As 2020 ended with another win for Red Mist in the Hollywood Blood Horror Festival, 2021 got off to a successful start with the first competition wins for urban crime thriller Headshot in the Paris Play Film Festival and the London International Screenwriting Competition. It was also awarded a Semi-Final placement in the Eurasia International Film Fesival.
Headshot was originated in 2014 and got initial success as a Shore Scripts Quarter-Finalist in 2016 and a Finishline Script Competition Semi-Finalist placement in 2017.
Headshot was Paul Harker’ first, sustained attempt to write a feature script and was used by him as an entry submission to gain entry to the MA in Scriptwriting at Salford University.
Paul explains ‘It’s a story I’ve grappled with over multiple drafts over a number of years, and it really represents my initial learning curve as a screenwriter. It got two good placements in 2016 and 2017, but at that point I didn’t feel like I could take it any further. Once I got onto the MA at Salford, it sat in a lonely folder on my desktop, largely forgotten.’
‘Once I’d completed my MA, I reviewed my portfolio of works, and upon re-reading, realised three years of intense study had expanded my knowledge of structure in particular, and that there was another redraft in it.’
This redraft was completed in the Autumn of 2020 and after the success of Red Mist during the later part of 2020, Paul realised there was the potential to get Headshot up to the same standard. This was realised with the two competition wins.
