* WRITE A SHORT STORY BASED ON OUR SOUNDTRACK *
* WIN A CHANCE AT PROMOTION ON OUR SITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA *
* POSSIBLE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR IDEAS *
THIS COMPETITION HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST
WE LOVE A BIT OF SCI-FI AT EMPATHIC PRODUCTIONS . . . from Quatermass and The Pitt, Village of The Damned, Day of The Triffids, Logans Run, Soylent Green, Children of The Stones, Blake’s 7 and Dr. Who (early Dr. Who at least), Event Horizon, Hardware, Bladerunner, Alien, Predator, Minority Report, Starship Troopers, Inception to the outstanding recent Russian offering, Sputnik.
It all starts with the writer and a concept. But it’s very difficult to get a break and get heard. So we decided to cast a word-smithing net for emerging writers and run a short story competition. To see what ideas are out there, what’s fresh and new, what’s bubbling in the quantum soup.
To make things more interesting, Everett, our co-founder and resident audio-wizard has compiled a fictional Sci-Fi soundtrack from our vast library of studio quality samples and Foley SFX. We are asking you to come up with an alternative plot inspired by this soundtrack. Everett invented his own tongue-in-cheek alien invasion story ending in a nuclear wasteland as a starter, but we’re sure you can do better.
Rather than a standard blog post to announce our competition, we decided to enlist the prodigious talent of a UK Sci-Fi TV icon and veteran actress, Sally Knyvette, who played space smuggler Jenna Stannis in the aforementioned series Blake’s 7, to do an introduction and tell our version of the story.
Sally, who has a portfolio of over 40 years in TV, film and theatre now teaches and directs as well as supporting and fund raising for the charity Age UK. Please click on her photo (below) to visit her site, listen to the poems and generally support her efforts.
We will review all entries and pick what we consider the most promising three to create a winner and two runners up. At some point in the future we may approach the winner for further development of their story or engage the winner to create a script for a possible pitch to a network. The competition helps you to make your ‘voice’ heard and start networking in the film and entertainment industry.
We’re looking for originality (of course), flair, wit, humour or cunning satire, immense imaginations or dense plotting, brain teasing yarns or mysterious worlds. We want to be amazed, startled, provoked, bewildered, nicely shocked and pleasantly surprised.
Please make sure you carefully read the terms and conditions of entry below.
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Competition Terms and Conditions
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- Our science fiction story writing competition is open to anyone 18 or over.
- You must be enrolled in a UK educational establishment focused on acting, theatre, film or entertainment arts.
- Your story has to be no more than 500 words and is related to the sound track on the Empathic Productions website. The story should include as many of the sound stems as possible but you will not be penalised if all the stems aren’t used. However, it should be evident that you have attempted to use as many as possible in creating the flow of the narrative.
- The story must be original and unpublished, and must not have been previously optioned, sold or produced.
- A shared story from more than one writer is acceptable, but only one person must be the nominee.
- Only one story entry per person and it should be double-spacing printed to aid reading.
- Stories must be sent in digital format only to: info@empathicproductions.com with the subject line STORY COMPETITION ENTRY. The format must be either MS Word, PDF or ODF (Open Document Format).
- There are no cash prizes for this competition or contractual obligation between yourself and Empathic Productions. However, we will publicise any work/media you have worked on as a student and you may be given the opportunity to create a film script for a future collaborative project that we will attempt to promote with various film industry organisations.
- You retain full copyright and ownership of your story.
- The competition is free to enter but by entering you grant us the right to publish your story on our website as part of promoting you and your work.
- Sally Knyvette is not an employee of Empathic Productions and is not part of the competition and no correspondence will be forwarded to her. Follow her on Twitter if you wish!
- The winner and two runners up will be notified by email.
- The closing date is 1st October, 2020 but we reserve the right to extend this date by a small margin to ensure we receive a representative cross-section from across the UK. If the closing date is extended we will make the relevant announcement on our website.
- The judges decision on choosing the winner and two runners up will be final.
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Empathic Productions very much look forward to receiving your entry! Good luck and happy writing!
