As Martyn and Steven continue to build on their impressive success with various projects—both individual and joint—they also continue to enjoy the growing accolades for their screenplays. The latest of which, EXHUMATION, has recently placed as a Semi-Finalist in the coveted Slamdance Film Festival, the Filmatic Short Screenplay Awards (Season 7), and as a Finalist in WeScreenplay Short Scripts. A list of other awards for Exhumation, The Harvesting, Tomorrow’s Flight, and their other projects can be found below.
Here is a full list of all the awards and accolades:
When a piece of an airplane is uncovered in the same strata of earth as a T. rex skull, paleontologists and crash investigators try to determine what happened; meanwhile, plane crash survivors fight to stay alive in a peculiar world of unimaginable horrors.
* BOOK PIPELINE (2018)—Finalist (top 10 among 2000 entrants)
* TABLE READ MY SCREENPLAY—Semifinalist (February, 2022)
* KIRKUS REVIEWS—recommended (November, 2021)
* AMAZON—#1 Bestseller in Time Travel and Time Travel Sci-Fi (2021, 2022)
* AMAZON—#2 Bestseller in Suspense (2021)
* AMAZON—International bestseller, reaching #1 in Germany, France, UK,
Canada, and Australia (2021)
* THE RED LIST @Coverfly—#1 Sci-fi Book/Manuscript of the month
(January, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverfly—#2 Sci-fi Book/Manuscript of the year (2022)
* THE STUNT LIST—pilot episode (2022)
EXHUMATION (Proof of Concept for OCTOBER SEVEN feature) with M.E. Ellington
In 1875, Baltimore’s civic committee decides to exhume Edgar Allan Poe (d. OCTOBER SEVEN, 1849)—buried in a pauper’s grave—and move him to a place of honor, setting off a series of horrific events between a desperate young scrivener and a malevolent gravedigger.
* WESCREENPLAY SHORTS CONTEST (2022)—Finalist
* MIAMI SCREENPLAY AWARDS (2022)—Finalist
* SLAMDANCE SCREENWRITING CONTEST (2022)—Semifinalist (top 8)
* FILMMATIC SHORT SCREENPLAY AWARDS (2022)—Semifinalist
* SCREENCRAFT SHORT FILM SCREENPLAY (2022)—Semifinalist
* FILMMATIC HORROR SCREENPLAY AWARDS (2022)—Semifinalist
* SCRIPTS2COMIC CONTEST (2022)—Quarterfinalist
* FILMMATIC — INROADS FELLOWSHIP (2022)—Quarterfinalist
* LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL SCREENPLAY AWARDS (Summer, 2022)—
Quarterfinalist
* LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL SCREENPLAY AWARDS (Spring, 2022)—
Quarterfinalist
* THE RED LIST @Coverfly—#2 for the month—horror short (May, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#3 for the year—horror short (Oct, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#3 all-time—horror short (Oct, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverfly—#5 for the month—short (Oct, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#6 for the year—short (Oct, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#6 all-time—short (Oct, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#6 for the month—horror (Oct, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#11 for the year—horror (Oct, 2022)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#13 all-time—horror (Oct, 2022)
* COVERFLY—Top 1% of horror short projects (current)
* COVERFLY—Top 1% of all short projects (current)
* COVERFLY—Top 1% of all horror projects (current)
* COVERFLY—Top 1% of all projects (current)
OCTOBER SEVEN (novella—for feature adaptation)
This story recounts the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, interweaving the known historical (and horrific) details with his exhumation 25 years later. The feature screenplay will be available spring, 2022, by Steven Stiefel and M.E. Ellington.
* SCRIPT2COMIC (September, 2021)—Semi-finalist
* SCREENCRAFT CINEMATIC SHORT STORY COMPETITION (2021)—
Quarterfinalist
* FILMMATIC — PITCH NOW (January, 2022)—Quarterfinalist
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#1 Horror Short Story (prose) of the month
(October, 2021)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#2 Short Story (prose) of the month
(October, 2021)
* THE RED LIST @Coverly—#5 Horror Short Story (prose) of the year (2022)
THE HARVESTING (60-minute TV series) with M.E. Ellington
Pilot (Red Rain): John awakens two weeks after a peculiar rainstorm he encountered in northern England, and he learns that most people, including his family, have gone missing; during his search to find those he loves, John must fend off “rejects” who attack those who are still healthy after the red rain.
* OAXACA PITCHFEST (2021) — Finalist
* PITCH NOW SCREENPLAY COMPETITION (2021) — Finalist
* OAXACA FILM FESTIVAL (2021) — Finalist
* VIRTUAL PITCH (2020) — Finalist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4EOYUFOSOc&feature=youtu.be
* BIG BREAK (2020) — Quarterfinalist (diversity)
* THE STUNT LIST (2022)
* OAXACA FILM FESTIVAL (2022)—Finalist (top 15)
* EMERGING SCREENWRITERS GENRE (2021)—Quarterfinalist
* TABLE READ MY SCRIPT (2021)—Semi-finalist
* MANCHESTER FILM FESTIVAL (2024)—Quarter Finalist
THE ASPERN PAPERS (feature film — drama)
Adapted from the Henry James work with an original backstory: A young scholar, desperate to save his failing career, rents rooms in Venice from Jeffrey Aspern’s elderly widow to steal her private letters and learn the famous writer’s secrets.
* LGBTQ UNBORDERED INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
(December, 2020)—platinum WINNER (mystery category)
* MIAMI SCREENPLAY AWARDS (July, 2021)—Quarterfinalist
July, 2021)
BOARD TO DEATH (30-minute sitcom) with Jodi Teti
Pilot (Ed is Dead): Board President Ed’s mysterious death sets off a series of clumsy machinations from those who profit and lose from this tragedy in the low-rent Hollywood condo community where he lived. Who will become the new Homeowners’ Association President? What crimes were committed? Who will do what to get what? While Ed is dead, he will continue to comment on — and affect — the action from a mysterious room in purgatory. Others who live in this sunny, celebrity-desperate dystopia will slowly but surely join him on the Board to Death.
* LGBT LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL (2020) — Finalist
* OAXACA FILM FESTIVAL (2019) — Finalist best TV-pilot
* OAXACA FILM FESTIVAL (2019) — Finalist best overall script
* FILM CRASH (2019) — WINNER — 30-minute sitcom pilot
* CALIFORNIA WOMEN’S FILM/FILM FREEWAY (2019) — Finalist
(top-6 short script)
* TABLE READ MY SCRIPT (2019) — Semifinalist
* SCREENCRAFT SCREENWRITING FELLOWSHIP (2019) — Semifinalist
* PAGE TURNER/FILM FREEWAY (2019) — Quarterfinalist
* CREATIVE WORLD AWARDS (2019) — Quarterfinalist
* STAGE 32 COMEDY WRITING CONTEST (2019) — Quarterfinalist
SHADY GLEN (30-minute sitcom) with Jodi Teti
When active 70-year-old Mary breaks her leg so badly that she needs assisted-living care, she learns that the social and corporate dynamics of elder care are simultaneously horrifying and comedic, and she vows to do what she can to correct both.
* LAUNCH PAD PILOT COMPETITION (2022)—Second Rounder
and on-going competitor
* CREATIVE SCREENWRITING UNIQUE VOICES (2022)—Quarterfinalist
THIRSTONFIELD HALT (One-hour limited series/anthology) Jill and Paul live an idyllic life. After her father’s death followed by a brush with cancer, Jill decides to leave work to blog about her experience, and they decide to move into their forever home. They find what they believe is the perfect candidate — the former rural railway station Thirstonfield Halt. Unfortunately, its true history is only known to its current owners, The Bradbury family. When Paul and Jill show interest, the Bradburys agree to sell it, even though they know the danger it could put its new owners in.
* HORROR ORIGINS (2023)—Official Selection
* PORTLAND SCREENPLAY AWARDS (2023)—Quarter Finalist
* CHIGACO SCREENPLAY AWARDS (2023)—Quarter Finalist
* MANCHESTER FILM FESTIVAL (2024)—Quarter Finalist
Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.
-- Allegra Goodman