A Nicholl for your thoughts (or script)

Did I read somewhere that this year’s Oscar Moore screenwriting prize (run by Screen International) has been unable to choose a winner because the scripts entered weren’t up to the judges’ standards? The genre for this year was ‘comedy’. I didn’t enter but it’s the UK’s highest profile screenwriting competition and it really is a great contest with a nice cash prize and huge industry exposure, so it'd be interesting to know what's going on.

For those of you who wish to extend your career beyond these shores, then you should check out the Nicholl Fellowship straight away. It’s an international competition, very high profile. Read about its history and background here if you’re unfamiliar.

My subscription to Shooting People is going to expire soon and with every waning subscription, it has to be reassessed on merit and cost. Normally, I would re-subscribe to SP as they provide a great service but my time and money is focused elsewhere at the moment, so I’m going to leave it go for a while.

However, I’ve decided to throw in a ‘pitch’ before my subscription expires, just to see what happens when you put one of your stories in for their pitch bulletin. Below is my pitch and naturally, all reaction and progress, or non-response, will be duly noted in the blog.

Title:
The Devil's Punchbowl

Genre:
Low-mid budget horror.

Logline:
Three thieves unravel the murderous myth of The Devil’s Punchbowl in Hindhead, Surrey, but unearth something far more sinister than they could have imagined.

Tagline:
Desire. Avarice. Murder.

Story:
On Sunday 24th September, 1786, an innocent sailor was viciously murdered by three assailants after a night’s drinking at a local inn. They flogged and whipped him to death with branches, almost severing his head from his body. On 17th April, 1787, the three murderers were hanged in Hindhead and their bodies were suspended from a wooden gibbet. A memorial stone now lies at the site of the murder in The Devil’s Punchbowl, a vast hollow in the area.

Since that fateful night in 1786, it is said that the ghosts of the three murderers roam the area, forced to return to the Earth on dark nights as punishment for their crimes. And now, in the present day, three thieves on the search for lost loot are going to find out the secret to The Devil’s Punchbowl for themselves.

Outline:
Full outline available.

Script:
First act of screenplay available.