FMS students continue to contribute to Baltimore film culture by providing script coverage for the Baltimore Screenwriters Competition, sponsored by the Baltimore Office for Promotion and the Arts.

Under the supervision of FMS Senior Lecturer Lucy Bucknell, three undergraduates, themselves developing screenwriters, covered features for the 2018 competition. They share their thoughts on the experience:

Sydney Lerner, Class of 2018:

In my four years in the Writing Seminars and Film and Media Studies Program, I’ve had the chance to workshop pieces with settings from around the nation and around the world. Reading for the Baltimore Screenwriters Competition, I was happy to find stories set so lovingly in the city of Baltimore. I appreciated how meaningful the location is to the writers, how vital to their art. Writing coverage was also a fun challenge after four years of the same type of peer critique. I learned how to analyze a screenplay for layers I hadn’t previously considered, like visual quality and production value. It was a pleasure and an honor to be part of this competition and I look forward to the great work Baltimore will continue to produce!

Giovanna Molina, Class of 2019:

I’m thankful for the opportunity to write coverage for the Baltimore Screenwriters Competition. As a reader, I gained an understanding of how to critically evaluate a feature-length script. This experience will be helpful for future film internships or jobs I apply for. It will also help me think about my own writing process. I especially enjoyed participating in a competition that celebrates screenplays about Baltimore. I hope that I will be able to participate as a reader again.

Holly Tice, Class of 2018:

It was an incredible opportunity to read entries to the Baltimore Screenwriters Competition. In my classes at Hopkins, I’ve had more exposure to short scripts, and it was interesting to observe how these writers were able to create stories with the power to compel from start to finish in this longer form. I was surprised by the range of genres of the scripts and struck by the creativity and originality of all of the writers. It was exciting to see how different writers incorporated Baltimore into their stories. From reading the scripts it is clear that Baltimore has a thriving screenwriting community, and it is great that the Baltimore Screenwriters Competition provides an opportunity to showcase that talent. Happy to have been a part of it!