Since I’ve started trying my hand at screenplays based on some of my novels, my most significant accomplishment to date is my Fleecing of Fort Griffin script being selected for the Beverly Hills Film Festival next month in Hollywood.
What I’ve learned about film festivals is that they generally choose a pool of selectees from all the entries. Various festivals designate semifinalists and finalists before determining the winner. To date I’ve been a semifinalist once and finalist three times in various festivals with Fleecing, but never a winner.
The Beverly Hills Film Festival (BHFF) only selects three scripts for their ultimate honors: The Golden Palm for Best Screenplay, then First Runner-Up and Second Runner-UP. Since BHFF doesn’t release the number of screenplay entries, I turned to my brilliant buddy ChatGPT for an educated guess as Fleecing was one of 151 scripts selected for consideration for this year’s Golden Palm.
ChatGPT estimated BHFF drew between 1,500 and 3,000 screenplay entries this year, which means Fleecing likely finished in a range between the top 10 percent and the top 5 percent. I then asked my AI pal what my chances were of winning The Golden Palm with a Western, since it’s not a favored genre in Hollywood these days. My intellectual amigo wasn’t too optimistic either, putting my chances at between 0.1 and 0.2 percent. Some friend, that ChatGPT.
So, I then asked my know-it-all chum, “Would my odds of winning the Beverly Hills Film Festival increase if my screenplay Fleecing of Fort Griffin had a gay protagonist who always rode drag on cattle drives, smuggled illegal aliens across the Rio Grande and hated the president of the United States?”
My computer companion responded, “Short answer: No—those elements by themselves would not meaningfully increase your odds of winning the screenplay competition at the Beverly Hills Film Festival… [Script] Readers are generally not instructed to reward or penalize scripts for political views or identity traits of characters. What matters is how well the story works.”
Well, that’s my story and so much for that script strategy. Hooray for Hollywood!
