I’ve submitted my screenplay for “The Dominatrix Wore Red” to the Nicholl Fellowship and the Austin Film Festival Screenplay competition. There are plenty of others, but these were the only two that seemed to provide the best bang for the buck. While I’d love to win, my goal is to get somewhere in the finals, as that’ll mean I made it into the top tier (500 or so) of the 7,000+ submissions. So I’ve heard, simply being formatted properly will get you into the top 1K. Probably not true, but gives me reason to be optimistic as I wait. And wait. And wait.
There’s supposed to be a way out of the Catch-22 situation of not being able to attract a name actor (which is generally required for any sort of distribution, hence prospects of turning a profit) without a budget and not being able to get investors for your budget without any sort of attached name actor. The idea is to find a B-list actor (one step down from the A-list) who is a recognizable face (TV or film), yet has few to no movie lead roles and no more than one or two lead TV roles. The idea is they (or, rather, their manager) are open to opportunities where they can be film leads, so are willing to attach themselves to a project that lacks a budget. Often as an executive producer, which can also help them if their career aspirations extend behind the camera. Then, with that name actor, investors are supposedly a lot less reluctant to get involved (getting the first can still be a nightmare, though – it seems no one wants to be number one). On an impulse, after binge watching a TV series, I sent an email to the manager of a featured actress I thought would do very well for the role of Elise and fit the B-list criteria. Shockingly (not), I haven’t heard back (it’s only been about 10 days, so perhaps there’s still hope, though I’ve largely given up). But it seems to be a numbers game: contact a bunch until I find one who’ll at least read the script.
The Dominatrix story has turned into a trilogy (BlueDom has been followed by DarkDom), which is something I hope will increase interest in the project. Of course, I still have to get the first in the series going before I can even fantasize about more (well, I guess I can fantasize any time ;-), but I feel good about the trilogy.
