A series greenlight competition for mobile-first creators. They submit a 30–90 second pilot — the winner receives $2,500 to fund 5 episodes of their series. Open the app to vote for your favorite.
Executive Producer, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Executive Producer, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Gavin Purcell
Former showrunner, The Tonight Show
Former showrunner, The Tonight Show
Kai Turner
Co-host, 5ives podcast
Co-host, 5ives podcast
PILOT CHALLENGE — S01★OPEN CALL★WIN $2,500★Nominees judged by industry professionals and audience members★Voting ends July 27★PILOT CHALLENGE — S01★OPEN CALL★WIN $2,500★Nominees judged by industry professionals and audience members★Voting ends July 27★PILOT CHALLENGE — S01★OPEN CALL★WIN $2,500★Nominees judged by industry professionals and audience members★Voting ends July 27★
From upload to greenlight.
§ 02 — HOW IT WORKS
The Pilot Challenge is Vignetta's search for a great creator microdrama series. Creators submit a pilot episode — the first episode of a potential microdrama series — and we will greenlight funding for five episodes. Full contest rules →
01Closed
Submit your pilot
Upload a 30–90 second pilot episode through the Creator Portal. Detailed submission guidelines are available there.
Vignetta publishes all entries for in-app voting. Voting for the same episode on multiple days is allowed.
03JUL 27
Five entries advance
Three Audience Nominees and two Jury Nominees move to the greenlight round.
04AUG 3
Grand Prize winner
A jury selects one Grand Prize Winner who receives $2,500 in production funding for five episodes of their microdrama series. Four other nominees each receive $150.
Pilot Challenge creators retain 100% ownership of all intellectual property rights to their entries. Full contest rules →
The room your pilot screens in.
§ 03 — JURY
JURY · CHAIR
Todd Makurath
Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere All At Once, Swiss Army Man, and Sorry to Bother You. Pictures evaluated on whether they earn their runtime.
JURY
Gavin Purcell
Former showrunner of The Tonight Show. Co-host of the AI for Humans podcast. Looking for series that couldn't have been made five years ago.
JURY
Kai Turner
Co-host of the 5ives podcast. Cultural critic with a love of formal experiments and a low tolerance for mood-board cinema.
— additional jurors announced monthly · follow #pilot-challenge in Discord —
§ GRAND PRIZE WINNER
$2,500
Production budget for five episodes of their microdrama series. Plus a permanent algorithmic boost on Vignetta.
01
$150 prize
Four remaining nominees each receive $150 prize.
02
Top-of-feed placement
Nominee badge on every piece of content. The algorithm tilts your way.
03
Press + community
Featured in Vignetta marketing, screened in Discord, profiled on launch.
§ 05 — THE PLATFORM
Vignetta is for stories you actually finish.
A creator-owned, mobile-first platform for serialized short video. Episodes, not endless feeds. Audiences that come back for episode two.
