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Forging
a career as a writer requires drive, determination and a certain degree
of staying power. tenacity
is a targeted workshop programme designed to support writers along that
path, to challenge pre-conceptions of the industry and to identify talented
writers in the West Midlands who would benefit from further development.
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How
can writers write TV/Film genre pieces and still keep their work feeling
fresh and new? What strategies can be employed to satisfy the conventions of genre and the genre audience – without becoming formulaic? This day-long workshop will discuss and look at TV and film genre examples that moved our ideas of the genre on, dealing particularly (but not exclusively) with thriller and science fiction pieces. By the end of the day, writers should have some new ideas about how to challenge themselves when writing genre material. Venue: The Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton Cost: £50 (£45 concessions) To Book: Visit www.scriptonline.net/screen.html |
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Phil Ford is lead writer and co-producer of series 3 of Doctor Who spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, having already written 10 episodes for the first two series. His 150th television commission (co-written with Russell T Davies), one of 2009's Doctor Who specials, is now in post-production. He is also writer of the new animated Doctor Who adventure, Dreamland. He has also written for the BBC's other high-profile spin-off series, Torchwood (and recently wrote an original Torchwood novel for BBC Books, and Torchwood radio play). Phil also wrote the online Torchwood game that accompanied the second series. Writer of 22 out of 26 episodes of Gerry Anderson's new CGI series of Captain Scarlett, Phil's other credits include 86 episodes of Coronation Street, a three-part Taggart, The Bill, Heartbeat, Bad Girls, Footballers’ Wives and Waterloo Road. His series Lightspeed is currently attached to Target Entertainment and the Endeavour talent agency in Los Angeles.
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What
kinds of feature and short films are being made and financed in the
UK?
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Dan
Lawson is Head of Production, Development and Inward Investment for Screen
West Midlands, looking after projects ranging from short film production
schemes through to SWM’s feature film and TV drama development funds.
He also oversees Lottery funding for organisations looking to run projects
supporting new and emerging talent. He is committed to creating opportunities
for new and emerging film and television talent to develop, produce and
showcase their work to industry regionally, nationally and internationally.
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From
the traditionally structured TV and film stories that attempt to appeal
to wide audiences – the audiences ITV controller Peter Fincham
called ‘3G’ – three generations watching together
– to the 3D structures of games and online drama that cater for
specialised or niche audiences, this day-long course looks at new ways
of telling dramatic stories across screens of all sizes.
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Graham Joyce is the author of fourteen novels and has won numerous awards for his writing, including four British Fantasy Awards and the 2003 World Fantasy Award. He has also written screenplays of his novels and has recently been hired by the creators of Doom 4 to help develop the storyline potential of the computer game. |
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Where
do characters come from?
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Malika Booker is a British writer of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, who writes poetry. She has also written for the stage and radio. Her one-woman show Unplanned, toured nationwide throughout 2007 and her poetry collection Breadfruit was published by flippedeye in 2008. She is currently working on her first full-length collection. http://tinyurl.com/2ecb6t |
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Writing
for the screen demands many of the skills a writer uses in creating
short stories, novels, radio and theatre plays – but it also requires
new ways of visualising and thinking about plots and characters. How
difficult is it to make the transition from prose storytelling to writing
for the screen – and what are the tricks of the trade?
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Helen Cross was born and brought up in the village of Newbald in East Yorkshire. Her first novel, My Summer of Love won a Betty Trask Award and became a BAFTA award-winning feature film, directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and starring Paddy Considine, Natalie Press and Emily Blunt. Her acclaimed second novel was The Secrets She Keeps and her third, Spilt Milk, Black Coffee has just been published in hardback by Bloomsbury. Helen has previously written several stories and plays for radio, including The Typist Flew to Australie. Stratford Road is her first original screenplay and has been developed with Claire Ingham at Red Room Films, with the support of Screen West Midlands and the UK Film Council. |
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Claire Ingham is a producer and film and television script developer. She works on projects at all stages of development – currently ranging from the adaptation treatment of Eoin Colfer’s bestselling novel The Wishlist to the final draft of Helen Cross’ original feature Stratford Road – to a number of original drama series and serials for the BBC and Channel 4. Claire has previously worked for a number of film and television companies in development roles, |
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including Red Rooster, Alibi Film and Television, Sly Fox Films, SWISH and Ecosse Films. She was Head of Film and Television Development at Impossible Pictures for almost four years where she headed a small team, commissioning and developing a range of TV and film projects for all the major broadcasters, including Jed Mercurio’s contemporary retelling of Frankenstein and Michael Chaplin’s family film Pickles. |
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