Good news for all first time writer this week with the news that Francis Ford Coppola's company, American Zoetrope, is to accept unsolicited screenplays through its website
www.zoetrope.com American Zoetrope now accepts submissions of feature-length screenplays over the Internet with out any sort of industry endorsement or the need for agents or managers. They have set up a system to deal with the huge amount of submissions recieved whereby for each screenplay that you submit, they ask that you read and review four screenplays submitted by other screenwriters. The screenplays you submit will in turn be read and reviewed by others. American Zoetrope staff, who, according to the site are always looking for good new screenplays to produce, will read the best-received screenplays. As a participant you will receive the benefit of seeing your work reviewed and discussed by a diverse group of writers from all over the world. All screenplays appear on the site as .pdf files. In order to read these files you will need to download the free Acrobat Reader from Adobe Systems.
San Francisco based American Zoetrope, is the 25-year-old motion picture production and post-production company founded by Francis Coppola, and has been closely involved in combining new video and computer technologies with traditional filmmaking techniques. Originally Zoetrope's facility was conceived to produce Coppola's own projects. In recent years however the company has begun to service outside projects.
This isn't Zoethope's only support for writers it also produces a literary magazine which can also be submitted to through the web called 'Zoetrope: All-Story', specialising in short-fiction.
Coppola is also a member of The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. The 350-charter member organisation will promotes and oversees The Webbies which is widely known as the Oscars of the Web. This year IFTN is one of the five sites nominated in the film section of The Webby Awardswhich will take place in San Francisco, California on March 18 at The Herbst Theatre and San Francisco's City Hall.
Michael McMahon 18/2/99
