Message Board

I know there's been some discussion about this contest, but the current situation is less than pleasing. The website has been suspended (again) and their emails are bouncing. Does anyone know anyone who placed or won in this contest? It's too late to do anything about it - I'm not the suing type, not being American! - but it has left a bitter taste, that's for sure.

And I know Charles says he got a lot out of this contest, so that's good for him, but it doesn't bode well for past winners or current if the site has just disappeared. Very amateurish and hard to feel confident that things are OK.

nic.h

Nicole, This contest has been on many "warning lists" as a fake/illegitimate contest. I personally do not know if it is real, or just a scam, but I have seen it on several boards as a BEWARE. Just a heads up.

Thanks for this. A bit late, I'm afraid. Paid and entered the last contest.

I usually do my homework, but rushed this one for some reason.

Thanks for the heads up.

You could report them to the FBI's Internet Fraud Division. They'll investigate it for you and find out for sure what exactly is going on.

http://www.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

Well I'm certainly not a shill for them and the only reason I've spoken up for them in the past is that it just felt like they were being singled out, even to the point where it made me think there were sore losers who held a grudge. So I felt I needed to come forward and say that the competition did good by me, which it did.

It has been a number of years since I won and the person they have listed running the competition is not the same person when I won, so who knows. Perhaps they've let themselves go. If so, it's just a shame, because they were quite good in the past. And there are competitions that self promote themselves to be much bigger than they are that I have also won and still think suck because they didn't even make an attempt to do anything for their winners. But yet no one ever singles them out as a bad competition.

Another really good competition was The Scriptwriters Network Carl Sautter competition. Winning that one got me a first tier agent. Alas, that one too has fallen by the wayside, by their own choice and through lack of promotion (at least the TV portion of it). It's a shame.

Charles-

Yes, Carl Sautter feature script program has been discontinued but Scriptwriter's Network still conducts two excellent programs. The Producers Outreach Program and Carl Sautter Feature Program have been combined into Hollywood Outreach Program. Each script gets a minimum two reads, each with written comments by members. If the script progresses it could receive up to eight reads with eight sets of comments for the same entry fee. These are not contests per say but a program set up to promote the best entrants with the participating producers of which there are approximately 150 (I think) who are in contact with the Network.

Carl Sautter feature program is now primarily Carl Sautter TV program with the same reads and written comments as HOP.

The readers are experienced and an entrant can expect postive and moderate in-depth comments. It is a good deal.

The readers in essence do not judge, but evaluate and pass along their insights and if the script has merit it is passed along to interested industry professionals.

You're right, Peter. I didn't mean to make it sound like all of the networks programs have fallen by the wayside or anything. My bad if I did. The feature side looks to come out even stronger than before as you've described.

The TV side, however, used to have two programs but now has effectively lost one of them. There was the Carl Sautter competition and there was the Television Outreach Program. Now effectively there's only the outreach program. And don't get me wrong - the outreach program has a lot of value and everyone should indeed enter it. But I still lament the loss of the competition, as winning that competition has actually literally started a number of people's TV careers in the past. No other TV competitions (other than the real biggie like the Disney Fellowship) came close to Carl Sautter's track record in that regard. And there are only a few TV competitions out there to begin with. It will indeed be missed.