WritingSpirit Resources

2009 Disney Writing Fellowship

Submission Deadline: July 1, 2008
Submission to Include: Screenplay (120 pages max.) or Play (two-to-three acts)
Entry Fee: None
Awards: $50,000 salary for a one-year period.

The Disney Company offers Fellowships in the feature film and television areas through The Walt Disney Studios and ABC Entertainment, respectively. No previous experience is necessary; however, writing samples are required. Fellows will each be provided a salary of $50,000 for a one-year period tentatively scheduled to being in February 2009.

The program boasts an impressive roster of alumni who are now enjoying successful careers in the television and the feature film-writing workforce. As the program's level of prestige has increased, its graduates have been called upon for assignments spanning every studio and network in the industry.

Appropriate writing samples for the feature film division include: a live-action motion picture screenplay (no longer than 120 pages) or one (1) play, in two-to-three acts. Appropriate writing samples for the television division include: a full-length script appropriate for a half-hour or one-hour television series, based on a current prime time television or cable broadcast series currently in production.

http://www.abctalentdevelopment.com/html/writing_fellowship_mainpage.htm

Disney Writing Fellowship

Big Break International Screenwriting Contest

Submission Deadline: February 1 - June 15, 2008
What to Submit: Feature Length Screenplay, accepts multiple entries
Entry Fee: $50
First Place Prizes: $15,000 total cash plus finalist prizes
Second Place Prizes: $4,000 total cash plus finalist prizes
Third Place Prizes: $2,000 total cash plus finalist prizes

Big Break is an annual, global screenwriting contest designed to support emerging creative talent. Big Break rewards screenwriters with cash, prizes and A-list executive meetings. Winners and finalists alike have had their screenplays optioned and produced and have secured high-profile representation as well as lucrative writing deals.

Since its inception in 2000, Big Break has awarded screenwriters with over $100,000 in cash and prizes and invaluable industry exposure. A panel of notable industry professionals conducts the final judging.

The 2007 contest brought in 3,500 entries.

Big Break Screenwriting Contest

Spirituality At The Movies

Whether your screenplay approaches spirituality directly or indirectly, movies dramatizing spiritual subjects (or themes) are becoming increasingly popular.

Recently, Indigo, a movie about a 10-year-old child who helps her family find redemption and healing through her psychic abilities, won the Audience Favorite Award at the Santa Fe Film Festival. Written by James Twyman, whom many call the "Peace Troubadour," and Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God, Indigo was somewhat of a miracle itself. Directed by Twyman and starring Walsch, it was shot in just three weeks for $500,000, going from idea to film festival favorite in just eight months.   

Stephen Simon, who produced Indigo (as well as Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come), has described Spiritual Cinema as, “a specific type of film that has not yet been recognized as its own genre.

Films in this category illuminate the most extraordinary aspects of our search for meaning as human beings, such as:

• the nature of reality itself (The Matrix, Beautiful Mind, Vanilla Sky)
• life after death (Sixth Sense, Ghost, Heaven Can Wait)
• enhanced human abilities (Phenomenon, Powder, Altered States)
• time travel (Back to the Future, The Kid, Frequency)
• angels (All That Jazz, City of Angels, Michael)
• aliens (Independence Day, Forbidden Planet, E.T.)
• planetary destruction (Armageddon, Planet of the Apes, Fail Safe)
• the power of love (Cast Away, Sleepless in Seattle, It's a Wonderful Life).”

Simon distinguishes between spiritual cinema, which he says focuses on the empowerment of the God within each individual, and religious cinema, which focuses on God as an external power.

While each person may define the boundaries between "spiritual" and "religious" differently, there are also many common religious themes in movies, such as:

• the crisis of faith (The Third Miracle)
• politics and intrigue in the church (The Name of the Rose, Monsignor)
• miracles (The Song of Bernadette, The Maldonado Miracle)
• challenging social/religious traditions (Fiddler on the Roof, Yentl)
• Biblical stories (Ten Commandments, Solomon, The Passion of Christ)
• the outsider in a religious community (Witness, Little Buddha)
• interfaith relationships (Keeping the Faith).

In addition to dramas, documentaries are a powerful way of sharing spiritual and religious views. Documentaries tackle such subjects as:

• religious traditions (Living Islam, The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God)
• individuals who have made a spiritual impact (Peace Pilgrim, Andrew Harvey: The Making of a Modern Mystic, Thomas Berry: Dreamer of the Universe)
• specific aspects of religious or spiritual life (Ancient Mysteries: Enigma of the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Story of Silent Night, Kalachakra: The Wheel of Time, A Crisis of Faith: the American Dilemma).

Whether these films depict their subject matter from the point of view of doubt or faith, whether their intent is to persuade or explore, they make us question, think, and get in touch with what we feel about the specific spiritual points being made. Whatever your particular spiritual interests or point of view, write about them with passion, precision, and honesty, and you'll have a script that will touch people's hearts and minds.

Copyright 2004 by Julie Isaac

Screenwriting Books For Spiritual Writers

The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
By Christopher Vogler
The Writers Journey.com

The Writer's Journey explores the powerful relationship between mythology and storytelling in a clear, concise style that's made it required reading for movie executives, screenwriters, scholars, and lovers of pop culture all over the world.
Writers of both fiction and non-fiction will discover a set of useful myth-inspired storytelling paradigms (ie. The Hero's Journey) and step-by-step guidelines to plot and character development. Based on the work of Joseph Campbell, The Writer's Journey is a must for writers of all kinds interested in further developing their craft.

The updated and revised second edition provides new insights and observations from Vogler's ongoing work on mythology's influence on stories, movies, and man himself.


Stealing Fire From the Gods: A Dynamic New Story Model For Writers & Filmmakers
By James Bonnet
Storymaking.com

Designed for screenwriters, novelists, playwrights, directors, producers, studio executives and anyone else whose livelihood depends on an understanding of what makes a story great and successful, this new state-of-the-art story model will guide professional writers and filmmakers to a more complete understanding of the fundamentals that drive the world's most important art forms--storytelling and film.

Author James Bonnet takes you on a journey through the creative process of storymaking, uncovering not only what makes a story great but also how we can use the creative process to reconnect us to our lost or forgotten inner selves. In the tradition of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler, James Bonnet explores the connection between great stories and personal growth and the significance that connection has for screenwriters and other storymakers.

Armed with this new, deeper understanding, there is no limit to the power and art that can be created through your stories. You will know how to tap powerful creative sources deep within yourself and have the tools to use modern metaphors to create stories and films as significant for today as King Arthur and The Iliad were for their times.


The Force is With You: Mystical Movie Messages that Inspire Our Lives 
By Stephen Simon
Spiritual Cinema Circle.com

"Movies are the most electrifying communications medium ever devised and the natural conduit of inspiring ourselves to look into the eternal issues of who we are and why we are here."

So says film executive Stephen Simon, producer of more than thirty films, including Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come. Simon illuminates for the first time, with humor, energy, and passion, this emerging category of Spiritual Cinema; a genre finally being recognized for what it is: a metaphoric pathway to explore such things as the nature of love, the meaning of life and death, the concept of time and space, the visions of our future.

Movies have become our windows to the universe. The sheer imaginative power of the screen has shaped the way humanity views itself, the world, and the cosmos. The increasing technology of cinema has given us the opportunity to see before our eyes images that reflect all that imagination can conjure up—not only to ask the questions plaguing us since humans first contemplated the heavens, but to pose some answers as well.

Through his exploration of more than 70 movies that best represent the genre in all its aspects, Simon gives us his personal interpretation of these films and the extraordinary messages they embody.

Here is a wealth of inspiration, including the inside stories behind the making of many films and the familiar names who participated in their making. This is a book that will break ground for the many visionary storytellers and filmmakers to come, and most of all, their audiences.

Act One: Writing for Hollywood

Since 1999, Act One, Inc. has been successfully identifying, training, and offering professional support to the next generation of Christian artists and professionals. The keynote initiative of Act One has been an intense four-week scriptwriting workshop that includes skill training, study of the screen art form, mentorships with established industry professionals, and prayer and fellowship with other writers. Held in Los Angeles each summer, the program has also been taken to other cities, including Chicago, New York, and Washington DC.

The program curriculum covers everything a writer needs to know to enter into the business of film and television in a professional and competitive way, while providing special tools for Christians concerned with creating entertainment that will foster in viewers an encounter with God, a sense of connection with others, and deeper knowledge of self.

Now, their services are expanding to include programs not only for writers, but also for executives, directors, and producers, all designed to provide special tools for Christians concerned with creating Godly entertainment that will have a lasting positive influence on society and the world. This long-term strategy for cultural renewal is both powerful and effective, as is evidenced by the success of the Act One writing program.

Act One

2008 Moondance Film Festival Competition

Submissions Deadline: Early-bird--February 1, Regular--April 1, Late--May 1, 2008
Entry Fee: Varies from $25 to $85
Awards: Winners are presented with a lovely Moondance plaque by famed Colorado metal artist, Charlotte Zink. Moondance also promotes the winners' & finalists' work and tries to get it sold, agented, distributed or optioned.

Screenwriters and filmmakers, playwrights, short story writers, TV writers, librettists, film score composers, children's filmmakers & writers, and young (18 & under) filmmakers & screenwriters, radioplay writers, music video filmmakers, and multi-media filmmakers are all invited to participate in the 2008 Moondance Film Festival competition. Moondance offers everyone a unique opportunity to come together with other writers, directors and producers to create new opportunities, develop tools for success and forge new alliances within the international film and entertainment industry.

This festival has some interesting priorities. First off, it strives to promote and encourage women screenwriters, playwrights, short-story writers and women who make independent films. Some awards are exclusively for women, some for men, and some are open to anyone who wants to enter. 

In addition, some of their awards strive to promote spiritual values and spiritual filmmaking:

The Moondance Columbine Award
The work must reflect non-violent conflict resolution, alternatives to violence, or show why violent resolution to conflict is counter-productive.

The Moondance Calypso Award
This award is to encourage a spirit of enterprise in saving the environment, habitats and wildlife, or enhancing awareness of a spiritual life, by creative individuals from around the  world. The award is presented to the person who expands knowledge of our world, seeks to improve our quality of all life on the planet, and contributes to the betterment of humankind.

The Moondance Gaia Award
This Award is to encourage and inspire contemplative, meditative, spiritual, and inspirational films and scripts. The Gaia awards are presented to the person who seeks to elucidate and improve the spiritual quality of all life on the planet, and contributes to the betterment of the world spirit.

2008 Moondance Film Festival Competition

Institute for Spiritual Entertainment-Los Angeles

The intention of the Institute for Spiritual Entertainment-Los Angeles (ISELA) is to promote transformation, personal growth, healing, and increased awareness by creating film and other media that promote these values. The idea is to ask such questions as "who are we?" and "why are we here?" provoking change toward higher consciousness and awareness. The ISELA emphasizes spirituality rather than any one particular religion: being all inclusive, rather than exclusive; learning from and honoring all religious, philosophical, and psychological viewpoints; considering oneness to be our underlying foundation, rather than separation.

In order to help heal the planet at this important time, and empower one another to evolve, the ISELA is choosing to positively influence society through film and media, by showing inspiring stories that emphasize personal growth, human triumph, insight, courage, love, belief in that which has not yet been manifested or seen, and other positive values.

The Institute for Spiritual Entertainment-Los Angeles meets once a month to network and also holds special events such as screenings, workshops, speakers, and other social activities on a regular basis.

The Institute for Spiritual Entertainment-Los Angeles

Spiritual Cinema Circle

The Spiritual Cinema Circle offers a service that is unique and deeply needed. The Circle gives you a way to bring hours of inspiring entertainment into your life each month, while making an important contribution to the world.

Each month you receive 4 features and shorts on DVD. The movies are personally by Stephen Simon (Producer of Somewhere in Time, What Dreams May Come, Producer/Director of Indigo) and the rest of his team, and represent the best of spiritual cinema and art. The movies are new films you're unlikely to see anywhere else.

For Filmmakers:

The Spiritual Cinema Circle wants to support and encourage the new wave of filmmakers who are writing and directing movies that really matter. If you believe your work speaks to the shared spiritual essence of us all, we invite you to submit your completed shorts, features and documentaries for consideration to The Spiritual Cinema Circle.

There is no submission fee.

Spiritual Cinema Circle
Submission Information