Make your Moonshot Feature Accelerator submission as strong as it can be by acing the answers to our application questions.
Are you submitting your feature film screenplay to the Moonshot Feature Accelerator for emerging screenwriters?
Along with your complete feature script, you'll need to answer a few brief application questions. Your responses to these questions help our team assess whether you and your project are a good fit for this program, so you’ll want to consider how you’ll answer ahead of time. Don’t wait till you’re about to hit submit at 11:55 p.m. on a deadline day to rush through these questions!
Here’s your cheat sheet for excelling in your answers to these application questions.
But first, a little bit about the Moonshot Feature Accelerator:
We created the Moonshot Feature Accelerator due to the success of our Moonshot Pilot Accelerator. Since 2021, we’ve offered talented emerging TV writers the opportunity to polish their pitches, learn the ins and outs of the industry, and then pitch their project to major companies. We’re really proud of the success of our Pilot Accelerator; to date, we’ve set up over 180 one-on-one pitch meetings between our fellows and companies including HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, Starz, Amazon Prime Video, Warner Bros., and many more — and around 85% of those pitches end with a request to read the full pilot script.
We knew that we needed a comparable program for feature writers. After all, so many members of our community have exciting, unique screenplays, but they don’t have the connections to get their project noticed by industry members who could really move the needle on their career. Screenplays aren’t meant to sit unread on your hard drive; they’re meant to be performed by actors and seen by audiences on the big screen!
That’s where the Moonshot Feature Accelerator comes in. We’re expecting hundreds of applications, and our team of readers will whittle them down to the most promising scripts. Our second-rounders will submit short pitch videos, and from there, we choose our quarter-finalists. Our team will take another look at those full scripts, application questions, and pitch videos to select our semi-finalists, whose scripts are each read by two industry judges. Those judges help us select finalists, whom we interview before choosing our 8 fellows.
Our fellows will go through a three-week intensive virtual program to prep their verbal pitches. They’ll get feedback from a development exec, a feature writer who’s pitched successfully, and a speech coach. Plus, they’ll learn about the industry in Q&As with an agent, a manager, and an entertainment lawyer.
Finally, we’ll set our fellows up on one-on-one pitch meetings with production companies, agents, managers, producers, financiers, studios, and streamers with the aim of getting the writer and/or their current feature script to the next level.
Positive outcomes may include:
Getting their script bought or optioned for development by a production company, studio, or streamer.
Getting financiers or producers interested in coming on board the project.
Getting representation from an agent or manager.
Being considered for open writing assignments/IP projects by a company they pitched to.
Securing a general meeting with a studio, streamer, or production company.
Building long-standing relationships with companies and execs so that they may be considered for future opportunities.
Most importantly, we’re creating a strong community of emerging writers who will uplift one another!
Now, here are our Moonshot Feature Accelerator application questions and how to answer them:
Please provide your project's logline. Your logline should be one to two full sentences, and it should give us a sense of the story and your protagonist. Make sure that there’s a sense of conflict. Keep it easy to read and succinct (again, this should not be a full paragraph — just two sentences or less). Treat this as a calling card, and make us excited to read your script.
Brief synopsis of script. Here, you’ll have one paragraph to give us a synopsis of your screenplay. Your synopsis helps us get a sense of the story arc, including the inciting incident, the rising action, the climax, and the resolution. We need to see that your character is going through a journey and that they have been changed over the course of the film.
Why is now the time to tell this story, and why are you the one to tell it? This is where you get to show off your personal connection to the story. Why are you so passionate about this project? You should also tell us why today's audiences will connect to this idea.
How does your project advance the representation of women and/or non-binary people on screen? Moonshot Initiative is a nonprofit created to advance gender equity behind and in front of the camera. Tell us about the women and non-binary characters in your project. A decent answer might let us know that there’s a female lead and that several of the supporting characters are women and non-binary people, for example. But a great answer goes even further, helping us understand how your project improves representation beyond what we’ve already seen on screen. For example, maybe your protagonist is a woman from your culture, and your protagonist breaks the stereotypes you’re tired of seeing in movies. Perhaps you’re depicting a non-binary person in a relationship you haven’t really seen portrayed. Maybe your character is working in a male-dominated field, and women are rarely seen doing this job on film. Perhaps you show female friendship in a new light. Maybe you’ve never seen a non-binary person with a disability on camera. Let us know what you feel is missing in terms of on-screen representation and how your project provides that!
If you have a pitch deck (not required), please provide a URL for viewing this material. A pitch deck is truly not required, so don't throw something together if you don't have one already. If you have materials that show the look and feel of your project, that can help us better understand your idea. We've seen beautiful pitch decks that give us a great sense of a writer's vision for their project. However, if you don't have a deck, it's much more important to spend time revising your script and crafting responses to our application questions. A hastily made deck can detract from your application if your imagery and comparable projects don't match up with what we're seeing in your script.
In 1-2 sentences, what do you hope to get out of this program? Read all about the Moonshot Feature Accelerator here and let us know what you hope to get out of this program if you’re selected. There’s no one right answer; we know that people’s goals vary, and that every applicant is at a different stage in their career. However, there are some answers that may hint to our team that you’re not a good fit — namely, if you don’t seem to have a good understanding of the program and have unrealistic goals. For example, if you’re hoping to revise and workshop your script, this might not be the program for you, since we don’t workshop screenplays as part of the accelerator.
Best of luck with your application! We can't wait to read your work.
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