I had re-entered Dig Down into the Santa Barbara Screenplay Competition because I was familiar with the criteria and categories they used for scoring, and because I knew with the deadline only days away, I would get that feedback quickly. I had also done so because although I had gotten great feedback in my first round of contest submissions, I didn’t know how well I had implemented that advice. So when I get the scoring back for my script this second time, I was…
…disappointed.
What led to this feeling wasn’t that I had scored lower than the previous submission. Since my goal had been to see how well I incorporated the feedback and notes I’d received, my hope would have been to have scored higher, as that would have given me the feedback that I had done it well, and in that case, I would have felt more assured that the reason I had placed as a finalist in the Page Turner Screenplay Competition was that there was just another script that the judge’s believed in more. But, if I scored lower, that still would have been fine, because at least then I would have known I didn’t do a good job incorporating the notes.
The thing was, although I scored lower, it was only by a point.
This actually was worse than if I’d scored noticeably lower. At least that would’ve given me some direction, even if it was to stick closer to the original submission. Or, even if most of the scores were the same, and only one category was lower, I could at least address that by keeping that aspect closer to what my previous draft had been.
The problem for me was that I scored lower in about as many categories as I improved in. I dropped by a point in Pacing, Dialogue and Emotional Response/Investment. But I had risen two points in Concept/Originality.
This mixture of results also presented no easy solutions to regain the points I’d lost and improve the overall scoring of the script. I had originally scored a 6 on Concept/Originality, and believe I got it to an 8 by expanding on the backstory of what led Rob to this state–but in order to do so, that elaboration created more time between tense sequences, which I believe led to Pacing dropping by a point. This exchange was still a positive scoring-wise for me, but it illustrated how creative choices could work for me in one aspect, but against me in others.
I had almost as many questions as answers, and knew I needed to delve into this deeper before deciding what to do next.