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NYC - let down by the sloppy judges's feedback

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Reez View Drop Down
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    Posted: 22 Jun 2016 at 11:46am
Dear NYC team,

I'm not one to be ungracious either in victory or defeat but I am disillusioned by the skimmed reading of my screenplay and the obviously rushed and careless feedback.

There are typos and negative comments repeated in both the positive and negative sections.

I particularly enjoyed the supposition that I had a body present 'as a reason' for one of my character's to be involved - that 'body' was her husband.

Now I'm not saying my script was perfect and I'm sure it could do with work, but I can't help thinking that it was barely read in a hurry and glib reviews like 'Philomena retold as a horror story are insulting'.

This was a story that meant something to me. I read countless records of first hand recordings of both symphysiotomy victims, ex Magdalene girls and mother and baby home reports to get it right. Perhaps my words didn't do the topic justice, but this was no plagaristic retelling for horror kicks.

No-one else posted from my group so I have no comparison. I don't begrudge anyone from moving forward and I'm sure they are deserved. I am also grateful for the honorary mention, but the reason I felt compelled to speak up is that again, I feel the judging process has failed and despite guaranantees and promises, my feedback was rushed and in some cases inaccurate.

I am posting my feedback on my page if you'd care to read it.

Thanks and best of luck to those moving forward.
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yeahtotally View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote yeahtotally Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jun 2016 at 9:23pm
Reez,


Thank you for your post.  I hear exactly what you are saying.  Count yourself lucky for getting an honorable mention, though; I didn't even get that this time.  I usually make it to the next round or, at the very least, get an honorable mention in the beginning stages. But that's not what I am upset about. Before I go on, I give a sincere congratulations to all those moving on to the next round!  


I love negative, constructive feedback because it obviously helps us to grow as writers.  All of the 'WHAT NEEDS WORK' feedback in the past has been beneficial (or at least somewhat understandable).  However, I don't know what happened this time around, but my feedback was an absolute mess -- many misspellings, non sequiturs, and some shockingly offensive statements.  You use the two words that I have been using today: sloppy and careless .  And some of it was just downright mean.  I have a pretty tough skin and have never complained about any of the negative comments in the past, even if I disagree.  But this was a bit ridiculous.  I think I am most mad about the fact that I actually paid an entry fee and spent so much time perfecting my screenplay, only to see ignorant comments from somebody who clearly skimmed it.  Let me give you some examples:


"It's a little ham-fisted and obvious, as most new-age spiritual journey stories tend to be."

We all have our biases, but it may have been nice if the judge looked past his/her own views of what he/she deems as "new-age" to find the merit of the story, especially since this judge somehow considers ancient shamanism practices and healing methods that have been around for thousands of years to be New Age.  Also, according to this judge, a shaman (or  as the judge puts it, "a shamen" ) is interchangeable with the word "witch doctor" -- um, not quite.  I found the criticism to be snobby and dismissive of people whose lives ARE touched by ayahuasca ceremonies.  Fine, you don't believe in it…cool, but the story isn't about YOU.  So, OK, no big deal.  What bothered me the most was such a demonstration of poor reading comprehension.  Now normally whenever somebody doesn't understand something in an author's story, s/he needs to take that criticism to heart and work to be clearer.  However, the major leaps of logic that this particular judge took were shockingly bad.  I've had other people read my work (people who are great at telling it like it is and have told me when something was total crap or nonsensical), and nobody was confused at all.  And the fact that the judge got so many facts/plot points just completely wrong leads me to believe that this was a quick skim.  Did some judges procrastinate and wait until the last moment? Props to those who didn’t, and I wish you had read my script instead.  Normally I would  commend the judges for all that they do, especially when they have regular jobs on top of their judging commitments, but again, paying a fee and spending so much time on our work to have somebody do a rush job is very disappointing.  More examples:


“Let us know LA CUEVA is in the states – we last saw her headed to Peru so it seems  it would be there (given the Spanish name)”

— I mention that the fictional school is in the real city of Albuquerque.  Don’t most of us know that this city is in the United States?  


“We presume the accident we heard was Ricky hitting their car so we expect…”

— Ricky is a character that has absolutely nothing to do with a car accident that takes place in the beginning of the script, and nobody can figure out how this judge came to that conclusion.  


“Looses a bit of credibility there.”  (lots of typos and misspellings)


“Really unbelievable Ricky is the one to meet her in Peru at the airport.”

— I don’t see how that would be really unbelievable seeing as how she goes to a very specific retreat in Peru based upon hearing Ricky’s transformative experience there.  He is one of the few people working at that retreat, so why on Earth would it be really unbelievable that he would pick her up at the airport?  Bizarre comment.  Makes me think the judge didn’t read some of the lines beforehand.  


“Make clear who the ‘SHE’ in the montage is – Isabel or Sophia?  (could be Isabel is prescribed…)”

— Seeing as how the first two lines in the montage mention only Sofia (s/he misspelled her name, too) and also the fact that Isabel is, well, DEAD, it’s pretty safe to assume that I am only talking about Sofia. I imagine if I used her name in every single sentence I would have been told that I was too repetitive.   


“Feels like the Peruvian ritual is too rushed and mysterious for us to believe Sophia would go right for it – a bit of foundation for it, maybe established in the car with Sophia explaining it to Isabel and saying she wants to try it would help.”

— Never mind the fact that Sofia is traveling to Peru for the sole reason of participating in the ayahuasca ceremony, which is clearly spelled out in not one but two previous scenes!  Just wow.  


“The CREEPY voice is too colloquial ‘…you idiot’ and ‘game over’ It would be menacing and scarier if the voice sounded old and Spanish.”

— This one really got me.  Yes, I would normally agree with the judge.  However, the whole point of the voice of the ghost is that it is an entity that represents all of Sofia’s negative self-talk/mind chatter, so of course the entity isn’t going to be speaking in Spanish.  Sofia’s native language is English.  She grew up in New Mexico!   Ugh.  Did the judge just skip a page or two and think this was just a random ghost?  Again, nobody else who read this was confused.  


“If Ricky is El Alcade’s ‘slave’ then why was he allowed to go back from Peru to the USA?  And how does he have the will to help Sophia?”  

-- Both characters’ names are misspelled, of course, but I won’t talk anymore about the spelling mistakes.  I wanted to talk about the idea that Ricky is El Alcalde’s slave???  He’s not.  Like, not even slightly.  The judge must have been referring to a scene in which Ricky talks about rumors he has heard of certain “shamans” with bad intentions taking advantage of unsuspecting tourists.  This was to introduce an element of suspense, as throughout most of the story the reader thinks the main shaman could actually be evil, but it is clearly shown by the end that he is nothing of the sort.  When this is finally revealed, it should be obvious that Ricky was never a slave.  


“We assume Ricky was the driver who hit them…”  — nope, still have no idea how the judge is making that assumption.  Nobody else did.  


“She's unhappy in the shadow of her dead sister, so she goes to Peru and a shaman walks her through a ritual and she's all better.”  So not true.  Now here is an example of where I am perhaps at fault for not being as clear as I should have been because Sofia (the protagonist) is the one who does all the work. The shaman is just a facilitator.  I would never have a female protagonist who doesn’t do anything or doesn’t change and then gets conveniently rescued by some dude.  I actually wrote the opposite of that on purpose, but because the judge probably quickly skimmed some very important parts, couldn’t quite connect the dots and was stuck on certain assumptions that are disproven as the script nears the end.  


“Parts of the letter from the Shamen read like a letter from a joking frat boy.  It didn't seem appropriate for such a (turns out) sophisticated and experienced being.”

— OK, this isn’t a problem with reading clearly, and is solely a matter of opinion, so I respect that.  However, I will say that I strongly disagree with this idea.  I think if I had written it as the judge suggests, it would have come across as expected and boring — a wise shaman who is quiet, strong, and stoic — exactly what one would anticipate.  Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I think some of the  wisest people often have amazing senses of humor.  I think not taking oneself too seriously shows great emotional intelligence and a certain type of understanding about the world that wouldn’t be as obvious to demonstrate without showcasing these certain quirks.  I thought his humor made him endearing (basically the opposite of a typical frat boy, so I thought that was a bizarre comparison).  His humor was sweet, whimsical, and endearing, I thought, not aggressive and annoying.  


I would gladly take back some of my previous high heat placements if I could have been assigned a more active reader this time around.  I already paid a fee for the next contest, and I feel like I will be limping to the starting line.  I was actually excited to see why the judge didn’t like my script so I could better myself (like I have in past contests), but I only feel irritated.  I won’t include the comments that I thought were just unnecessarily harsh because they carry less weight based on the judge’s inability to get the basic facts right.  


There were only two constructive criticisms that I thought were fair and that I can use in future scripts.  


Sorry I wrote a book, and congratulations to all the contestants moving on to the second round.  Well done!

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aberpete13 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote aberpete13 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Jun 2016 at 2:20am
I came on here to see if anyone else had issues with the judging.

I was a little disappointed with the feedback I received too, for a number of reasons. Many of them align quite closely to the comments above. 

Sloppy, spelling and grammar issues... etc. I was expecting professional feedback, and I was expecting the judges to be qualified/working screenwriters. I don't think that was the case. There were also some fairly mean comments, and was told I basically a copied another story.

My main issue though, was that I was told I was over a full page over the page limit. I certainly wasn't when I submitted. I was very careful checking those sorts of things. So I can only assume that the judge was using a different version of word. Does anyone know if I will have got penalised for this? Seems a bit unfair. 

In my feedback I got complimented and condemned for my script being complicated. They say I should be commended for developing something so large in such few pages. But on the other hand they say that the script was too complicated and they were overwhelmed at first. I completely understand that reading so many similar scripts is a daunting task, but I can't help but feel my script was read when the judge was tired, and their comprehension of it was therefore diminished.

Anyway, I enjoyed the experience nonetheless, and I hope to take part again in the future. Perhaps next time, I'll dumb it down.

Good luck to everyone.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote plkphoto Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Jun 2016 at 9:18am
The feedback comes from three different judges, so sometimes they contradict each other because it's a little subjective. I find the feedback on the forums to be much more useful -- if you're willing to post your story for the others here to read and critique.

I wonder if the judge was counting the title page when he said you were over the limit? That's the sort of issue you should email directly to NYCMidnight - As soon as possible, BEFORE the next round starts - just in case you were penalized (unless you already made it through to the next round anyway). Just reply to the feedback email...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Reez Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jun 2016 at 4:03pm
I'm sorry to see that others were disappointed with e professionalism of the feedback too. In the end, I hope that the NYC will take note that there needs to be a more consistent marking system and that the judges shouldn't be making errors due to being rushed to make deadlines or having too many scripts to read in the time frame which is how this appears.

I would also hope that when these issues are highlighted - which I did both here and by email to the judges that we would receive a reply.

This is yesterday's news at this stage and I just hope it can help to improve things in the future.

Best to all!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KittNiss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jul 2016 at 3:50am
Oh I'm sorry to read all this. If I can get my act together I will post my first round entry that gt an honourable mention, and the feedback, which i found to be detailed and really helpful. I guess I was lucky.
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