Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television honored the winners of its inaugural MFA Screenwriting Competition, a contest which engages {industry} leaders to judge the perfect work rising from the distinguished scholar physique, at an invite-only awards ceremony on May 7th, 2024.
The profitable college students have been chosen blindly by a panel of over 40 specialists from industry-leading corporations, together with Anonymous Content, Gotham Group, Macro, Verve, Entertainment 360, Temple Hill, Scott Free, Riot Games, and extra. Awards have been offered by LMU SFTV graduates Melissa Blake, who has written and produced collection together with Based on a True Story and One Mississippi, and Evan Romanski, creator of the four-time Emmy nominee Ratched, which he wrote as an MFA thesis undertaking.
The MFA Screenwriting Competition highlights the perfect function and pilot scripts written by second- and third-year graduate college students from LMU’s world-class Writing for the Screen and Writing and Producing for TV packages. It is considered one of quite a few SFTV initiatives designed to supply college students with unparalleled entry to the leisure {industry}. Aligning with the college’s mission to advertise inclusion, the competitors bestows a Social Justice Award alongside honors for the 12 months’s finest comedies and dramas.
Dean Joanne Moore stated, “To rise to the top of such a strong group of graduate students is a great achievement, and we are excited to have established this initiative to give these extremely talented writers the credit and exposure they deserve. This represents just one more way we are connecting our students with industry leaders to launch successful careers.”
“I am thrilled such high caliber Hollywood companies I have long admired participated as judges in championing emerging voices,” Graduate Director of Writing for the Screen Weiko Lin says. Lin launched the competitors, and mentors the scholars alongside Graduate Director of Writing and Producing for Television Michael F.X. Daley.
Recent college students who’ve graduated from LMU screenwriting packages have gone on to write down blockbuster options like John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Rebel Moon”in addition to such acclaimed episodic collection as The Bear, Atlanta, The Wonder Years, and Grimsburg. Notable alums embrace Academy Award-winning writer-director-producer Brian Helgeland (LA Confidential, Mystic River), director Michael Jelenic (The Super Mario Bros. Movie), producer Barbara Broccoli (No Time to Die, Spectre), director Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, I’m Legend), and producer Effie Brown (Dear White People, Real Women Have Curves).
Below are the honorees of the inaugural LMU School of Film and Television MFA Screenwriting Competition:
Drama Feature Award
Winner: The Larson Episode by John Norton
After exploiting a flaw within the Eighties version of Press Your Luck, perennial loser Michael Larson turns into the most important winner in sport present historical past, solely to seek out himself battling the CBS authorized workforce in addition to his private demons to keep away from dropping all the pieces.
Honorable Mention: Cyclic by Fenton Queens
A efficiency artist makes use of a journal to journey again in time to cease her grandmother’s sexual assault, her mom’s, and her personal, however might find yourself destroying the current within the course of.
Honorable Mention: Speak Easy by Chris O. Lukens
He was an alcoholic TV star till he was accused of a heinous crime. Now he’s a sober bottom-rung non-public eye scouring the gutters of Hollywood for a paycheck. When his daughter goes lacking, the path leads proper again to the identical corrupt Hollywood system that destroyed his life.
Comedy Feature Award
Feature award justice pilot awardWinner: Cherry Drive by Noemie Boucher
A scrappy sixth grader’s world comes crashing down after discovering that she’s shifting away as a result of her home is being foreclosed. But when an area quick meals chain hosts a scavenger hunt throughout city with a giant prize, she convinces her pals to embark on one final nice journey to avoid wasting her home.
Winner: Necronomicops by Aaron Hluch
LA, 1987. When a Satanic cult threatens to usher in Armageddon, a manchild hotshot supercop and his crotchety accomplice should drive, and share their approach by their hardest case but: defending a feral 9-year-old woman destined to be the Antichrist.
Drama Pilot Award
Winner: Bloody Barcelona by Brett Cornwell
As Civil War tears by Spain, a gang of radicals final ditch effort to clear their money owed threatens to tear Barcelona aside when as a substitute of cash, their haul is a younger girl and her mysterious portray.
Honorable Mention: Rising Chief by Taylor C. McMullan
Genocide forces a younger Indian boy to change into the Chief main a insurgent tribe of refugees and runaway slaves.
Comedy Pilot Award
Winner: True Chicago Dream Life by Sarah Frasco
Emma, a traditional human who desires of getting superhuman skills like her roommates Pasta Girl and Cat Lady, struggles to regulate to maturity whereas dwelling her truest, dreamiest life.
Honorable Mention: unprofessional by Tia Kaiulani Kanaeholo
An overworked and underpaid, 30-something tries to steadiness her profession, relationships, and sobriety beneath the stress of LA’s woman boss, ‘women can have everything’, hustle tradition.
Social Justice Feature Award
Winner: Between Heaven and Hell by Marisa Martinez Rodenbaugh
1874. While being hunted down by her eldest brother she regarded as lifeless, a decided Arapaho girl journeys throughout the plains to avoid wasting her youthful brother, a Dog Man warrior, earlier than the legislation finds him.
Social Justice Pilot Award
Winner: Rising Chief by Taylor C. McMullan
Genocide forces a younger Indian boy to change into the Chief main a insurgent tribe of refugees and runaway slaves.