Film Courage: What are some common mistakes
that are not so much the content of the screenplay but things that people should be aware of
when they’re submitting? Gordy Hoffman, Founder/Judge of the Bluecat
Screenplay Competition: Don’t submit it until you’re ready. It’s like don’t
submit if you’re not ready and a lot of people want to be ready. We’ve talked about
being impatient, wanting the fight to end (the fight for a great movie to end) and they’re
like “Ahhh, I’m going to just submit it.” And then they’re bummed out that the feedback
comes back and their like “Oh? They didn’t respond…Ugh.” Work hard on your script and if you’re not
ready to submit to BlueCat, if you don’t think it’s your best work, don’t submit
it. Don’t submit it. Just wait three months and submit to Nicholl’s, submit to Austin,
submit to Sundance, submit to something else. Submit to the local state regional contest
that’s six months from now when your script is really good and you’re ready to do it
and it’s like beautiful and you’re really excited about it. But if you’re not ready, don’t submit.
That’s the thing where people send in stuff where they’re not intimate with the material,
they don’t know. You can tell that they haven’t gone back through it, that they
haven’t re-read it, that it’s overwritten, that it’s too long and they’re sort of
like “Well, I’m done…you look at it.” It’s like well we have a response where
we’re not connected to it because it’s confusing or it’s not clear or whatever.
And that’s the thing that I think most people…again you’re in a rush to finish and so you want
the adrenaline of “I’ve just entered a competition. I’m making progress.” You
know it’s sort of like stay with the script and be patient and make sure that you know
your script. Be intimate with your script. I mean the scripts that always come out on
top with BlueCat after all these years (we get a lot more submissions) they are always
scripts that are really tight as a drum. There are people who have clearly worked really
hard. Sometimes people write a draft and they proofread it and they send it in and it’s
like “that was my second draft of whatever.” Generally you can tell people have worked
really hard and they know everything in their script like the back of their hand and I think
that’s the biggest thing I would encourage people, you should know your script really
well and if you know your script really well and you know if has problems or it doesn’t
and if you know it really well you know that if it does have problems that you shouldn’t
be submitting it to a competition. Unless you’re just like I just want Bluecat’s
feedback or whatever and a lot of people just do that and they’re just like I just want
to get some notes back. Film Courage: Would you say when you were
writing LOVE LIZA that you were obsessed with it? In that you were so in that world, where
you weren’t working and you saw that one woman [at the gas station which inspired his
script], do you want that same obsession like this is everything that you see on this piece
of paper. Gordy: Well yeah I think most people who have
written something special that has done really well they love it. The thing about screenwriting
and going back to my mission with Bluecat and the place of Bluecat in my life and the
meaning is that everybody we deal with is doing what they want to do, it’s their dream,
it’s their passion, it’s really important to them. So I don’t think that people are
like “Well I’m doing this screenwriting thing but I really, really like being a stockbroker.
That’s what I really like doing but I’ just working on screenplays because I don’t
know…I’m just doing it because I’ve got to do it. My Mom wanted me to do it but
I really want to sell real estate.” It’s not like that. So everybody we deal with it’s
important to them. Everybody that I talk to is invested so there’s not really an issue
of obsession, investment, priority, with everybody entering Bluecat. Everybody entering Bluecat
is thrilled and excited. They are not like “Oh? I won. But I really wanted open that
paint store and that didn’t go through and that’s what I really wanted. And I won this
screenwriting award instead.” Film Courage: That being said, you say people
rush to get their screenplay in. You can just tell that they haven’t invested enough,
so then what is that disconnected there? You can tell that this is what they want to be
doing but they submit something (sometimes) that isn’t ready? Gordy: You have to learn because when you’re
a beginning writer and you ignore the feedback you’re trying to give yourself but you’re
like “No but I want it to done. And it’s done! Let’s go shoot it.” And then you
don’t get the response you’re like “Oh I should have kept rewriting it. I knew it
wasn’t good. I knew I had problems with it. But I submitted it to Bluecat anyways
and then I got feedback and clearly it’s not ready yet.” And then the seasons writer, the more developed
writer, the one who is more mature is like “I’m not going to submit that because
it’s not ready.” Then I put my best foot forward. Film Courage: How do you monitor yourself
in terms of wanting to put something out there and knowing “Okay, I know myself. This isn’t
ready yet?” Gordy: I know myself like that it’s not
good enough and then it’s or sometimes it’s like I want to get feedback so I’ll have
a table read and I’ll have somebody read it and I’ll be like “What do you think?”
And they want some feedback but you’re definitely not going to send it off to the producer or
the actress that is attached to your project until you’ve done a lot more. So there are
certain stages where you already know that this is broken. You don’t need to send this
out again. You already have given yourself notes. We give ourselves notes, then we can
get notes from other people then we can movie it up the food chain but generally it’s
all about being honest and transparent with ourselves and knowing that. But you do learn
that in sort of the early days when you’re like “Well I’m just going to see…I want
somebody to read this.” And then you’re like “Okay, It think I’m going to wait
next time until somebody reads this because that wasn’t too pleasant. They didn’t
really respond and by the way (P.S.) I knew it wasn’t ready but I sent it to them anyways
because I just wanted somebody to read it.” You just want somebody to read it because
it makes it real when someone else reads it “I wrote a screenplay.” But after you
sort of get over the novelty of that then you start to want to write better work.