writers never had a chance and I simply can’t care less about who wins.
Hi.
Finally someone has spoken the truth about this competition. I’ve found the same situation with issues about the voting system being unfair. I thought that it was only the writers / entrants who could vote. When I discovered friends could vote my heart kind of went out of it as it wasn’t going to be a fair assessment of screenwriting craft and a popularity contest with those with the most friends having the best chance. As it stands it appears the winning script might be one that is very difficult to read with either it being a translation or AI which I believe clouds the possible assessment of screenwriting craft compared to the many scripts I’ve read that have shown some exciting and well written drafts.
I began by reading one script (which I liked very much) - but as a reasonably fast reader, it is not a problem for me to read a 120 page script in a bit over an hour. Having read 100% of a script of that length, the “system” only calculated that I had read 45%, so there is evidently a disconnect, or there is an inflexible tabulation based on a slower reading time. I did go back and work through the script more slowly to accommodate the calculation, but frankly to do this with a number of scripts would be too great an investment of my time based on the programmed calculation. I could have read 3 scripts in the time it took the system to calculate that I had read 1. I ,too, feel sorry for aspiring screenwriters who are invest their time in their craft only to have it lost in the shuffle of a poorly designed voting system.
Yes I know that if there are no barriers to judging, one work might get that pile of friends-and-family 5 stars, but if there is no accurate way to validate that a someone has read an entire screenplay, it might be best to just go back to an old school judging panel.
I believe this is more of a prom queen contest than it is a script writing contest. The ones of course that get the biggest push are the scripts of course that paid the money. So they get the ‘Editors Choice’ and first billing. I understand this is a money making business for Kinolime, and reading into the creators background, he is a banker and investor, not a movie person. They are out to make money and I highly doubt the writer will be paid the amount they deserve for their script.