A Virtual Community

A few months back I started stumbling upon all kinds of web sites and resources that I found to be very helpful. Many provided basic information about various digital video topics or links to sites that provide information or lighting, sound or production. Some were for gadgets like the Vod Pod on the right and others were focused solely on writing.

Since most anyone reading this blog knows nothing about me let me fill in this piece of information: first and foremost I consider myself a writer. I realize I made that seem like a grand statement but for me it shapes how I approach things and for the most part it is my movie-making experience so far.

I have yet to find a community of writers and because of this I have been very limited in who I show my work to. The consequence of this is poor feedback. Not that I dislike my Mother's comments mind you, they just are not all that helpful for improving a script (I should note that my Mother is the best proofreader I have ever met and her skills in that area keep me looking like a total fool).

Thanks to the author of the blog mentioned in my previous post (Diary of a Short Film) I found out about the community site that American Zoetrope has on their web site. For those of you who do not know, American Zoetrope is a company owned by Francis Ford Coppola and among many other things, publishes a magazine and holds a screenplay competition.

They also have a virtual community for writers, where you can post your work and have it critiqued by other writers. The system is set up in the following way, for every screenplay you submit you must read four screenplays posted on the site. How do they make sure you comply? You can only post the first script without having read anyone else's. Also, you cannot read the reviews of your script until you fulfill your requirement. It's a pretty clever way to get people to do the right thing and the people who are part of the community are quite vocal and best of all, they are writers.

You can visit the site here. Everything about their communities can be found in the Virtual Studio section.