Tag Archive for Willamette Writers

Will There Be A Bug Eyed Bill For 2016 FiLMLaB?

film poster for 2015 FiLMLaB winning script Bug Eyed Bill

We are preparing for the 2016 FilmLab launch this Tuesday, January 5th, at Tabor Space! We’ve had lots of helpful suggestions as to what the contest should look like this year: shorten the page count to just four pages (because seven isn’t hard enough!); have two writing prompts instead of three; utilize the conference theme as…

Bug Eyed Bill Premiers At The WWC

As Willamette Writers heads into the last two weeks of organizing their annual conference, finalizing details for workshops, classes, pitches and celebrations; FiLMLaB, likewise, is putting the final editorial and post-production touches on winner Mark Scarbrough’s short film, The Robbery. Yes, it is a film now, his short script transformed by director Michael Parisien of…

How to Lose FiLMLaB and Win BlueCat: An Interview with Susan Fleming

As the 2014 Film Coordinator for the Willamette Writers Conference, I was also in charge of overseeing the FiLMLaB competition. Round after round of judging took place until five scripts elevated to the coveted “finalists” stage. Those five finalist scripts were sent to Hollywood for our celebrity judge’s review. Susan Fleming’s SIX MONTHS OF WONDER…

FiLMLaB Has A Winner!

After seven weeks, four rounds of judging and one rewrite, our 2015 experiment in writing has come to a conclusion: FiLMLaB has a winner! It was not an easy task for the Producers Circle who met last week to consider and debate the pros and cons of each finalist’s script. One script, however, to rose…

Navigating the Notes

Getting notes on your screenplay is never fun. Thirty years of writing scripts for studios, producers, and directors has taught me that. The reason is simple: They only address what’s wrong with your work. Rarely do they applaud what you’ve done right. In fact, they can be so devoid of praise that by the time…

FiLMLaB Reveals 2015 Celebrity Judges

Every year, FiLMLaB solicits film professionals to assist us in determining the Grand Prize winner of our short script writing contest. It changes from year to year, but usually we try to coordinate with the Willamette Writers Conference and pull from their list of Film Consultants: producers, managers, agents and creative executives brought up from…

FiLMLaB Announces Quarterfinalists

What an interesting season it’s been for FiLMLaB. We mixed things up this year by adding required prompts to the contest for dialogue (“I understand the urge.”), props (a lock of some sort), and perhaps the most interesting, a character prompt for “Bug Eyed Bill.”  It was a real challenge for the writers who took…

2015 FiLMLaB Contest Closed

The deadline for the 2015 FiLMLaB Contest has passed as of midnight last night, and the lab doors are CLOSED. Thank you to every one who submitted a short script. We are honored to read your words and get a glimpse into the magic of your imagination. The month of April will be dedicated to…