Think You're Funny? Show It in a Screenplay.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

If you want a reason to bang out a screenplay in short order, consider the DCcomedyfest as suitable motivation. The festival, whose organizers expect 6,000-plus tickets to be sold in its fourth year, is sponsoring its first Comedy Screenplay Challenge for feature screenplays and teleplay pilot scripts. Submit a one-page summary of your script, a sample scene up to three pages long and a résumé to screenplays@dccomedyfest.com by July 3. Visit http://www.dccomedyfest.com for full contest rules.

If you're declared a finalist in mid-July, be prepared to submit your entire screenplay for consideration by a panel of "celebrity" judges, who will include the head of development from TV network Adult Swim and Daphne Zuniga, star of "Spaceballs," "Melrose Place" and two episodes of "Family Ties."

The winner gets a staged reading of two scenes from his or her screenplay for an industry audience at DCcomedyfest (which runs Aug. 7 to 9; tickets go on sale June 20) plus a trip to the event (if the winner is from out of town) and a three-month representation of the project by Rain Management Group. Any sage advice from the executive producer and founder of DCcomedyfest?

"Don't worry about it being perfect," Silver Spring resident Blaire Postman says. "Screenplays, even when they're sold, go through revisions and transitions. We're looking for original voices, thoughts, ideas and solid structure and writing ability, but not perfection."

So type! Type with vigor! Here's some sample dialogue to get you started. (Note this is not in proper screenplay format.)

* * *

INT. NEWSROOM -- DAY

EDITOR storms to REPORTER and breaks bottle of Jim Beam on REPORTER'S desk.

EDITOR: Where's your bleeping story?

REPORTER: Underneath that puddle of Jim Beam.

EDITOR: You wiseacre!

EDITOR throws pie at REPORTER's face. REPORTER ducks. Pie hits INTERN.

INTERN (flailing): My eyes!

CUT TO:

Close-up of a headline, "Pie Hits Intern in Post Newsroom; Incident Indicative of Broader Problem?"

CUT TO:

Clip of DANA MILBANK on MSNBC

KEITH OLBERMANN: Mr. Milbank, do you think this epidemic of pie-throwing at interns shows our generation's deep mistrust of young people?

MILBANK: Generational mistrust will be a key lime issue on the campaign trail.

PAT BUCHANAN: I prefer sweet potato pie!

CUT TO:

INT. NEWSROOM -- DAY

EDITOR: Are you typing up a screenplay?

REPORTER: You asked me to.

EDITOR: You need a Pulitzer to do that on company time.

REPORTER sighs and starts to lap up some of the Jim Beam.

-- Dan Zak