Dated: 18 April 2002
The Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA), in partnership with MediaCorp TV 5 and Arts Central, announced the results of the inaugural SBA National Scriptwriting Competition at the Awards Ceremony held today at the Asian Civilisations Museum.
Launched in April 2001, the competition is yet another milestone in SBA's continuing efforts to promote and support the industry. The event creates an avenue for the industry to showcase good scripts that can be translated into quality TV productions which have both local and international appeal.
At the close of the competition in November 2001, an overwhelming 163 submissions were received. The participants were from a whole spectrum, but coming mainly from professional writers and producers, students and aspiring scriptwriters.
The Awards Ceremony was presided by Mr Lim Hock Chuan, Chief Executive Officer of SBA. Participants of the National Scriptwriting Competition and members from the judging panel -- comprising representatives from the broadcasting industry and academia -- were also present at the occasion. The list of judges is in Annex A for reference.
SBA gave away 17 awards with prizes totalling more than $17,000. The list of prizes and award winners is attached at Annex B.
Mr Lim Hock Chuan, CEO of SBA said, "We found the scripts submitted were of high quality. This reveals that there are talented local writers out there, just waiting to be discovered. We are glad that the competition has created an opportunity for aspiring writers to be recognised, and for them to demonstrate their creativity and writing skills".
During the Award Ceremony, scenes from the winning scripts were enacted by the students of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
The top three winning scripts will also be developed and translated into TV programmes for broadcast over national television. The official broadcaster is MediaCorp TV Channel 5. In addition, the top three winning scripts will be compiled into a book which will be retailed in bookshops. In this way, more people can benefit from the fruits of the competition. For example, the industry
and media-related institutions can use the book as a reference or as educational material. The book will be published by June 2002.
CEO SBA has confirmed that the competition will become an annual event. "We in SBA are encouraged by the tremendous response to the inaugural National Scriptwriting Competition. I am happy therefore to announce that the competition will now become an annual event. The next National Scriptwriting Competition is now open and this year there will be two categories for the competition -- namely, drama and documentary.
The guidelines and application forms for the SBA National Scriptwriting Competition 2002 can be obtained from: SBA's Reception counter at 140 Hill Street, #04-01, MITA Building, Singapore 179369, or SBA's website at http://www.sba.gov.sg.
The deadline for the entries submission is 30 November 2002
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