Monday, May 04, 2009

CS OPEN TOURNAMENT ON HOLD

A bit of sad news for fans of the venerable CS Open, the live writing tournament we’ve been coordinating since the very first Screenwriting Expo in 1754. Over the past 7 years, thousands of writers have participated in Erik Bauer's brainchild, a fiendishly challenging live writing competition where participants get 90 minutes to write a brand-new, original scene -- in pencil -- based on parameters we give them. We’ve found tons of amazing talent along the way and reinvigorated the writing passion of more than a few. Alas, the economics of the situation have caused Creative Screenwriting to put the Open officially in limbo. It’s almost certain it won’t be back for Expo 2009.

The good news is that Coverage, Ink in conjunction with Great American Pitchfest are cooking up a whole new kind of live writing tournament called THE WORLD SERIES OF SCREENWRITING. This event will premiere at Pitchfest 2010 (yep, that’s a year from now. Visit pitchfest.com for info on this year's event, coming up in June.)

So from all of us here at CI, we wish you well, CS Open, as you make your long journey onto the shelf, at least for the time being. I’m fairly confident we’ll find a way to revive you in some form or another. We here at CI all love you too much to let you die.
Coverage Ink's Jim Cirile with the 2008 CS Open Top 13.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, poop. The CS Open is pretty much the only reason I go to the Expo :(

Anonymous said...

waaaaaaahhhh!

Ari Seeber said...

that sucks. So, it was a money thing? Why don't they just not give out a $5,000 prize? I'm sure people would do it even if it was $1,000. Why kill the whol thing instead of just tweaking it?