1st Place:

Julia Van Develder for The Escape Artist

>>Update February 2007
Julia's winning script is in pre-production! The Escape Artist was optioned by a U.K. production company for award-winning director/writer/producer Helen Grace to direct. Julia also signed with Stars Agency in San Francisco.

Prize: all finalist prizes, plus a Microsoft Tablet PC and $10,000 cash, round-trip airfare to Los Angeles with 3 nights hotel accommodations and meetings with industry executives and agents.

The first place winner is Julia Van Develder of Rhinebeck, New York. Her winning screenplay, The Escape Artist, tells the story of an aspiring artist who finds himself trapped in a boring corporate job and a loveless marriage. He fakes a mental breakdown and is committed to a psychiatric hospital in hopes of pursuing his dream in the guise of “art therapy.” But his boss and his wife discover the con and are out for revenge.

"Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people, me included, find themselves at some point in their lives wondering how they got to this place that doesn't look anything like the destination they had in mind when they started out.

And they don't know how to get back to who they really are and what they really want. So sometimes they do something off-the-wall, like Harry in The Escape Artist, faking a psychotic episode so they'll lock him up in a mental hospital so he'll have time to paint.

I started this story years ago, before I knew Final Draft existed- painstakingly setting all the tabs on my word processing program. I abandoned it because I hit some roadblocks and needed to find out a lot of stuff-about mental hospitals, for example, and schizophrenia. Plus, how to write a screenplay.

I volunteered to teach a writing class to a group of schizophrenic patients at a local psychiatric hospital. That was an eye-opening and heart-wrenching experience-and not what I expected. The hospital was not at all like Cuckoo's Nest-much kinder. The caregivers were exceptionally compassionate. And the patients broke my heart. They were all ages, all ethnicities, came from all walks of life, had led interesting lives, and some had held important positions before their illness. It's such a tragic disease. The story I envisioned was a comedy, and it took me a long time to find the right tone, to portray the patients in the screenplay with compassion and humor, but without trivializing their illness. I hope I accomplished that.

Meantime, I took a couple of classes at Gotham Writers Workshop in NYC, listened to John Truby's Great Screenwriting tapes over and over in the car on the way down, purchased the most amazing screenwriting software (um, Final Draft 6.0) with my Gotham discount, and started working on a different script. When I finally came back to Harry's story, the script seemed to almost write itself.

There's just no way to overstate how much easier Final Draft makes the writing process. 'Just add words' is so apt. And the contest? I call Liz Alani (the contest director) my fairy godmother. As Harry's fairy godmother in The Escape Artist says, 'This is your ticket to the ball, baby! The glass slipper!'

Thank you, Final Draft!"

2nd Place:

Craig Tiede for Zoo Day

Prize: all finalist prizes, plus a Microsoft Tablet PC and $3,000 cash.

Second place goes to Craig Tiede of Meadville, PA. His screenplay, Zoo Day, is about a meteorologist who abandons his own cancer treatment to track a hurricane. His life collides with those of a wounded soldier and a single mother raising her teenage sons. Together they battle the elements and forge bonds in an attempt to survive.

"Zoo Day is a personal story, one borne from that first lesson - one I guess I never quite fully abandoned. From it, I learned that writing is not just about creating worlds in which we can lose ourselves, but it also about creating worlds in which we can find ourselves.

The script’s protagonist, Cole DeCamp, shares a similar history with me, but we are not the same.

And yet, in telling his story, I found mine. Cole, and the friends he introduced me to on his journey - Angel, Vivianne, Blake, Brian, Amber and a certain lion - taught me that surviving is just something we do, it is instinctual and easy. What’s difficult, what lies before each of us as our greatest task, is living - really living - in a world that is too often bright and noisy and hard. Most of us know that life isn’t simply one long perfect day, but what gets us through is knowing that when it’s not, it gets better. I will be forever thankful to Cole and the others for showing me that truth.

Writing is a solitary art. It takes a curious combination of bravery and recklessness to stare down a blank page and begin to fill it. It requires that we stare down our own souls, even if, and perhaps especially when, we’ve no idea what we’ll find there. Were it not for Final Draft and the connections it creates between, and the support it offers, writers, I think we’d all still feel caged - trapped in the solitary confinement of what we know, what we don’t and what the blank page calls out to us to discover. I can never thank them enough for showing me that I’m not alone in the journey, nor for confirming through the Big Break contest that it’s a journey I should remain on.

Write what you know. Just be prepared that, in those moments when your life opens up to reveal itself as something wonderful you could never have anticipated, what you know can change."

3rd Place:

Jon Gilbert for The Sculptress and The Thief

>>Update January 2006
Jon Gilbert was quickly signed by ICM and his screenplay has been optioned by a British producing team.

Prize: all finalist prizes, plus a Microsoft Tablet PC and $1,000 cash.

Jon Gilbert of London, England, won third place. His screenplay, The Sculptress and The Thief, is a thriller about an armed robber on the run from police who takes refuge in a warehouse owned by an eccentric, elderly sculptress. Tensions grow as her devious plans undermine the robber's haven, ending in a horrific climax.

"Coming in the top three of the Final Draft Big Break Contest 2005 has made an incredible difference to me as a writer, not just because of the opportunities it has opened up but also because of the huge vote-of-confidence it has given me.

Under what other circumstances would a first-time feature writer get the chance to have one-on-one meetings with important producers and film-makers in Hollywood? Especially when you come from England!

There are already some exciting potential routes for me to go down since the contest has brought my name and work to people's attention, and now the challenge is to make the most of these opportunities. I can't thank Final Draft enough not only for running the competition but for making the whole experience so fantastic."

2005 FINALISTS

The top ten finalists will receive:
A) Final Draft Software; B) Microsoft Software Package; C) One Year Subscription to Fade In , RES and scr(i)pt Magazines; D) One $50 Gift Card to The Writers Store; E) Gotham Writers' Workshop Course (Screenwriting, TV Sitcom Writing, Film Analysis or Screenplay Marketing).

David Greenman, CA
Romantaphobia

Jon Gilbert, United Kingdom
The Sculptress and The Thief

Carl Ames & David Schmeling, WI
Mailman

Alexander Del Negro, MA
Trifecta

Paul Vaillancourt and Ron Erdmann, CA
Scout's Honor

Scott Simonsen, CA
Tides of Summer

Craig Tiede, PA
Zoo Day

Julia Van Develder, NY
The Escape Artist

Chris Fiore, NY
The Utopia Virus

Olivia Rosewood, CA
Finding Perfect

2005 SEMIFINALISTS

Scott Peake, CA
What we did on our Holidays

Jason Cunningham, TN
The Island of Ted

Jon Massey and David Smith, CA
Blackball

Megan Johnson, OR
Stealing Roses

Stuart Flack, CA
Hope Smokes

Robert Frisbee, AZ
Absolution

Mickey Blaine, CA
Qwickie all Night

Mary Szmagaj, CA
Juan Doe

John Hillis, Canada
Bitter, Sweet, & Beautiful

Mike Bencivenga, NY
Single Bullet Theory