At Killer Shorts, we are always looking for ways to help our finalists, post-contest, in expanding their scripts or finding the best resources to further their careers. It can be scary putting your work out there and trusting sites that claim to help advance careers. As writers, it’s important to vet any site that showcases your work, but in this article, we are highlighting Coverfly and FilmFreeway, two trusted submission platforms for screenwriters to submit their scripts to screenwriting competitions and film festivals. Both are great resources in their own right, and depending on your needs either can be beneficial.
Collaborating with both Coverfly and FilmFreeway, Killer Shorts finds Coverfly to be helpful to writers where FilmFreeway benefits filmmakers, but there are pros and cons to both. Coverfly does an exceptional job at making scripts visible, specifically with The Red List, and offering meetings to walk writers through their next steps. Coverfly connects writers to the industry. Whereas, FilmFreeway offers a wide range of renowned festivals and screenwriting competitions. As a writing competition, we have seen firsthand the needs of our writers, and below we break down what we feel are the pros and cons of each site and its contribution to writers. You can submit to Season 3 of the Killer Shorts Contest through Coverfly or FilmFreeway by our Regular Deadline of October 31st for just $25.
Coverfly and Writers
As a constant supporter of the Killer Shorts Contest, Coverfly has been exceptionally beneficial to our finalists when taking their scripts to the next level. Killer Shorts regularly sets up career consultation meetings between Coverfly’s Head of Development, Tom Dever, and our finalists (not just our winners!).
This is what Season 2 Winner Alessandra Jara Del Castillo and three-time finalists Katherine Cox & Matt McCarthy had to say about their experience with these meetings:
“Tom has been an invaluable resource since my win. A lot of conversations in this industry can feel guarded and indirect, and reading between those lines is a skill that comes with experience – experience I don’t have yet. Tom peels back the veil. Tom’s guidance is specific to the writer’s journey in navigating reps and other options. We’ve had several calls since the win, he’s checked up on my progress, and has made the process of connecting with managers feel so much more accessible.”
Alessandra Jara Del Castillo
“We’ve had great discussions with them [Coverfly], and they’ve provided actionable advice about ways to advance our writing career. Based on the helpful encouragement of Mithra at Coverfly, we recently finished a pitch deck, giving us an efficient visual device to convey our script to the industry. Getting advice from people in the industry that have such great experience is a special opportunity.”
Katherine Cox & Matt McCarthy
These testimonials from our contest finalists will hopefully give all you writers a glimpse into how Coverfly will go above and beyond to help writers with their careers.
Our contest director, Alison Parker, has had her own career-elevating experience with Coverfly, and she couldn’t have more positive things to say about the impact Coverfly can have on a writer’s career.
“My horror short screenplay ‘Gender Reveal Party’ ranked highly on Coverfly which led to an industry download from a producer. A few months later, the same producer hired me for a rewrite job on a horror feature! I highly recommend screenwriters set up a profile on Coverfly and make their projects discoverable. You never know what can happen by putting yourself out there.”
Alison Parker, Killer Shorts Contest Director
Pros of Coverfly
Besides being extremely active in the writing community on social media, offering up sound advice on expanding one’s script, and being present for industry calls with contest finalists, Coverfly goes out of their way to make writers visible with the following services:
- Coverfly is completely free, to writers, to set up a profile and post their scripts. Writers will have to pay individually for festivals and contests, but the actual Coverfly service is free.
- Coverflyx is a peer to peer feedback service offered by Coverfly. Killer Shorts provides all quarterfinalists 5 tokens each to get started with Coverflyx.
- Pitch week. The deadline to enter pitch week is Friday December 3rd. The pitch week is free and as Coverfly puts it ‘We’re setting up specially curated, hand-selected, one-on-one virtual pitches that match writers with the specific needs of our industry members.’
- Screenwriting contests are heavily vetted by Coverfly, so only legit, helpful competitions are listed.
- Coverfly has launched a Fee Waiver Program, ‘in conjunction with amazing partners, which Killer Shorts is a part of, that is based on merit and financial need, to give all writers access to the valuable programs on Coverfly.’ The goal of the program is to find great stories from talented writers who otherwise may not financially have access to these talent-discovery programs.
- Coverfly’s The Red List allows for writers to have their scripts and contest accolades visible to industry professionals. Many of our Killer Shorts writers, even quarterfinalists, have found their scripts on The Red List, specifically the horror short category. In fact, at any time, the horror short red list is often dominated by Killer Shorts scripts. Read below for more informations on The Red List:
“Coverfly is such an excellent service for writers. The platform has been so vital to my writing career. Industry leaders were able to read my work and because of the exposure, I now have a wonderful literary manager who has skyrocketed my career.”
La’Chris Jordan, Quote pulled from Coverfly’s website
Coverfly’s The Red List
Coverfly defines The Red List as “a list of the screenplays with the highest Industry Scores™ on Coverfly“. This system allows for writers to put their festival accolades under each of their scripts. A writer’s performance in coverage services such as Screencraft, Wescreenplay, and more contribute to a writer’s Coverfly score. There are so many avenues to getting your script even more visible on Coverfly. Industry professionals have access to request these scripts, on a writer’s profile, that they might not have seen otherwise. We’ve all probably had the thought after placing in a contest, ‘What do I do with my script now?’ Coverfly offers a way for writers to make these scripts available with the contest placements playing a huge factor in getting read.
This has been especially true for many of our Killer Shorts finalists. As the 3rd Place Winner of Season 1, Chris Hicks certainly can attest to the helpful nature of Coverfly. After his script The Butter Street Hitchhiker was featured in the Top 1% on The Red List, Chris was selected by Coverfly for a special feature on writers with a background in science. This selection offered mentorship by Coverfly’s development team, who connected Chris with the manager that he is currently signed with.
Check out this interview with Chris Hicks for a closer look at his experience.
Season 2 Semifinalist Jon Comulada found his script The Mold requested almost daily because the script was highlighted on The Red List.
Similarly, Season 2 Quarterfinalist Lyndal R Simpson’s script Possum has steadily stayed as the #1 Horror Short for months.
Cons of Coverfly & The Red List
Many writers have found confusion in the parameters of Coverfly’s scoring system. Scoring is often based on the number of contest placement, leaving some to wonder about the validity when some scripts are ranked lower on the Red List but placed higher in a contest.
However, this is just conjecture, as many realize the scoring system is in its infancy and is still growing.
Check out this article, ‘Saying Goodbye to The Coverfly Score’ from Coverfly co-founder Scot Lawrie on doing away with the traditional ‘Coverfly Score’ for an updated ranking system.
There are quite a few industry professionals who have discovered writers through requesting scripts on Coverfly, but you never know who might be requesting. In the end, you will always have to vet and do your due diligence to get your scripts in the right hands.
FilmFreeway and Writers
Where Coverfly is targeted at helping writers, FilmFreeway really is the place for filmmakers on the festival path. That’s not to say writers couldn’t benefit from checking out FilmFreeway.
Pros of FilmFreeway
- Similarly to Coverfly, FilmFreeway is 100% free. The only fee comes in when submitting to individual festivals and competitions.
- Your work is accessible to the festivals you submit to. Your work will not be downloaded or shared without your permission.
- FilmFreeway is trusted and supported by some of the world’s largest film festivals like the Austin Film Festival and The Sundance Film Festival.
- FilmFreeway is an excellent resource to finding some of the top screenwriting contests out there…. like Killer Shorts.
- FilmFreeway offers discounts for students and ‘Gold’ festivals, an exclusive win/win benefits membership for festivals and submitters, and Killer Shorts happens to be a Gold festival. For more information on the Gold membership, and discounts for Gold festivals, check out their site here.
- You may notice many film festivals have a screenwriting competition attached. These festivals are not all listed on Coverfly but can provide great opportunities, especially for writers looking to network with filmmakers. A few festivals that accept horror short screenplays, and that we consider worth the entry free: Nightmares Film Festival, Horrorigins, FilmQuest, Crimson Screen Horror Film Fest, and Shriekfest.
As a great resource for promoting a film project, FilmFreeway allows for a professional web presence for your project, as well as, free digital press kits. This allows you to submit your project to many festivals at once through FilmFreeway’s services.
This can be beneficial to any writer looking to shoot their short scripts, like several of our finalists.
“FilmFreeway is where filmmakers go to discover and enter film festivals.”
Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director & Co-Head of Toronto International Film Festival- From FilmFreeway’s site.
Cons of FilmFreeway for Writers
FilmFreeway is a great resource for filmmakers looking to package their projects in the most professional way and get the best support in sending them off to festivals. Over 10,000 of the world’s best festivals support FilmFreeway, so they are a great resource to getting your projects seen.
Since Killer Shorts is a screenwriting competition, we find FilmFreeway doesn’t specifically highlight writers, therefore aren’t as beneficial to a writer’s career as Coverfly. FilmFreeway is definitely tailored towards the filmmaker with a finished, produced project.
Final Thoughts
Writers must always be smart about who they are trusting with their work, but at Killer Shorts, we have seen firsthand the support offered to our finalists by Coverfly. Overall, FilmFreeway is a well-established, known service for filmmakers, but we know Coverfly goes out of their way to encourage writers, and give them tools to expand their scripts, as well as creating several pathways for writers to be seen by industry professionals. It really comes down to what the needs of your projects are. Coverfly and FilmFreeway are not the only platforms you can use to submit to Killer Shorts and other contests, but they are two of the biggest platforms. Other options to submit to contests and festivals are NetworkISA or Moviebytes, which offer discounted entry fees to their members. The platform you choose to submit your work in no way affects the outcome of the contest or festival you are submitting to. There are so many platforms to get your work out there, and we hope this article helped in making that journey a bit easier.
You can submit your horror short scripts through Coverfly, FilmFreeway, or NetworkISA by our Regular Deadline October 31st for just $25, or until our extended deadline of December 17 for $35.
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