CBBC Competition
So the deadline for our CBBC competition passed on Wednesday and we have received more than 700 submissions! Our crack team of readers are sifting through scripts as I blog and we will be contacting writers selected for the masterclass by the end of next week...
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Hi Paul,
Unfortunately I missed the CBBC deadline due to a slipped disc! But the script is finished. Do you advise sending it into the Writersroom instead as per usual now that the competition has been and gone?
Mrs M
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Well here's hoping that at the very least it arrived in time!
Everything is crossed, good luck to the other 699 or so people!
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Cor, that's a lot of entries! Fingers, toes, and anything that's remotely crossable, is crossed.
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Wow! I was expecting a lot of entries, but over 700! Oh well, here's hoping!
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Good luck everyone remember chase the dream not the competition regardless of whether 50 people entered or 700 people it will still be the best that go through and the ones that CBBC think are viable ideas and if you aren't lucky this time don't give up if this is your dream just keep working at it and never quit. I don't think many writers became a success over night remember it's a marathon not a sprint.
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Everyone has a one in thirty five chance if there are twenty places (that's what I'm using to inflate my own sense that I might actually stand a chance!). Good luck one and all.
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You know, amk_minus, it doesn't sound so bad when you look at it like that.
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Uh oh I hope I haven't artificially inflated everyones hopes! Good luck antonia I look forward to seeing you at the masterclass ;-)
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mrs_mourinho_i_wish - if you missed the deadline then you can still send the script into our usual unsolicited system. this means you won't be eligible for the specific opportunities available in this competition (masterclass, residential), but if it's strong work then it will still make its way through the system
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Why thank you amk_minus. Likewise. :)
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@pauloashton - have any of the lucky 20 been informed yet? My main reason for asking is so I know when to completely resign myself to defeat.
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Hi,
Is there telling if my submission was recieved? I sent it two days before the dead line due to printer hick ups!
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Has anyone recieved any confirmation yet on whether they got a place or not? I read that they would inform everyone today so I'm sitting around the house eager to find out :)
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Yes, a friend of mine was selected - he heard last night.
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I guess that's it then. The selected must have heard by now. I am sure I am not alone in feeling really depressed at not being selected. I have been very active with my writing recently and really believe I am producing my best stuff including the piece I sent to CBBC. I'm hitting the whiskey and feeling really low.
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The waiting is killing me? Friday 10th is still here.
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How do I go about complaining about the decision not to select me?
The BBC will rue the day. :)
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Does anyone believe there is still hope of getting selected?
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lol Well there it is, oh well, at least I tried :) Im gunna go off to the gym, can finally leave the house as I'm sure I'm not gunna get a suprise confirmation or anything.
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It would be useful to know if I was way off the mark with the script and was cut straight off or (hopefully) almost made it... although I can see that with 700 scripts to judge that's an impossible request! Still, I enjoyed writing children's drama for the first time and there's nothing like a competition deadline to lend some inspiration.
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I wonder if somebody from the writersroom could post something here to confirm the final selection has been made... and put 680 people out of their misery?
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SO how are the winners being contacted? Obviously I provided an address, phone number and an email address but the email address on my script was miss-written (I know, I know how silly of me not to notice!) So whilst it's unlikely I've gotten in I'd hate to miss out because I caused the confirmation email to be sent to the wrong address!
Can anyone help me out?
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Does anyone know if they're going to let entrants know either way?
I'd just like to get a 'yes' or 'no' message personally. I always feel a little bit depressed receiving a 'no' but it's better than the contests I've entered where I've had NO contact whatsoever, they usually kill me afterwards.
So I'd love just a little message just to put me out of my misery....please?
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If it helps anyone else, I'm choosing to pretend that the whole CBBC comp was a front for a gang of hostil aliens... oooh, let's call them the 456, who are intent on lifting 20 writers from planet earth for their own evil ends.
So really, we're all just as well out of it.
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That was 'hostile' obviously.
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Something tells me the type of person who gets selected for these competitions aren't the type of people who post comments on these blogs! (My writing on this blog therefore shows I haven't been selected:-(
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@Serronah LOL, loved that. Although, what if you want off planet Earth!?
Mmm, think you have a point there @amk_minus
Seriously though, it's just so hard to try and concentrate on other things (like should really be writing or drawing) when all you have is this niggling worry about the contest. Oh well, hopefully be told a definite 'no' (which is what I was expecting anyway) soonish.
Oh well, better try and focus I guess...sorry for prattling away and clogging up the blog.
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Please, everyone stop moaning.
I haven't made it. Get over it.
Enter new contests, write new scripts.
Reject rejection.
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Right lads, we're a bunch of losers. But hey, lets be the best damn bunch of losers around. Wallow in the loserness, swallow the loserness. Soon it will catch on and the masses will flock to the awesome sight that is our collective losernicity.
Plus, there's always beer and pizza. So things aren't so very crap.
Personally, I plan on creating a new brand of child who is so addicted to my particular brand of 'acerbic' wit they will renounce the Big British Castle and all who dwell in it lest I get my own kick butt show.
Pipe dream obviously.....
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"Then at last Pippin took Gandalf's hand. "Tell me" he said, "is there any hope? For Frodo, I mean; or at least mostly for Frodo."
Gandalf put his hand on Pippin's head. "There never was much hope," he answered. "Just a fool's hope...""
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Ah well. I proved to myself I can write a half-decent script in five days and make deadlines, if nothing else. And when you lok at it you've lost nothing - this is just another rejection, and I've had plenty of those. This was my first time trying something like this anyway.
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Looks like I'm another one of the 680 or so people who didn't get through then. Did anyone who posts on here actually get picked?
I suspect that because the competition was open to professional/produced writers, that's probably the kind of people who got through to the final 20.
Oh well, on to the next competition...
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I would just be happy with a teensy bit of feedback but I know it will be sent back without even so much as a coffee ring stain on it. You send your script out into the ether and it comes back unmarked, I could experience the feeling I have now from boomeranging. (Apologies for not furthering the blog)
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Hey Neo-Noir, I'm a professional/produced writer and I don't think I've got through... don't know if that makes it better or worse!!
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I do know two people have been informed they made it through a second reading, but haven't made the masterclass.
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Do they tell people if they've made it through a second reading? That makes me feel terribly grim. I might just binge on Sensitive Skin all weekend and make myself dismal company, take that close friends!
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The worst thing is that I didn't send my script off until Tuesday the 30th from N. Ireland, so I don't know if it even made it on time.
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I did the same thing, no idea if it made it there on time or not.
I just wish they'd put up a post telling us the 20 have been informed and the rest of us are lovely but we can put on our pjs now and relax as we're no longer needed.
Silly noodles....
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A list of honourable mentions would be nice, like the booker long list or something, Just so a few of us other entrants can feel the glow of nearly making it. We Brits love 'nearly making it'.
Also, in the comp rules it says you can re-enter your script via the normal writersroom submission process. But they add you might want to think about changing it a bit. How can any of us do that without some kind of feedback about why we weren't selected? They must have done a report on each script to evaluate it for the next stage of selection. It'd be nice to get these via email or something.
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Also CBBC is not as good as it used to be. This is obvious by the lowering of standards that resulted in me not being selected.
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I'm afraid taht very many writers are being treated with contempt by the BBC's Writers' Room - it's important to let people know - each script represents hours of effort.
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A member of the BBC should come around to each of our houses individually and make us cups of tea and give us chocolate cake, and then tell us how to improve our, already undoubtedly brilliant, scripts.
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Well, I don't expect feedback in any form a all (surely they're too busy for that!?!) but a nice standard 'sorry, but no' rejection message I wouldn't mind...probably be waiting a long time for that, if one's coming...darn me for having a surname starting with 'Su' *shakes head*
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Dear Mr CBBC, I am holding Edd the Duck, Gordon the Gopher and Otis the Aardvark hostage until you correct your previous mistake in not instating me as the automatic winner of said competition. Sooty and Sweep will be visiting you from CITV to rough you up if I don't hear by the end of next week. Don't worry I'm only joking...or am I?!?! (*promptly takes daily medicine*)
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God, how i detest Sooty, smug little glove that he is....
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Being realistic about it, they've done an amazing job in assessing 700+ scripts in just over a week. To provide meaningful feedback on every one would take ten times as long, and I don't think a little operation like Writersroom has the resources to do that.
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No, and good luck to the final few.
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No feedback - that's fine - BUT I believe that modern technology is such that an email could be sent - 'sorry, but you have not been successful this time - good luck with your writing' - It takes less than five minutes. Being ignored for your time and trouble is rude.
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As someone has already said, a posting on this site as soon as all the finalists had been contacted, would have been definitive and saved a lot of nail biting.
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Totally agree.Hope competition organisers realise the frustration writers feel when their time and effort are ignored. A simple posting of 'winners' would have helped a lot.
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I agree that waiting around to see if they like your script or not is a gigantic pain in the proverbials BUT...
Even launching competitions like this one is fantastic, for writers, and more importantly for viewers.
Sending everyone an email with a yes or no would surely eat into the time when they were reading the blooming things. I mean, they can't have an infinite amount of staff working on this project, or an army of witty robots sorting through the possibles with automaton zeal. Though that would be cool....
This is meant to be about finding the funniest, best written shows for CBBC kids, not about holding the hands of us sorry lot. Take it as a opportunity to go back to the drawing board and write an even better pilot.
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Dear robot wee, read my comment again (49) then take your tongue from between the BBC buttocks!
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Dear I_smell_of_ robot_wee,
Writers are often treated by little respect - it comes with territory it seems, but it is very important that we, as writer, recognise bad manners and have some respect for our own work.
If you set a competition - then you should be able to let people know.
Writer should have enough self respect to know that.
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I submitted my first ever script to the BBC and managed a full read, it was very encouraging for me as when I left school I was illiterate.
I wasnt successful in the CBBC competition but would be interested to read what other people submitted.
Good luck to everyone with their future writing.
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I'm not going to write any more after this, because it makes me tired to know that this discussion is going on on the BBC's website, but no one from the BBC is obviously reading it - yes, I'm afraid no one cares enough to send an email say 'sorry folks - not this time', no one cares enough to read this discussion and to follow up on it.
Paul Ashton wrote a blog on 3rd July and then nothing....
Yes, good luck to everyone with their future writing.
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No one cares enough to send an email saying 'sorry folks - not this time'?
I'm sorry but, much as you might say this would take less than five minutes, have you any idea how long it would take to type up 680 email addresses?
Yes, there could have been a blog posting saying 'we've chosen the winners, sorry you didn't make it' and that would have been nice, but to be fair I'm not sure what that would have gained. The comp said everyone who was through would have been contacted by the 10th so if you didn't hear by then it's effectively the same.
This is not about 'not having respect', it's about writers being spoilt.
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Hello BBC,
will it be possible to post notes from the winners' masterclass so that those of us who missed the cut can still benefit from the experience?
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I don't think we should give up writing and start crying over spilt milk, just because it is not what we expected. Nor should this be seen as a failure. Yes! it would have been nice if everyone was told and we could all get on with it. However, I have learnt a great deal from this experience including dealing with rejection. I am particularly impressed by Henchy's post. I wish you all the best with your future writing career. This is also my first ever attempt at writing a script. I recently completed my PhD in Chemistry. I learnt a lot from writing my doctoral thesis, the research took 3 years and a whole year to write my thesis. I passed my PhD viva and a week later I saw the advert for the BBC competition. I only had 4 days to get the script. I was inspired and I wrote it. I stayed up for 24 hours, writing the end of the script was amazing. So my point is writing is a beautiful experience and you should be happy and proud of what you have written. Winning a competition is not everything or the end. Keep writing and best of luck to everyone.
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Although I sort of agree with you Henchy, but in my previous post I was actually referring to "superweirdperson". Best of luck for the future everyone. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
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Aw, stop whingeing.
Back in the 80s, many aspiring writers submitted scripts to Doctor Who and got them rejected.
One was Russell T Davies.
Whatever happened to him?
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I think many of you are missing the point. It seems that a number of the entrants are first time writers and may have other careers. I would guess many are young. I am 49 and my career, first as an actor and then in various drama related positions, has been exceedingly frustrating and painful. I know I am talented, but success has always been one more step away. Having said the above, one can see, for me, that this is not a mere glitch, but the most recent of hundreds of rejections throughout my career. This was very important to me. If it was not very important to you, then I suggest that writing is not your passion. Lastly, if winning this competition is not as important as writing the piece, I suggest you are more interested in your hobby than communicating.
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Mate, it was a writing competition not the X-fector. 'Winning' shouldn't be your main goal, your main goal should be writing an amazing script.
Moreover, this is about writing for children, you are meant to be entertaining them. Not seeing this as a personal tragedy.
Also, i think it more important to do this for the joy of it than as a lifeline.
It doesn't matter if an entrant is young, old, an alien or a dustbin, what matters is the end product.
So I'm agreeing with arthurrackham, stop whingeing.
For the record I do have another career. Frankly, I see it more as a means to pay the mortgage and don't see how it makes me any less of a writer.
Well done everyone for trying this time, and best of luck in the future.
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with everyone strongly believing they wrote a strong contender it shows how hard the job is, effectively making the whole process a bit of a lottery. But, aware of the immense difficulty in giving everyone a bit of feedback, they make a rod for their own backs because they'll be inundated with the 'reject' scripts at the writersroom. And no one will have a clue how to make them come more in line with cbbc's remit. This remit, I feel, also means that a lot of scripts aren't given the 10 page read because they know, almost from the title, whether it is something they intend on producing in the future. Paranoia, maybe, but it would explain how they could have 'read' the best part of 700 scripts in roughly two weeks.
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Reading the first ten pages only takes a few minutes, if you had 5-7 people doing it you could read all 700 in one day very easily.
They said they would eventually post the winners but remember that just because they've contacted the winners it doesn't mean the winners have replyed yet.
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Well, they wouldn't have to read the best part of 700 scripts in two weeks.
They'd read them from the moment they started coming in. And even then, only the first ten pages. So, there's probably a good three or four hundred done before the deadline. Maybe half came at or just in advance of the last day, but even if that wasn't true and they all did then we're talking a group of readers getting through 7000 pages. IF you have 5 readers, you're asking them to get through 1400 pages of script in a week, 200 pages a day, 300 if you don't do weekends, easy enough to do if you're paid and going at it 8 hours a day.
The thing is - yes, this was important to me. But as any aspiring writer should know, rejection is part and parcel of the business. You should get used to it. Complaining that you weren't rejected nicely enough seems pointless. I certainly don't see how a personalised email telling you you weren't through would have made things better.
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You know, I too want to congratulate all entrants on actually getting their script completed and wish you great success in the future. As for, I_smell_of_robot_wee, I think the name he has chosen for himself says it all.
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I like my name, my mother picked it for me.
Oh nevermindthebride, you've hurt my feelings, boo!
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I appreciate that people are frustrated, but essentially the most important thing is to contact those who were successful - I have no doubt someone will one day fire out a mass email that says 'thanks but no thanks'.
It's the same let down for everyone who entered, regardless of if you're 45, 105, or 15. Everyone put in the effort and everyone was secretly hoping this would be the one that broke them through. For a few people it was; for the rest it wasn't. I for one wrote a script that I'm gloriously proud of in two days and the only reason I could achieve that is because of the impending deadline. Teaching myself that I could indeed write on demand, as if it were a profession and not a love affair where I had to be 'in the mood', is worth more than winning anything at this stage in my career.
So yes. Now I've rambled. It meant a lot to everyone - let's all be frustrated together - but there's no point whining at the BBC because they don't care. I wouldn't care either, if I'd found those who I thought were the best writers.
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waaaaaaaaa, I wanna be the number one cbbc man waaaaaaa. Good luck everyone and hopefully the winners produce some definitive childrens tv.
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For me, and I expect for most of us here, the issue isn't about rejection (if you can't deal with rejection seriously, you're chasing the wrong dream!). What we're troubled by is hope - there's a bit of me that's still thinking "maybe they'll call" and I need the rejection to get past that.
I work in IT - sending an email out to everyone would have been a 5 minute job (You don't think they stored that when you filled in your form online?) and posting the results on the website once the winners had been informed would just have been a few minutes of someone's time. (So maybe they haven't contacted all the winners... so maybe it could be me..)
Anyway.. just off to check my mobile's working ok for the 20th time in the last two days!
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For those of you who didn't get through we have a Google group which we set up after the Sharps competition last year. We put all our scripts up and gave feedback to each other. It was a way of getting something positive out of not getting through, as well as getting some good feedback on where we might have gone wrong. A year later, and the group is still going strong. We exchange info on opportunites we have heard about, workshops we have attended, views of scriptwriting etc. The main goal of the group though remains the same - to put up scripts and to give a get some useful feedback in order to improve our writig.
If anyone feels like coming along, the address is:-
http://groups.google.com/group/sharpshooter
You have to register, but you just need an email address for that.
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Thanks, Johnof123. I did register ages ago, and have lurked a few times, but will now go on there and give and hopefully receive feedback.
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I entered the comp and obviously have not got in. But there is no use trying to reason why. There could be all sorts of reasons why scripts didn't get through - the writing might have been good but the subject material not right. Only the BBC know what they were looking for.
Over the years I have now developed th hide of rhino and on each knockback I pick myself, brush myself off and move on.
Last year after my book publication date was postponed yet again I decided to make my own short film. I wrote and directed the film last aututum and it was made an official selection of the ReelHeART International Film Festival in Toronto. I flew over and the film was well received but I didn't receive any awards or anything. Most of the films had great production values (one was even made by an Emmy winner). My little film was shot on 16 mm in 2 days and just had a few days in edit.
But on my return I was contacted by a major distributor who had seen the film at the Festival, offering me a contract for worldwide distribution.
The production values in my short are not great and I didn't get all the shots I needed. But people like the film - it makes them laugh and tells a little story. It was wonderful watching the film in a cinema with an audience who laughed and winced in unision.
So my advice is don't give up. Dust yourself down and get on with your next work. Dreams really do come true.
If you want to see the short little film (just 6 minutes) go to www.imdb.com and type Legs 11 in the search bar. It's free to watch. Not sure how long I will beable to keep it on line as the distributor will probably want me to take it down. Legs 11 has also been invited to another Film Festival in Florida - it seems a year of globe trotting as well!
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I have just found out that I have won all 10 of the short listed spots. Sorry to everybody else. My brilliant script 'Living dead on Elm Street' was a combination of 'Night of the living dead' and 'A nightmare on Elm Street'. It reflects the CBBC's new realisation that kids today are much more mature than we were at their age. It will give me a warm feeling to know that most of the kids will wake up screaming in the night. Keep on writing the rest of you. Respect.
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I included an SAE with my script, so not sure why they requested it. I was expecting it to come back at some point.
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for anyone who is interested, i'm about to do a new blog about the CBBC competition rather than put it in the comments here -
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