MovieBytes Interview:
Screenwriter Jim Smick

An interview with screenwriter Jim Smick regarding the Hollywood Scriptwriting Writing Competition.

A: Sarah Seagull and the Gibbering Fools. It's the story of a young girl that stows away on a ship to escape the horrible fate of finishing school, only to discover she has chosen a pirate ship. She works hard to become a sailor and wins the respect of the crew, but her mission becomes to somehow redeem the pirates so they can return to the lives and loved-ones they've had to leave behind.

A: I was looking for instant gratification. I wanted to get some feedback and see how the script stacked up with everything else out there, and most contests take months to select winners; this contest is monthly. This contest also offered feedback to the winners which I thought would give me some idea of the broad strokes that were hitting and missing.

I have entered the script in a half-dozen other contests but none of them have selected winners yet.

A: They were prompt and professional, and all the prizes are accounted for. I heard back even before I was looking for it. The prize package was delivered in a very timely fashion - in fact, one of the prizes was a year's subscription to Scr(i)pt magazine, and it started arriving before I knew I'd won. (Scr(i)pt is *great*, btw).

A: Yes, I got feedback. I was disappointed that it wasn't more detailed. It was a list of checkboxes (Great, good, average, poor) on criteria like characterization, plot, dialogue, etc. with a few short sentences at the end giving an overall impression of what they thought. Writers crave feedback, especially from someone within the industry, and they gave me what they promised - just not as much as I would have liked.

A: It has helped in the sense that part of the prize package was free listings on Inktip and So You Wanna Sell A Script. These are avenues I would not have used had I not won them, but since they are gratis, why not? I have not been contacted by anyone, but it's only been out there a few days.

A: Over a decade, I've written and performed a ton of comedy for No Shame Theater as well as short plays that I've produced myself. A little higher in the geek factor, I have written two spec scripts for Star Trek: The Next Generation which were not produced. My first screenplay is about the Knights Templar and the milieu of the crusades.

A: Nope. I would consider visiting long enough to take some meetings and glad hand. I assume that if my writing's good enough, Hollywood will 'work with me' on my geographic location. I know--I'm an arrogant jerk with the wrong attitude, but at least I'm honest.

A: You're not a screenwriter if you haven't got about a dozen different ideas percolating all at once. I'm still in marketing mode for Sarah Seagull and the Gibbering Fools, and ruminating on the genre I'd like to play with next. After writing a kids movie, I'm thinking it'll be something with some juicy swear words.

Posted Friday, April 30, 2004