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Screenwriter Interviews
MovieBytes Interview: Dawn Alden
An interview with Dawn Alden regarding the Woman Warrior Writing Competition.
Q: Who sponsors this contest, and what is their background in the industry? When was the contest founded?A: This is a call for scripts for a new series of short films focused on telling the stories of historical and legendary women warriors. I have been doing this work in live theatre for over a decade in Chicago, but have recently relocated to Los Angeles, and have decided to extend the facilitation of this work to a new medium.
As the founder and artistic director of my theatre company, Babes With Blades in Chicago, I created several programs for sponsoring the creation of new works, and the theatre company still produces almost entirely new scripts. In the course of my tenure as artistic director there, I facilitated or oversaw the creation of over 100 new scripts with fighting roles for women, in accordance with the mission of the theatre company, many of which have gone on to receive full productions by Babes With Blades and/or other theatre companies around the country. In the process, I have done extensive research on historical and legendary women warriors, and have led both scholarly panels and hands-on workshops on the martial history of women. I hope to continue to tell these amazing and inspiring stories on film.
A: I will be choosing the winning scripts, and will be the Executive Producer for those chosen for production.
Q: Have any of the winning scripts from the contest been sold or produced?A: This is a new contest/call for scripts, so not yet!
Q: Who judges the early rounds of the competition? What are their qualifications? Who judges the final rounds?A: There is only one round of judging per call for scripts, and I will choose which scripts we will be producing.
Q: Do the early-round judges read the entire script, or do they stop after a certain number of pages?A: As we are calling for short films, the entire scripts will be read.
Q: Are the judges looking for any specific type of script? Are scripts of a certain genre more likely to do well?A: The contest guidelines are set out at http://dawnalden.com/WomanWarriors.htm and very specifically outline what kind of scripts we are interested in producing. Please follow these guidelines or your script will be eliminated.
Q: What do you do promote your winning writers, and to publicize their scripts?A: TBD.
Q: What advice can you offer to writers entering your contest?A: Please keep in mind that we will have a limited budget! The easier it is to produce on a shoestring, the more likely we are to be able to select your script for production!
Posted Monday, September 6, 2010
