The Next Big Thing [#Wattys2016]

Chapter Six

"Of all the things that are hard about the competition, I personally think that coming up with audition material is the hardest part. It has to be better than everyone else's material, just to get into the competition. Everything gets easier after you actually get into the competition. All you have to do is top your audition material... and everyone else's work, too. But mostly, you just have to focus on your own work, because you don't have time to focus on everyone else, or your work suffers.

"So, that's the secret, I guess. You just have to come up with really good audition material, and if you get in, you'll be all set. A problem arises, however, when you can't figure out what your audition material is going to be."

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Jay sat in his room, listening to footage of his new mini-movie. He was trying to edit the footage together in a way that made sense. In the two weeks since the competition was announced, Jay had spent the time gathering actors to star in his short film for his audition. They all told him that they didn't want to be in the competition, since those were the type of actors he was looking for. He didn't want to be tied down with actors that didn't fit the roles he needed later. Besides, he wasn't looking to audition with a group in the first place.

Jay looked up, averting his eyes from the footage for a moment. Dana was in the corner on his side of the room, painting a new portrait, and Jay could faintly hear classical music coming from the speaker connected to Dana's phone. Dana had always liked classical music, probably because his sister had been classically trained in it, and he had listened to it growing up. His sister had gone to Hawking, too, graduating as top of her class. Dana had always admired her.

Jay looked back at his computer, the footage he had shot was paused. He sighed, and took off his earbuds, throwing them aside on the bed, and closing his laptop lid, with a little more force than necessary. Dana barely seemed to notice. He was too wrapped up in his own little world of painting. Jay got up, muttered that he'd be back soon, and only faintly heard an "okay" from Dana before walking out.

Jay walked out of the building, and then down the quad. He saw many music kids sitting around in circles or by themselves or just with friends, making music. He saw a group of drama kids in standing around, acting out a scene. He even saw some dancers practicing or stretching to their own music coming from small laptops, or even their own phones, set down next to them. Jay sighed, watching all of them being creative, working on their craft.

It forced Jay to admit something that he really didn't want to: he was utterly stuck.

He had a form of writer's block, if you will.

He just felt creatively drained. He had been down the horror/thriller movie road before, like for his school audition piece. He had been down almost every movie road, actually, and he felt that they didn't have much left to offer- at least not at this moment. He'd use the piece that was already completely filmed for the Next Big Thing Auditions, since there wasn't enough time left to film, edit, and score something new.

Jay sat down at a picnic table and sighed. He didn't doubt that he'd be getting into the actual competition, since he knew his piece was good. That, and not too many filmmakers entered into the competition, since they found it too tedious, and time constraining. The problem was that most people were too ambitious for their projects, causing them to write scripts that were too long, and then having to cut out a bulk of their footage, causing the whole movie to become disjointed and odd. Jay believed this was why filmmakers rarely ever won the competition. There had been some filmmakers who were winners in the past, but most of the time it was singers and musicians who won, and the occasional actor. Dancers as winners were another rarity.