Our full field was relatively small to start (as expected in the first year) but we managed to have six amazing finalists.  Over the course of a long weekend (our residential), we worked with the group and worked individually.

Their three-minute pitches vastly improved from their original submissions. After questions and critiques, their five-minute pitches made a further leap forward. Additional feedback took their following twelve-minute pitches to a solidly professional level.

Quite honestly, each pitch would have been a deserving winner.  In the final analysis, and in an astonishing precedent-breaking development we named two winners. The judging panel was enthusiastically unanimous that both pitches MUST win.  It’s never happened in a decade of competition in the UK, and we certainly never expected it would happen here in SA

It was quite literally a magic moment both for the winners and for the competition.  One winning story (The Second) is set in rural Kwazulu Natal in the dying years of apartheid. It is a profound story of hope in the midst of chaos and violence.  It was pitched by our youngest ever winner, Mpumelelo Kheswa (22) and will be our first ever film in a foreign language (Zulu). The other, pitched by Howard James Fyvie, ( Ramsey) is our first animation and comedy. It retells the story of Abraham and Isaac from the perspective of the ram. “Ramsey” believes he is destined for greatness and that this will be as a stand-up comic. (It is a hilarious dark comedy!)

I am so proud to be working on the development of both short films.

Here are our finalists–

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I’m in South Africa for a few weeks, and am involved with The Pitch South Africa, an expansion of the “Enter The Pitch” competition that I’ve been involved in for many years now.

I’ve been working with some incredible South African filmmakers, and I’m so inspired by the talent of the finalists both here in South Africa, and back in the UK where this year is going to be the 15th anniversary of Enter The Pitch!

I wanted to share with you our 6 brilliant finalists, pitching their short films based on, or inspired by, The Bible. See what you can take from their pitches for any pitches you might have to make going forward.

We’ll be announcing the winner soon, and I’ll make sure to announce it in an upcoming post.

Relevé

Language of Love

No Where To Run

Black Jackets

The Second

Today

While these basic tools may seem overly crude or simplistic, I found that a great lesson of screenwriting was to pay attention to these fundamentals of craft, even as I tackled more challenging or sophisticated writing projects.

Tell a story: It sounds simple, but writers often slip off the narrative track. I’m not saying you have to write a straight-ahead, traditional narrative, but always remember that the reader is always asking, if only unconsciously, “What happens next?” The key to screenwriting is that every scene (in the generally fifty or so “master scenes” of a movie) must push the story ahead. Ask yourself, “what is the ‘forward’ in this scene?” How does each chapter of your book push the story ahead? It doesn’t have to be a cliffhanger or a plot twist, it could be a simple character trait that you reveal (unexpectedly). But it has to move us forward.

Character is king: Whether you are writing a thriller or a domestic drama, your characters — and especially your central character — is the key to good writing. For genre fiction — and most commercial movies — the plots are often incidental or interchangeable. What makes the piece memorable is the characters. Lots of writers focus too much on plot and not enough on character. Audiences and readers — like all of us — want to spend time with engaging and real people. Characters make your story come alive.

Keep up the pace: While movies demand a vigorous, even relentless pace that isn’t as important in books, the idea of moving the story forward with a sense of rhythm is critical. Writing, like music, demands a kind of internal rhythm and pacing to make it work. If you’re not feeling the rhythm in your writing, it probably isn’t working.

Find (and maintain) the right tone: Tone is a subtle and often elusive quality in any piece of writing. Most writers explore the tone of their work as they go along, rather than fix it at the beginning, which is fine. But in screenwriting, the medium demands a steady, persistent tone for the piece. Audiences have to be reminded — often again and again — of the film’s tone, whether it is a comedy, drama or action piece. So each scene – or in the case of fiction, each chapter — has to be measured against a yardstick for tone. Too much? Too little? Over the top? Above all, is it consistent?

Think in pictures: Film is primarily about “moving” pictures, and so screenwriters are forced from the outset to think in pictures. But this is a great discipline for all wordsmiths, who must understand the power of the visual, even if the pictures are drawn in words rather than on video screens. The economy of visual images in conveying ideas and emotions is a powerful tool that screenwriters — and all writers — should have in their toolbox.

Whole post is here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hoyt-hilsman/what-i-learned-from-scree_b_823657.html