2021 Winners: Narrate Your Own Twilight Zone Competition

THE CONTEST: Imagine a new Twilight Zone episode. Write Rod Serling’s opening and closing narrations. Give it a title and send us your entry …and you did!

Watch Previous Winners: 2020 winners     2019 winners     2018 winners     2017 winners

Congratulations to the 2021 Winners

First Place (tie): Memory Lane by J. L. Hilton
First Place (tie): The Oracle of Hampton Street by James O’Neill
Second Place: The Feature Presentation by James Hughes
Third Place: Fly By Night by Ronald Adams

Submitted for your consideration…

• Stephen Dexter, our extraordinary Rod Serling proxy for this contest, summed it up perfectly: “I’ve truly LOVED doing this.”
• One of our judges wrote to me, “This and the scholarship are my two favorite things that we do.”
• And one of the winners lamented that now he can’t enter again: “It’s a great mental challenge.”

You have before you the fruit of much honest labor: 38 stories that will take you on some surprising flights of fancy. And a video of the contest winners, narrated by Stephen Dexter performing as Rod Serling. This is Stephen’s fifth turn for us, pausing his busy schedule of acting, voicing, writing, and producing, to make these prizes such a treat. You won, yeah that’s cool, but wait—hearing Rod Serling perform your entry? That is seriously special. We thank him for donating his abundant skill and limited time.

Stephen continues to promote his film American Morning, and has received accolades at some amazing film festivals. View the official trailer here. View clips from the film and about making the film at the film’s Facebook page. American Morning takes on gun violence with the interior, personal approach that won Rod so many Emmys. Go Stephen!

A tie in judging gave us four winners—for the third time in a row! I love that…it’s an opportunity to honor more work. THANK YOU to everyone who submitted an entry. We’ve got some good stuff here, and not just the top four.

So here are all the entries, for you to enjoy in the theater of your mind…

ATTRIBUTIONS

Stills and video were collected over the internet from Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and from various sites that did not specify copyright. All art is used in brief under the Fair Use Doctrine. No profit was acrued nor any infringement intended, from use. Below: available specifics.

MEMORY LANE

• Still photo: Older woman with straw hat relaxing, seen in England 1976 | Klaus D. Peter, Wiehl, Germany | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 de.
• Stills from: “1985 Helen Cox Junior High School Yearbook” by NASA Videographer is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
• Stills from: “The Tomahawk High School Yearbook Photo from 1964” by North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
• Clips from: Mean Girls | Original Trailer [HD] | Coolidge Corner Theatre posted on YouTube by thecoolidge.
• Clips from: Top 10 Mean Girls Moments posted on YouTube by MsMojo.

THE ORACLE OF HAMPTON STREET

• Clips from: The Painter – short film posted on YouTube by Zahra Mahdavian. A short narrative story — final project; New York Film Academy (NYFA) Italy; Florence Fall 2016 Written & directed by: Zahra Mahdavian
• Clips from: Acrylic Portrait Painting, posted on YouTube by Drawing & Painting – The Virtual Instructor.
• Clip from: Portrait painting Tutorial – Brushes & How to Achieve Looser Brushwork, posted on YouTube by SIMPLIFY Drawing and Painting.
• Clip from: Painting an Alla Prima Portrait of My Grandmother, posted on YouTube by SIMPLIFY Drawing and Painting.

THE FEATURE PRESENTATION

• Clips from: All Of My Favorite PUNCHES in Films (So Far)! [HD] posted on YouTube by Fandango Movie Clips.
• Clip from: The Caine Mutiny (1954) – The Good Fight Scene (9/9) | Movieclips posted on YouTube by Movieclips 
• Theater ticket posted without copyight: https://gloriatheatre.org/tickets/p/movie-ticket. Modified.
• Still photo: Rialto: The Lives of Others © 2021 by James Hughes. Used by permission.
• Red Curtain Opening Sequence Animation by Miklós Kemecsei (kemecsei.com) Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)
• parking lot, empty soulcrushing void by interrobang. This image was marked with a CC BY-NC 2.0 license.
• Clips from: Movie Montage – An Epic Journey posted on YouTube by Game Ovais
• Exit Sign.jpg Exit Sign – finding the way out by SheDreamsInRed – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
• Tritium-exit-sign.jpg A self-luminous exit sign of the tritium type Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0.
• Exit sign text (red).svg by Fred the Oyster Public domain.
• Exit logo.png Public domain art by Kosta021.This no exit sign is displayed in a Southern, New Hampshire hospital. Taken on 29 July 2017, 14:02:15 by Khrystinasnell. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

FLY BY NIGHT

• Clips from: Explorers modern trailer (english) posted on YouTube by TheROne1974.
• Clips from: Explorers 1985 – MOVIE TRAILER posted on YouTube by Super Fan Trailers.
• Clip from: Real Video of the Sun’s Surface posted on YouTube by ElderFox Documentaries.

END SPEECH

• Clip from cellphones and masks video, posted on YouTube.
• Clip from Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol | Visual Investigations posted on YouTube by the New York Times.
• Clip from coverage of King Soopers shooting in Boulder, Colorado, posted on YouTube.
• Publicity photo from”Mr. Denton on Doomsday” episode of Twilight Zone, posted on YouTube.
• Little friends.png source unknown.
• “I Refuse To Be your Enemy” by Andy Doyle is licensed under CC BY 2.0.