It's the beginning of a new year and still no compelling screenwriting prize that's outside of Hollywood.
Hollywood has the annual Nicholl Fellowships in screenwriting, a screenwriting competition that was founded in 1986 to aid screenwriters and is currently administered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Every year, the Academy awards five amateur screenwriters with a $35,000 fellowship. The reward is prestigious and almost all screenwriters who received the Nicholl Fellowship are able to secure an agent and a manager based solely on the fact that they won the Nicholl Fellowship. In 2014, they received 7,511 entries. The percentage of being one of the top five is 0.066% The odds are better than winning the lottery but more difficult than getting into Harvard.
In addition to the Nicholl Fellowships, most TV stations also have their own writing programs. There's Disney ABC Writing Program, NBC Writers on the Verge, and the Warner Bros. Television Workshop just to name a few.
I'm bringing this up because I don't understand why film/tv industry in Asia don't seem to offer the same kind of competitive writing competitions that's available in Hollywood.
Granted, Hollywood is the media capital of the world and can afford to do so, but the importance of the global box office (higher than US domestic box office now) illustrates that the international market is hungry for quality content. For example, both China and Korea, with increasing aptitude in filmmaking and huge market potential, should focus on ensuring that they've a steady supply of wordsmiths. One such way would be to create a prestigious global screenwriting competition, much like the Nicholl Fellowship, where amateur screenwriters can get access and recognition for their talent. Such a move would raise the prestige of international screenwriters and ensure that the international film industry has access to quality storytellers who aren't already in Hollywood.
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