You are an aspiring film writer with a story to tell. The final draft is ready.  But your script lies untouched for the lack of your good contacts in the industry. You check out your chances online, but the lack of effective Web resource in India disappoints you.

Hollywood, however, is taking the lead again in this area with sites like TriggerStreet, Zoetrope and Project Greenlight helping raw talent get noticed.

Oscar winning actor Kevin Spacey and producer Dana Brunetti are the big names behind Web-based filmmaker and screenwriter's community triggerstreet.com. The site is "based on the principles of creative excellence, it provides industry access and exposure to help build the careers of notable new filmmakers and screenwriters of our day." It is named after an actual street in the San Fernando Valley where Spacey spent his adolescence, dreaming of building a theatre and making movies. 

Many young talents have already benefited. Debutant writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge was the first to clinch an offer from Trigger Street with the movie The United States of Leland. The site has grown to a 10,000 member strong community of aspiring filmmakers and writers, with a vast collection of short movies and scripts, posted by members. 

The site recently conducted an online short film festival and the winners' works were shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York where they got the privilege of rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti.

"When I met the other filmmakers at the festival this month, I realised this was a ticket to meeting and sharing ideas with other talented film people," says Levi Holiman whose 'All Good Things' won a top spot in the competition. 

"Sometime between November and March we were sitting down behind our computers in whatever obscure part of the world, uploading our new creations.  And in the middle of May we were already in New York City, partaking in a famous film festival, giving interviews, talking to agents and having drinks with Kevin Spacey," says an equally thrilled Marek Posival whose entry Hold Up also won a top spot.

"The fact that we had been voted into the top ten by the most democratic means possible and then voted into the top three of those by a panel of highly respected industry individuals was so pleasing", says James Kibbey, co-director, In Absentia. 

What attracted Mathew Thompson of Sleep towards the project was unbiased feedback from its community. According to Matt Kovalakides of the movie Tenth, "Trigger Street also provides a mechanism for your work to be judged (by general audiences) and to rise to the 'visibility horizon' on the basis of the work's own merit, not on the basis of the filmmaker's insider status (or lack thereof) within the industry. It's democracy at its best."

Francis Ford Coppola's dream for an electronic studio saw him launching Virtual Studio. The site functions like a complete motion picture production studio on the Web that offers powerful collaborative tools for writers, directors, producers and other film artists. As a community, it also includes a number of film-related discussion sections and chat rooms.

Project Greenlight came up as an access for fresh filmmakers to the filmmaking process through Miramax Studio, an HBO documentary series, and an online community. With Hollywood heavyweights like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon backing it, the site launched its first venture titled Stolen Summer in 2002.

Arun Bharali, London based industry watcher, says the biggest advantage is that these kind of sites allows the possibility of getting your script in front of the eyes of Hollywood executives without having an agent. "These days most production companies will not accept script submissions unless they come from an agent. And agents will not even read your script unless you are referred to them by a friend," he points out.

Marek Posival believes the best thing Web do for an aspiring filmmaker is removing the hitch of accessing big filmmaking centres. "Now you can be anywhere in the world and, as long as you have a high-speed Internet connection, you are as close to the action as a guy with an apartment in Hollywood. You can get your work seen, see the work of others, you can be contacted by people who like your work and you can communicate with them."

According to Stuart Creque, an aspiring filmmaker from California, the Internet has made it far easier for people to learn screenwriting, to research materials for screenplays, to get peer review and feedback, and to find industry contacts.

Matt Kovalakides draws a realistic picture when he says that the Internet is just another venue that helps, but warns that it is no magical solution. He hopes that with better, clearer technology, this will change and producers won't have to watch films on postage stamp screens.

What 26-year-old Glasgow based filmmaker Stephen Kilkie finds the Net's biggest advantage is the technological equality. Since the films are compressed while uploading for an easy watch, it levels the playing field. "It doesn't matter if one director had the advantages of a top-of-the-range camera and editing facilities, and you could only afford cheap, second-hand gear; both your films are going to be reduced in quality to such an extent that it'll be hard to tell the difference between them," says Kilkie.

Cut to India. New York-based novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford's recent allegation that the serial Karishma – A miracle of destiny, is a plagiarism of her novel A Woman of Substance, has brought into focus the issue of our filmmakers blatantly lifting plots from Western movies.

At a time like this, the need for an Indian talent pool online is the order of the day. Such sites can ensure that even lesser-known but equally talented young writers and filmmakers can market their ideas, thus reducing our ever increasing dependence on the West.

The Web so far, at least in India has not been active in the area of exposing new writers. Delhi based script writer Vijay Malhotra is positive about the fate of such sites, as many of our filmmakers are turning Net savvy.

Arun Bharali singles out the need for a big star name attached to such a venture, in order to get any funding. "I'm sure the likes of Shahrukh Khan or Aamir Khan could get it off the ground.  The only hitch in India would be the copyright laws. In general, I think Bollywood would benefit enormously if there were more protection of intellectual property for the writers," states Bharali.

But is anybody listening?

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