Well, the results are in on the Best First Page Contest, an adjunct to the 20/20 Screenwriting Contest.


And the First Place winner is:
Terri Sissman of Wilson, Wyoming
"Second Chances"

Second Place
Najla Zaidi of Westlake Village, CA
"Puberty"

Third Place
William Unyi of Plainfield, IL
"Sympathy For The Devil"

Honorable Mentions
Todd Sorrell of Kaneohe, HI
"Pathos Garden"

John Gray of Hollywood, CA
"Silver Hearts"

Terri's page appears in the September/October 2004 issue of Hollywood Scriptwriter magazine.

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The judging process for the Best First Page Contest is entirely different from the process for the 20/20 Contest. To select the winner for the Best First Page, we enlisted the help of a panel of 15 people that included professional screenplay analysts, producers, successful writers from film and television, a previous 20/20 Contest winner and even a token actor.

Together, we read through all of the pages, gave them a 1-5 overall ranking based on factors such as characterization, scene setting, tone establishment and the "hook factor" [if we'd want to read more based on the first page]. After winnowing the field to a handful of top entries, we did it again, ranking them using the same criteria. This time, we measured each of the pages against one another. In this way, we came up with our eventual winners.

The diverse array of pages was astounding-many were quite interesting and others, well -- others made us realize just how tough it is to write a truly engaging page. As one of our veteran writers told us, "I never realized how easy it was to screw up the first page." A major conclusion a lot of our panelists reached from the experience was a newfound sense of the importance for the first page.

A good first page will establish a setting, a tone or a protagonist, but a truly great one will do all three, plus make us really want to turn to page two. Many of the scripts that advanced to the second round in the 20/20 Contest had first pages that lived up to those aspirations, but weren't entered in the contest. Maybe next time….

Thanks to everyone who did enter the Best First Page Contest. And a big congratulations goes out to our winner, Terri Sissman of Wilson, Wyoming, for the first page of her script "Second Chances"! Slightly smaller, but no less sincere congratulations go out to our second-place winner, Najla Zaidi of Westlake Village, CA, for the first page of "Puberty" and our third-place winner, William Unyi of Plainfield, Illinois, for "Sympathy for the Devil". We'd also like to send out honorable mentions to Todd Sorrell of Kaneohe, HI, for "Pathos Garden" and John Gray of Hollywood, CA, for "Silver Hearts".

The first page of Terri's script, Second Chances, is shown below. Be sure to check it out in the September/October issue of Hollywood Scriptwriter magazine. And don't forget that your last chance to sign up for the Fall 2004 Contest is October 20th.

**Please note that all text has been centered and is not shown with proper indentations and margins.**

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"Second Chances"

FADE IN:

EXT. VIRGINIAN HOTEL, MEDICINE BOW, WY - PRESENT - DAY

On a blustery April day, CLAIRE DODGE, fashionably unkempt and hip despite her 52 years, shivers outside the once-grand Virginian Hotel. Her designer luggage sits beside her.

The perpetual Wyoming wind whips at her light coat. She checks her watch and longingly eyes the warm bar.

The COWBOYS inside stand in a bunch looking out at her. One shoves a young stud toward the window and they all laugh.

Claire juts her jaw out and looks down the road-the pose of the fearless female traveler.

A rattletrap station wagons pulls up outside the hotel. CLINT EVERS, an old, grizzled cowboy, struggles to put it into park.

CLINT
Goll darnit. Heapa junk.
He heaves himself from the car, hits the tailgate just so and it POPS open. He grunts Claire's luggage into the back of the station wagon.

CLAIRE
Hey, that's mine! What do you think you're doing?

CLINT
You goin' to Casper?

CLAIRE
I'm waiting for the bus!

CLINT
I am the bus.

Claire stares at him in suspicious disbelief.

A great WHOOP comes from inside the bar. Claire turns toward the window, ready for battle.

Inside, the young stud eyes her seductively as he holds his beer bottle in front of his crotch and gyrates his hips.

Claire turns back to find. . .