January-February 2011 Creative Screenwriting Page 49

FOR 25 YEARS

Nicholl (roughly 27%). It should also be noted
that many aspiring screenwriters move to Cal-
ifornia to break into the business. So while
their home may be a California zip code, many
have come from places far and near.

JUDGMENT

All in all, the Nicholl Fellowship is as fair a

contest as you'll find anywhere, and Beal states
that the only criteria he gives the readers is to
find the best. "We're looking for the best
screenplays, the best stories, the best writing,
the best craft, the best characters." That said,
Beal revealed that there is a 100-point scale
and scripts that score at least 60 or higher are
read a second time by a different reader (last
year, just under 2,900 out of 6,380 were read a
second time). Those scripts that receive at least

one score of 80 or better are then read a third
time (900 scripts last year). Finally, those
scripts with two scores of 80 or better advance
to the quarterfinals (325 last year).

Much like the initial round, the quarterfi-

nal scripts are read twice, with the higher-scor-
ing scripts being read a third time for a total of
six reads. Then the scripts with the best five
out of six scores are sent to the semifinals (114
made the cut last time).

The semifinalist screenplays are read by

four industry pros, who are all members of the
various branches of the Academy -- from edi-
tors to actors and even a few agents (who are
associate members). From there, the best 8 out
of 10 scores are tallied and the top 10 advance
to the finals (interestingly Beal noted there was
one year that 11 were selected).

Finally, the 12 members of the Nicholl com-

mittee are given the scripts, again without
names or identification, for an unbiased read.
Chairing the 2010 committee is producer Gale
Anne Hurd (The Terminator), who guides dis-
cussions over the scripts with the other com-
mittee members, who include
cinematographer John Bailey (As Good As It
Gets), writer-producer Naomi Foner (Running on
Empty), former WMA agent and executive
Ronald Mardigian, producer and former head
of 20

Century Fox Bill Mechanic (Coraline),

screenwriter and former WGA president Daniel
Petrie Jr. (Beverly Hills Cop), cinematographer
Steven Poster (Donnie Darko), writer Thomas
Rickman (Coal Miner's Daughter), actress Eva
Marie Saint (North by Northwest), producer Peter
Samuelson (Arlington Road), producer Robert
Shapiro (Empire of the Sun) and writer-producer
Dana Stevens (Julie & Julia).

After the reading period, committee

members are given letters written by each
writer that provide background on them-
selves and their plans for the fellowship year,
should they be chosen. The committee then
meets to debate the merits of each script and
writer, with up to five fellows chosen from
among the finalists (though in 1988 no fel-
lows were chosen). According to Beal, those
discussions can be rather passionate, with
some committee members hating the very
script another member adores.

Yet even those who fail to make the cut

often come back for more and, sometimes,
they win.

One screenwriter got cut in the final round,

entered again the following year and became a
fellow with the exact same script. Her name:
Annmarie Morais (How She Move). Although
she received detailed notes from Oscar-win-
ning committee member and former WGA
president Frank Pierson (Dog Day Afternoon),
she skipped the rewrite and entered her script
in the competition again and won.

Though this year's fellows can't claim to

have made the finals two years in a row with
the same script, their stories reflect the passion
for writing that seems to beat in the heart of
every Nicholl fellow.

DESTIN DANIEL CRETTON

Growing up in Maui, Hawaii, with three sis-

ters and two brothers, Destin Daniel Cretton
discovered that he had a strange addiction. "I
was kind of addicted to making these little
movies with my grandma's video camera," he
admits. "I honestly didn't know that filmmak-
ing was an option, that you could do some-
thing like that in life."

When he got to college, he found there was

a Mass Communications major that offered a
video production class.
So he jumped in with
both feet and initially
started writing and
filming short films that
began to get some at-
tention. One of the
shorts, Short Term 12 --
which was based on
Cretton's experiences
working in a group
home for troubled teens -- won the 2009 Sun-
dance Short Filmmaking Award and was a
semi-finalist for the Student Academy Awards.

"After seeing the response the short got,"

Cretton says, "I realized it was a bit more of a
universal subject than I expected." So he set out
to write a feature-length version of the short,
but stretching the characters and stories to fit a
longer format wasn't working. "It just wasn't
working at all," he recalls. "I felt like I was copy-
ing somebody, even though it was myself." So
Cretton decided to change the main character

January/February 2011 creativescreenwriting

for Screenwriting

B Y

S E A N K E N N E L LY

FELLOW WISDOM aka DON'T
QUIT YOUR DAY JOB

"Don't think about the competition.
Think about the work. Think about the
art. Think about the story you want to
tell. You can't control the competition.
You can control what you create."

-- Cinthea Stahl

"If you're writing trying to please someone
else, you're fucked. You're not going to be
able to write shit. Please yourself first and
then you can please that other person."

-- Marvin Krueger

"I think working in a short format,

whether it's writing short scripts, short
films or short stories, really helped me
focus on the bare essentials of what is
needed in a story."

-- Destin Daniel Cretton

"I don't think you should necessarily try
to write for the market or try to predict
what you think the Nicholl Fellowship
would want. Write the subjects you love."

-- Micah Ranum

"I know people have to make a living,
but if you're going into this business be-
cause you think you're going to be rich,
you're wrong. The only reason you
should go into this business is because
you just have to."

-- Marvin Krueger