My Experience Writing My First Award Winning Screenplay by Albert J. Emery

My Experience Writing My First Award Winning Screenplay by Albert J. Emery

Screenwriting isn’t for everyone… At least that’s what I thought. I always believed that in order to be a screenwriter, one must spend hours upon hours of doing such things, like studying and analyzing movie scenes, comparing and contrasting formats, etc. While all that may be beneficial, I personally never found myself to be a part of the whole film scene. In fact, I never really sought out film, let alone study and analyze it.

I did observe my cousin act in school plays. I also took an entry level screenplay course in college. Other than that, my experience was minimal. However, as life moved forward, I discovered that my skills and experiences as a screenwriter could rapidly excel into being an award winning screenplay writer.

As the year 2019 was wrapping up, I found myself in an interesting situation. My place of employment, a steel mill in Metro Detroit, was conducting massive cuts, effectively laying off roughly 90% of its employees. So with just over 2 years of seniority, I was not in the “lucky” 10% that was able to avoid losing their job.

The news quickly broke about the mass layoffs. My dad, who also worked at this place at the time, was in disbelief. Even though he had enough time in to retire, he never thought this was going to happen and that that he’d be forced into retirement.

As for me, I immediately took a sigh of relief. While it was a relatively easy job with good pay and benefits, I could feel myself being trapped. The social pressures imposed on me from my dad to stay at this place were far greater than my free spirited nature. Afterall, he worked at this place for 35 years and was able to raise me in that process. So essentially, it didn’t matter what I wanted; my dad wanted me at the steel mill. I was well aware of the fact that the longer I stayed, the less chance I would ever expand my horizons.

So for some people, getting laid off was a devastation, like there was a death in the family. For me, however, it was a blessing. I knew that getting out of that job would set me up for bigger things.

In early 2020, I remember sitting inside of a coffee shop in Tempe, Arizona. It was my last vacation before the layoff. At this point I knew that I was losing my job. So while it was still fresh in my mind, I wrote down my story; all of the ups and downs of working in such a monotonous environment, such as the steel mill. I wanted to share my story as a dreamer in a place where others were content giving up their precious time and losing out on life’s fulfillments.

So I drafted up a screenplay about the whole experience of this workplace. Fortunately for me, my good friend and mentor, Nelson, walked me though the screenwriting process. He provided me with resources and materials that would make my screenplay more effective. While my screenplay was a good story, it was nowhere near perfect. It needed to be restructured, reformed, and even rewritten in many instances. Little did I know, there are certain formulas that screenplays must follow in order to be successful. Movies and television programs are not just thrown together and formed into a masterpiece. There is very intricate work and lot of time fine-tuning every minute aspect of the material.

So when the screenplay is finally “finished”, you are still not done. Screenplays must be crafted to fit the needs of the audience reading it, regardless of how well you and a few of your highly regarded peers may perceive it. By editing and finetuning, I formed a large quantity of drafts; each of them being more crisp and thorough than the previous drafts.

Now it was time for the final draft. While being pretty straightforward, there was some a lot of stress and uncertainty in whether the quality of my work was good enough. Despite the time and focus that was spent conducting this screenplay, there was definitely a level of insecurity that took place. I had never written a screenplay and never desired to up until this point of my life.

When it was all completed, Nelson, as well as a few others, looked it over. They seemed to be very impressed. I was not totally sold yet though. Finally, Nelson decided to submit my screenplay into a few film festivals. I was not opposed to it but thought that it would be a bit of a longshot to actually win. So we waited and waited and then… boom! “Your film was selected as a finalist.” We were thrilled.

While Nelson had won awards for his other works from past film festivals, I could tell that he was really excited about mine being selected. Nelson decided to submit my screenplay to more film festivals. At that point, I knew that great things were in my near future.

When it was all said and done, I won 7 awards for my screenplay and still counting. So what did it take to become an award winning screenwriter? Was it talent? Was it hard workand persistence? While these things were necessary attributes into achieving this goal, it was ultimately about sharing my personal story and also trusting myself.

My personal experience, being both metaphoric and literal, was what laid the foundation to this accomplishment. My story, like everybody’s, was unique in it’s own way. Do the skills matter? Of course they do, just as the hard work and persistence matter. But without the actual passion of your story, there are no skills, passion or persistence to be utilized. Lastly, trusting myself was crucial. There were times when things didn’t appear to be in my favor. For instance, getting laid off could have had a negative impact on how I handled myself. Deep down though, I knew that everything would work out to my benefit. I knew that things happened for a reason. Had I not been laid off, then I probably wouldn’t have received 7 awards for my screenplays.

Writing my first award winning screenplay was quite a journey. I gained many skills from my friend and mentor, Nelson, while also putting in a lot of hard work. More importantly, however, I had to share my personal story and believe in myself. In doing so, I was able to win 7 awards for my screenplay. By having these foundational values, I know that I can achieve many great things in world of film.

Right now as I’m writing this, I’m looking at the trophy for my screenplay. It’s from the New York Movie Awards for best feature script. It’s something that I hold near and dear to me, while at the same time, seeking even greater things.

A key takeaway from writing my first award winning screenplay is that success is only a decision away and that you can achieve anything that you want if you are willing to do whatever it takes. Moving forward, my personal success stories will be expressed in the screenplays to come.