1st Place:

Rylend Grant for Drive

Prize: $10,000, round-trip airfare to Los Angeles, 3 nights' hotel accommodations, a screenplay analysis by Syd Field and meetings with industry professionals and agents.

Creative discipline or lack of a social life? I don't know which to chalk it up to, but about a year back I managed to set aside a couple of days for an experiment. I had written five or six features previously, each very technically sound, but to be honest, none of them really sang. They lacked that magic, that soul, that essential taste of me and mine. Just wanting to see what would happen, I threw my outlines, my note cards and the entire notion of meticulous prep out the proverbial window. With a pot of coffee, an uncomfortable chair and Tom Waits' Closing Time on repeat, I locked myself in a room.

The phone was turned off, the curtains were closed and for the foreseeable future, it was just me, that laptop with the space bar that sticks and Final Draft.

I started with a tiny kernel of an idea and rather than subscribing to a formula, rather than following a map, I let my characters tell me who they were and where they were going. This is writing. It's raw and genuine, wrought with emotion and pouring from the gut.

It took me five days to hammer out that first draft. The rewrites would come slower and be more technically driven. The script would change a bit, be shaped and reshaped, but its heart and soul was born in that first creative outburst. I probably need not explain to other writers the euphoric haze that was that first five days. I think as a chug along, I'm slowly realizing that this is why we write. We don't do this for the big payday (though one of those would be pretty nice. Wink. Wink.). We do this because we have to, because our lives wouldn't be complete doing anything else. We do this because though we are all unique-interesting people, we are the lucky few that can show others why.

I cannot thank Final Draft enough. They are THE reason it is possible to write a first draft in five days. We all know inspiration comes at odd times and in short bursts. Just try to keep up with the caffeine-induced chaotic flow of ideas writing long hand on legal pads or using a simple word processing program. How movies were made before they burst onto the scene in 1991 is beyond me. Final Draft, if I woke up tomorrow and you were gone I'd probably take a long walk off a short pier. That, or I'd take up plumbing.

It's fitting now, that it's you giving me my "Big Break." I'm looking at the opportunities you are laying out in front of me and the hair on the back of my neck is standing up. It's as if the company that invented the bat is now giving me a tryout with the Yankees. Honestly, I couldn't have written a better story.

Thank you.

-Rylend Grant

2nd Place:

Kate Miles Melville for Twenty Questions

Prize: $3,000

I don't know which statistic amazes me more - that my script placed second out of almost 3000 entries, or that in 33 countries around the world, people are quietly dreaming up movies. I do know that both thoughts make me smile. Writing is a solitary art, and this kind of contest makes me feel part of a bigger picture.

Twenty Questions is a story very dear to my heart. I didn't write it to be a blockbuster (though I'm open to the idea, really), I wrote it because I was fascinated with the lead character Henry, and I wanted to see how a kid with a genius IQ would deal with the complexities and confusion of first love.

I've always had a soft spot for the geek, and Twenty Questions was my attempt to give him a chance to be a leading man without losing his essential nature. I wrote it for all the teenage boys who spent their high school years cloistered in basement bedrooms, fiddling with short wave radios and building geodesic domes out of Popsicle sticks. I knew that beneath their shy exteriors lurked passionate hearts and rampant sex drives, and that put in the right circumstances, they were capable of grand and messy gestures of devotion.

So I wrote the kind of movie I wanted to see, and I'm thrilled that others like it too. I'd especially like to thank all the folks at Final Draft, who have created a remarkable opportunity for exposure and recognition for screenwriters around the world.

-Kate Miles Melville

3rd Place:

George R. Olson for Headspook

Prize: $1,000

The original draft of Headspook was written in Final Draft version 2.0, on a laptop so low-tech that it’s approved for use by the Amish.

I remember reading somewhere about the use of psychic espionage during the Cold War—on both sides—and thinking it might be fun subject for a story. As usual, I did an extraordinary amount of in-depth procrastina…that is, research, got a rough idea of a beginning, middle and end, and then sat down and wrote the thing. The characters really drove the bus; I think the funniest characters are ones who are quirky, passionate, and above all, have no idea that they are in a comedy.

I threw in some missing weapons of mass destruction and a couple of obligatory international figure skating jokes, and the awesome power of Final Draft 2.0 pretty much did the work while I sat around watching Fear Factor.

Seriously, I’m really delighted that the Final Draft judges enjoyed Headspook. The contest was very professionally run by nice people. I am honored to have placed third in this prestigious competition, even though my son now refers to me as “the Ralph Nader of screenwriters.” Rotten kid.

-George R. Olson

2004 FINALISTS

The top ten finalists will receive a copy of Final Draft 7 scriptwriting software, a screenwriting course from Gotham Writers’ Workshop, one-year subscriptions to Creative Screenwriting Magazine and scr(i)pt Magazine and a $50 gift certificate from The Writers Store.

David Warnock, NY
Bull Comb Blues

Stephen Burke, Ireland
Happy Ever Afters

George R. Olson, CO
Headspook

Timothy Sheridan, IL
Describing Eternity

Kate Miles Melville, Canada
Twenty Questions

Michael J. Compton, TN
Rudy Tooty

Rylend Grant, CA
Drive

Lauren Sheppard, TX
Redemption Road

Matthaeus D. Szumanski, CA
The House of Women

Cory Taylor, Australia
The Rushworth War

2004 SEMIFINALISTS

Mark Miller, CA
Orion's Belt

Jack B. Dawson, CA
The Tiger Journal

Patrick H.T. Doyle, CA
Next Rest Stop Earth

Robert Shaffner, Jr., MN
Kord & the Geek

Joshua B. Dasal & Zeke Rhodes, CA
I.O.U.

A. Jay Adler, CA
Double Down

Richard Hamilton, CA
Zombie Honeymoon!

Timothy Burr &
Aaron Stoker-Ring, NY
Mr. Positive

Rachel Wimberly, NC
The Forgotten War

Kaile Shilling, CA
25 to Life