Screenwriting Blog
Posted on by Courtney Meznarich

Fade to Black: SoCreate's Screenwriter Stimulus Winner Kaylord Hill Has Finished His Screenplay!

Just two days shy of a brand new year, and screenwriter Kaylord Hill has finished his screenplay and completed his final check-in as part of SoCreate's Screenwriter Stimulus Challenge! As the winner of this year's contest, Kaylord agreed to write a feature-length script in just one month, and in turn, we agreed to pay him $1,000 per week to do it. Kaylord would get the financial and moral support he needed, and we'd get to share his journey with you and, more importantly, prove that it can be done.

Since December 1, Kaylord has let us in on his process, his setbacks, lessons from film school, and life lessons, too. He continued to work his regular job but made lifestyle sacrifices in exchange for big writing wins. And, he's encouraging you to do the same. As we head into 2021, imagine what you can accomplish if we all take a page out of Kaylord's book? Anything is possible.

In his final vlog, Kaylord recaps the process, his mistakes, and his hope for his final screenplay, "Good Mourning." Read it in its rough form right here, right now, and don't forget to tell Kaylord what you think. He wants your notes!

"All right, folks. All right, Kaylord Hill for the last time, maybe not the last time, you know, maybe SoCreate brings me back around in the coming months, you know, if and when they do a check-in with me.

So, how did things finish? Alright, so we know, I started out this experience, this journey, trying to write a black romantic comedy. I'm here to tell you today that it is still a black romantic comedy. We just need to infuse some comedy. There are some places that comedy can definitely shine through. And I think I left a lot of things on the table to be desired, to be figured out at a later date. But that's okay. Overall, my whole idea of like trying to rewrite the script in a week, and then finish the script, and then, yeah, I shouldn't have done that. I should have just finished the script and then held off for the rewrite. You know, if I had a couple of days extra to myself, I should have did three right then. But I was trying to be experimental, and the experiment did not work. But that's fine. We met our deadline. We met our goal. We got a lot of great notes. I actually did get some great notes from some producing screenwriter friends of mine about, you know, some places comedy can be infused. I thought the bones were a little, a little shaky. I think the bones are a little shaky. And, you know, if you guys, when you guys read this script, on December 31, which they'll post it, if you see some shaky things about the bones of the script, please feel free, hit me up, shoot me a tweet, shoot me a DM, shoot me a Facebook message, shoot me a, you know, shoot me a message on IG if you have, you know, any ideas, any notes. I'm a pretty open person when it comes to notes. And I love notes. Because it's very, very, you know, it's not, you know, it's, it's very seldom that that people openly go and read your script and are willing to give you feedback. So if you do take the time and read even two or three pages of the script, and you have notes, send them to me. I'd be glad to hear what you have to say.

Overall, I definitely think there's a lot of things I need to accomplish with the script. I think the next six months to a year are going to be very critical for this script. I don't necessarily have plans for it in terms of, am I going to put it in a competition? Am I going to put it in, you know, try to put it in a lab? I just kind of want the material to kind of, material, sorry, to sort of soak and marinate a little bit. And I want to just spend some time on the story and trying to figure out what am I trying to accomplish and say. So that's that, but overall, I feel okay with the story. There's a beginning, there's a middle, and there's definitely an end, so we'll continue to work on that.

As far as the overall experience: You know, anytime someone affords you the opportunity to, you know, work on your craft, write, and, you know, outline and thinking, and just do all the stuff that, you know, kind of makes you a writer, anytime someone gives you an opportunity, a platform, and you know, even gives you financial backing, you can't be anything but appreciative. And so, this has been a really illuminating process for me. The script that I actually got into, you know, that I was able to, you know, to win with was actually a pilot. It was actually the first act of a pilot. And so one of the things I realized was, I've been working on a pilot and television as shows for the last year. And then I had to jump back into the pilot world, which I didn't think would be challenging because, you know, writing is writing. But it definitely, it definitely was for a little bit. It definitely was a little bit challenging, but I love television. That's one of the things, and one of the goals I have made for myself is working on more television while I work on this feature over the next year. It's been a tremendous, tremendous opportunity and time with everybody in the writers' community. I appreciate everyone for all of the support, all of the retweets, shares, all of that, all my family and my friends, all the people I've come to know along this journey. I appreciate you guys. And I'm going to keep it brief. But like I always say, hey, pages going down. Keep writing. Keep fighting. Keep doing your thing; I know I will. Hopefully, you guys will too. And I will see you guys when the ink dries. All right? See you."

SoCreate's Screenwriter Stimulus Winner Kaylord Hill

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