BBC Writers Feed

Creating The Break

2021-04-01T08:41:16+00:00

The latest series of BBC Three's The Break landed on BBC iPlayer this week with all five bold short dramas showcasing some brilliant writing, directing and acting talent.

When Fiona Campbell (Controller of BBC Three) said she wanted the next series of The Break to be from disabled talent we were delighted. We told our Writers’ Access Group (BBC Writersroom's development group for writers with disabilities), and called out to agents and leading disability Arts organisations. We asked for ideas for short films that might fit the brief.

The writers who sent the best ideas were invited to attend a one day workshop based around The Break in particular, and short-form storytelling in general.

Meet the writers of Series 5 of The Break

We then developed some ideas further, working with the production company (BBC Studios) who were going to make the five films. In the end, we all jointly settled on the five stories that went on to form Series 5 of The Break.

Three of the final five writers are from our first Writers' Access Group, and the writers of the other two were invited to join our current group, as were some of the others who got quite far through the process.

Bim Ajadi, director of ‘Oh Toni!’ for The Break, explains their experience of being a film director who is deaf.

BBC Studios went on to interview disabled directors, and started the casting process for disabled performers.

Filming was held up due to Covid, and when we did eventually film in November we took stringent precautions. We could not risk any infections on the shoot, and managed to achieve that goal.

Socially distanced post-production was successfully achieved, with editors working remotely and sending though files for us to view. Some films went through various versions as we worked to tell the story in the clearest and most effective way. The final steps were in a post-production facility in Soho, with much hand sanitiser and mask-wearing, and limiting the number of people in each room at a time.

Let’s Talk: Disability Representation with George Robinson - George Robinson and the cast of The Break talk about disability representation in the TV industry.

Everyone involved worked tirelessly on these films. and we all love the results – I hope viewers enjoy them too!

Today is Anne Edyvean’s last day as Head of BBC Writersroom after six years. We’d like to thank her for her unstinting work supporting new writing and writers at the BBC from across the whole of the UK and wish her all the best for her future endeavours.

Watch Series 5 of The Break now on BBC iPlayer

For the first time all 25 episodes of The Break are now available to watch on BBC iPlayer

Find out more about the writers of The Break series 5

Creating Monster

2020-10-23T10:48:23+00:00

Monster is an innovative audio experience for Halloween created by BBC Research and Development and written by Brad Birch.

Our Development Producer in Cardiff, Helen Perry, introduces Monster, describing how Covid derailed the original plans for Monster to be a site-specific experience, but BBC R&D rescued the project in a way that makes it available to everyone. Writer Brad Birch explains why the story is still the most important thing and why horror is the perfect genre for this kind of technology.

Experience Monster on the BBC Taster website or Listen now on BBC Sounds

Watch the trailer for Monster

2020 has been an extraordinary year. We’re all living in a horror of sorts. And although the creative process is never smooth, little did we know how much our innovative audio project with BBC Research and Development would be affected by the current crisis. Less known still was how, like a snake eating its own tail, art would imitate life. We began the creation of Monster, written by welsh playwright Brad Birch with the intention of hosting it as a one-off installation at BBC Cymru Wales' newly opened Central Square. We were going to create a theatrical ‘haunted house’ experience incorporating the latest technology whilst utilising everyday devices to make an immersive sensory drama about a global pandemic in which homes become invaded by the undesired.

Fast forward to an unprecedented Covid world and the whole nation finds themselves effectively trapped in their homes through lockdown. So with a bit of recalibration, and via BBC Taster, we are now able to bring the monsters to the listeners. We are enabling you to create your own ‘haunted house’ within your own home.

Monster is a lights down, listen closely, innovative drama that can be experienced from the comfort of your living room. Though quite how comfortable you’ll be will depend on how much you want to immerse yourself in the drama - connect more devices & position them where you want in order to orchestrate the level of horror. You make your own unique experience without ever having to step outside!

Here’s the writer, Brad Birch’s own take on the project:

As a scriptwriter, it’s rare to be learning the technical capabilities of a medium whilst writing for it. As tempting as it was to use every tool and trick available to us, it felt important that Monster was more than just a parlour game. We all felt the experience had to be rooted in story, and that the characters and the world had to be vivid enough for this to be able to stand on its own as an audio drama. We couldn’t allow ourselves to think we could paper over cracks with flashy technology, and we also understood that the best showcase for multi-device orchestration would be with an engaging story.

Delyth played by Demi Letherby

I think horror is the perfect genre for this kind of technology. Horror changes our relationship to our environment. When I was a kid, my bedroom always used to give off a weird kind of hostility whenever I’d read a Stephen King before sleep. And the living room felt that little bit colder whenever I used to stay up late and watch a movie like Blair Witch. Or at least that’s how it felt. It’s not that the spaces became more alive, it’s that I became more aware of their deadness, of the fact that I, with my breathing and movement, was a disturbance. I had unsettled the order of the room. As a genre, horror sets fire to our senses. The creaks and groans of the house become part of the experience. Horror affects the whole body – it’s the perfect genre for pushing the boundaries of what is possible in this medium.

Newsreader in Monster played by Sule Rimi

I wanted to write a story that would evoke the kinds of ghost stories I grew up with. Stories about haunted houses tend to be about order and disorder, things out of place. This is the story of a mother and a daughter in crisis, trying to make sense of what has happened to them while the world around them - and around the audience - turns upside down.

The show had a necessarily long gestation, allowing for back and forths between us and technical team – sharing and responding to ideas, offering solutions and finding new ways of thinking about how we all do our jobs. As the writer on the project I knew I had to be adaptable. I had to be prepared to be told that some things wouldn’t be possible and have to scale back. But in actual fact, I found that the majority of the conversations were about pushing further, adding more, testing limits. I think we’re at a really exciting moment for audio drama. There were things that were possible but we decided against using on this project, so I look forward to whatever comes out next.

Experience Monster for yourself now on the BBC Taster website or Listen on BBC Sounds

Find out more about creating Monster on the R&D blog

Meet the Writers of The Break 5 on BBC Three

2020-07-30T08:00:00+00:00

Top row l-r Annalisa Dinnella, Lettie Precious, William Barrington; Bottom row l-r Angela Clarke, Rob Kinsman

BBC Writersroom and BBC Studios Drama Production have announced the five writers who have penned the fifth series of The Break. The bold, short form drama series, now in its fifth year, is a collaboration between BBC Writersroom, BBC Three and BBC Studios and aims to showcase the best original, contemporary stories that reflect modern life in the UK. The short films that make up the series will be available to watch on BBC Three.

The five successful writers are: William Barrington, Angela Clarke, Annalisa Dinnella, Rob Kinsman and Lettie Precious. Each of the writers have disabilities and their experiences are reflected in the stories in all their diversity and humour. Amongst the writers selected this year are three who attended the Writers Access Group, an initiative founded in 2018 that offers talented writers with disabilities the chance to develop their writing skills and secure opportunities across the BBC’s scripted output.

The series will be produced for BBC Three by BBC Studios Drama Production. The Executive Producer for BBC Writersroom is Anne Edyvean and for BBC Three is Ayela Butt. The Executive Producers for BBC Studios are Caroline Levy and Esther Springer.

Anne Edyvean, Head of Writersroom said:
“The aim of The Break is to offer writers from under-represented groups a chance to tell an original, surprising and contemporary story for a young audience. And I am absolutely delighted that our fifth series of The Break is written by five talented writers whose scripts are engaging, funny, sad and full of story and heart. Three of the writers have come from our Writers’ Access Group for writers with disabilities, while two have been offered places on our next Writers Access Group.”

Esther Springer, Executive Producer, BBC Studios Drama Production said:
“I’m proud to be working with these talented storytellers. It’s a privilege to be given this opportunity to experience their worlds which are funny, touching and uniquely relevant. I hope this is the first of many opportunities to work with this group of writers and to tell their stories from their point of view”.

About the Writers and their Films:

William Barrington - Losing It

A university student with Cerebral Palsy has always looked down on people who sleep around, but only because he hasn’t had the chance. His first one-night stand makes him question his views.

London based William graduated from the University of Winchester in 2018 where he made a number of local award winning short films, and in 2019 he received a masters from Royal Holloway, University of London in Screenwriting.

William says: “Growing up with Cerebral Palsy, I often let others speak for me simply because it was easier. However, as I became increasingly interested in making films, I found it was a great way to express my point of view and a BA in Film Production and MA in screenwriting really helped me improve my writing ability. Although I have written several short films, I am thrilled that the BBC have given me a chance to share my work with a larger audience. And, now that I’ve found my voice, I plan to never shut up - so long as actors are willing to perform it of course.”

Angela Clarke - WEED

WEED is about 16-year-old tearaway Liam, who is on the run from ‘the Feds’. Back on the London block he grew up on, Liam is determined to finish his own personal mission.

Angela Clarke is bestselling author of the Social Media Murders (HarperCollins), including Follow Me, Watch Me and Trust Me, and critically acclaimed On My Life (Hachette). Follow Me was named Amazon’s Rising Star Debut of the Month, long listed for the CWA’s Dagger in the Library, and short listed for the Good Reader Page Turner Award. Angela has appeared on CBS Reality’s Written In Blood, has written and performed on stage for BBC Edinburgh Festival (BBC iPlayer), and has hosted BBC 3 Counties Radio show Tales From Your Life. A sufferer of EDS III, Angela is passionate about bringing marginalised voices into creative industries. She is a RSA Fellow.

Annalisa Dinnella - Rude

Would you rather be seen as rude or disabled? That’s the dilemma faced by 18-year-old May as she tries and fails to make her first Fresher’s Week friend.

Annalisa enjoyed a varied career in TV documentary-making before focussing on writing. She has written two afternoon plays for Radio 4 and her first play The Man Who Fell to Earth was nominated for an Imison Award in 2016. Last year, she wrote and presented a show on Radio 4 called Annalisa is Awkward. She is currently working on BBC One Drama Doctors, as well as developing a television drama series and a thriller. Annalisa has 5% vision.

Rob Kinsman - BFF

BFF, is about a teenage girl who has become distant from her friends following a car accident that had left her as a wheelchair user, and has developed an attachment with an ‘augmented reality’ pet monster on her phone. Turnip is a flatulent goblin but he’s also Katie Cartwright’s only friend. She’s in trouble.

Rob is based in East Anglia and studied the Creative Writing MA at UEA. He’s an established writer on Doctors with over 60 credits on the show including the hour-long 2000th special episode. Other credits include Father Brown (including the episode The Man in the Shadows which won the RTS Midlands awards in 2015), Shakespeare and Hathaway, Malory Towers and Holby City.

In 2011 Rob was paralysed from the chest down by a rare illness and became a wheelchair user. In his spare time he volunteers with the spinal-cord-injury charity Back Up, teaching wheelchair skills to people with recent injuries.

Lettie Precious - Tone Deaf

Young, clumsy, sweet, and queer, Toni wants to ask the girl of her dreams to end of year 11 prom and will stop at nothing to win her affections. Only question is, can she do it without killing her?

Lettie is a poet, playwright and author from Sheffield and now based in London. They won the Royal Court and Kudos Fellowship in 2019. Their short play The Grey Area was presented as part of Queer Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre in 2019 and their first full length play, This Is Us, is currently in development with theatre company Graeae. Their previous work has been showcased at Soho Theatre, Oval Playhouse, The Arcola and Theatre Royal Stratford East.

About BBC Studios

BBC Studios, a global content company with British creativity at its heart, is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC Group. Able to take an idea seamlessly from thought to screen, it spans content financing, development, production, sales, branded services, and ancillaries from both its own productions and programmes and formats made by high-quality UK independents. Award-winning British programmes made by the business are internationally recognised across a broad range of genres and specialisms, including factual, drama, entertainment and comedy. BBC Studios has offices in 22 markets globally, including six production bases in the UK and production bases and partnerships in a further nine countries around the world. The company, which makes around 2,500 hours of content a year, is a champion for British creativity around the world and a committed partner for the UK’s independent sector. Created in April 2018 by the merger of two existing commercial subsidiaries, BBC Worldwide and BBC Studios, the company has revenue of around £1.4bn. In the year to March 2019, it returned £243m to the BBC Group, complementing the BBC’s licence fee and enhancing programmes for UK audiences.

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InterConnected - Watch all Eight Lockdown Stories

2020-07-28T11:12:59+00:00

At the end of March 2020 life for everyone in the UK and in many other parts of the world, changed drastically. Confronted with a crisis unlike anything experienced before, we at BBC Writersroom thought the only thing we could do was turn to the writers - to make sense of these strange and isolating times, to bring hope, entertainment and escapism back into our lives.

And so InterConnected was born. An initiative open to everyone, from established writers to those who’d never before put pen to paper. The challenge was to create short form dramas between 5-10 minutes in length, about characters in isolation connecting via video conferencing software, so that we could actually make them via video software whilst in isolation ourselves.

The response was remarkable. We received just under 7000 scripts. An unprecedented amount for us, and in such unprecedented times.

Over the last 10 weeks we’ve been furiously reading, sifting, deliberating, script editing, casting, recording and editing all from our own homes. We’re delighted with all 8 films and their breadth of tone, themes and story. The acting talent they’ve attracted is attributable to the strength of the writing.

We hope this series will act as a creative marker, chronicling these strange times we’ve all been living through. But we also hope that they’re just bloody good pieces of drama by brilliant new writers that will make you smile as you watch them - and maybe feel less alone.

Watch them all below and read introductions from their writers:

Watch Party written by Alegría Adedeji and Jeremy Ojo

Party by Alegría Adedeji and Jeremy Ojo

This "slice of life" piece was a chance to highlight how the quotidien could be enlightening and funny, especially when shared from perspectives you don't often recognise. With lockdown and a pandemic added to the mix, this was an exciting opportunity to play to the strengths of everything suddenly not making much sense and how what would have been regular activities, like going out to see a girl, suddenly become jaw-droppingly exciting. Party came as a result of uncertain times: as the two writers, we'd never formally met despite creating a close bond over the period of writing together. But regardless (or because of!) the restraints of lockdown, our first contact was through Twitter and from there, Party, was born.

The big key word for us was authenticity; we wanted our characters to feel as genuine and realistic as possible as though the audience were listening to a real friendship group, something that seemed to have translated well. The process was incredibly enriching and very funny as we worked on Zoom, sharing the screen and firing jokes at one another. The title, Party, comes from the Party chat used by friends as they talk to one another during a video game; it’s a strangely comforting and comfortable space for men to share their experiences and talk openly about day to day stuff without feeling any pressure hence why our characters speak so freely whereas in other formats they may not have been able to.

Watch Solitaire written by Will Sebastian Clempner

Solitaire by Will Sebastian Clempner

Everything is a commodity these days, including people’s loneliness. Lockdown has increased long-standing societal divisions and allowed some to capitalise on the intrinsic value of human connection. Solitaire was written as a study of the morally corrupt versus the morally conscious and, most importantly, a study of how easily the line between the two can be blurred.

Watch Fred Gets Feedback written by Jill Worsley

Fred Gets Feedback by Jill Worsley

*Winner of the Rose d'Or Award for Multiplatform Series 2021*

Fred Gets Feedback was inspired by a headline about people reconnecting with their exes during lockdown. After I’d clicked on that, Facebook conveniently (creepily) suggested I check out a thread about the most ridiculous reasons for breaking up with someone, and that influenced Act One of the story.

And then somewhere along the way it turned into a rom-com, which is interesting because despite being described as a cynic by most of my friends, it turns out I have a romantic streak. That, or I was feeling the need for hope in a very bleak time.

I think there are a lot of Freds - both male and female - who spend time questioning why they’re single, and assuming there must be something wrong with them. I imagined lockdown would be a time where those thoughts could become overwhelming, and I hope this story will offer a new perspective on that intrusive inner monologue.

Watch A Month of Sundays written by Anna Mawn

A Month of Sundays by Anna Mawn

My Nan always says "that'll never happen in a month of Sundays", and I always thought that sounded so great - chilling at home every day, always having Yorkshire puddings for lunch, no Monday morning to get up for... Then the unimaginable did happen and I was faced with something that looked a bit like a month of Sundays but without the Yorkshire puddings. Wanting to stay creative, and with my final year at drama school on hold, I started to write. The idea for this character-led comedy came to me after trying to hold a weekly online book club that never seemed to go to plan.

Watch Another World written by Lizzie Nunnery

Another World by Lizzie Nunnery

Another World is one of those ideas that's lurked half-formed in the back of my mind for years. For ages, I've toyed with writing a play set in two parallel universes - a naturalistic love story across time and space. And then in the early days of the lockdown, I kept getting stuck on an impossible question: 'Why this? Of all the versions of our world we might have lived in, how did we get here?' So, I started typing and this script came out at speed. The conference call set-up provided a really useful dramatic question: if the call is a room with an open door to any location in the world... who might walk in? What if the life that got away comes staring you in the face?

Watch Commuter Experience written by Munro Gascoigne

Commuter Experience by Munro Gascoigne

Commuter Experience follows a man missing his pre-lockdown life - stress and all. So he employs an online service that allows him to recreate the discomfort of his daily commute, right from the comfort of his own home.

The idea for the film came from me really starting to miss our everyday rituals - the good and the bad. Trapped in your flat all the time, suddenly your nightmare commute can begin to feel like a fond memory. I thought being able to act out those absent rituals could prove to be quite therapeutic, or at very least - funny to witness.

Watch Psychic Overload written by Amna Saleem

Psychic Overload by Amna Saleem

*Nominated for Best Short Form at the RTS Scotland Awards 2021*

This short was inspired by a very brief conversation I had with my ma, when she was stranded abroad at the beginning of lockdown, where she decided to pass her time asking psychics about my love life.

The brief had very specific requirements so I decided to keep my concept simple yet (hopefully) entertaining. I figured that since this short was being made on video-messaging, it would naturally have certain limitations, so it was my responsibly as a writer to work around those.

I wanted to write something that captured the essence of a family who might be separated but are still very much together no matter the distance between them. A few thousand miles isn’t enough to squash that inner child which returns every time your siblings and parents annoy you. No one knows how to push your buttons like your family.

Watch Salvation Calling written by Sinéad Collopy

Salvation Calling by Sinéad Collopy

*Nominated for Best Lockdown Programme – Comedy, Entertainment & Scripted in the Broadcast Digital Awards 2021*

When I first read the spec' for the BBC Writersroom Interconnected submission I started by simply writing down random words and phrases. I had a page filled with words such as emotional impact, humanity, closeness, connect, human touch, silence. I took each of these words and tried to delve deeper into what happens to the human psyche when we are asked to do something that goes against, what we as a species, are essentially designed to do to ensure our survival. When do we need closeness, connection, human touch most in our lives? The answer came instantly to me.

When the person we love most in the world dies. We turn to our families and communities to wrap their arms around us and help us grieve this monumental loss. This vital part of the grieving process has been denied to families across the world as a result of Covid-19 restrictions and self-isolation. Seamus is a reflection of the thousands of people who are mourning alone.

Whilst Seamus is grieving the physical loss of his wife, the character Elizabeth is grieving her separation from her parents who are on the front line. Both totally alone with no one to talk to, Elizabeth has sought solace in her religion and Seamus has sought solace in trying to keep his wife's memory alive.

Whilst we have been asked to physically stay apart, in reality, more and more of us have been reaching out and coming together via volunteering and the internet. The urge to connect as humans has not gone away, it has simply gone online. Pre-Covid-19, Seamus and Elizabeth would have lived in entirely different social circles given their ages and the communities they come from. Having spent many years travelling to Northern Ireland, the history of Belfast as a divided City along these community lines is one that has always fascinated me.

I wanted to write a story that brought two strangers from these divided communities together where the need for human connection outweighed their differences. They laugh together, cry together, heal together, proving that at the end of the day, through wars and pandemics, our humanity will always be our salvation.

Find out more about all the shortlisted writers and watch their video introduction

InterConnected - get Feedback and Advice on this blog post

Get Information and Support at BBC Action Line

Creating a story using Artificial Intelligence

2020-03-12T09:19:00+00:00

Here at BBC Writersroom we have always been interested in new forms of storytelling and what effect they could have on the evolution of scripted narratives for broadcast to a mass audience. So when the BBC’s R&D department approached us as they were looking for writers for an AI storytelling project, involving an interactive Chatbot and a new product called Charisma.ai, we jumped at the chance to be involved.

As a result two interactive stories have now been published on the BBC's Taster platform:

The Act written by Alys Metcalf

Catfish written by Sonia Jalaly.

Have a go at both now and let us know your feedback by answering the questions provided.

We also asked Alys to explain some of the challenges of developing and writing a story in an unfamiliar medium.

The Act written by Alys Metcalf using Charisma.ai

I have a fuzzy memory of being around eight-years-old, sitting in front of a computer screen practically half the size of my entire body, staving off tears of frustration. Despite typing into the keyboard as many verbs as my childhood brain could muster, nothing seemed to get me out of the ‘pitch black room’ that was supposedly ‘spinning very gently’ around my head.

Those of you familiar with the interactive game version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy may appreciate my frustration (though I’m guessing you probably got a lot further than the initial dark bedroom!) That was my first taste of interactive storytelling, and since then I’ve become increasingly interested in the medium, particularly how it hands over a degree of creative control to the ‘player’, giving them the opportunity to influence the narrative for better… or for worse. Instead of passively digesting entertainment, interactive stories endow us with a level of control, forcing us to engage with the characters and their journeys on a much deeper level: creatively, psychologically and sometimes even morally. Black Mirror’s characteristically dystopian episode Bandersnatch is a perfect example of this. Whether you liked it as a form or not, I’m sure a lot of us were left questioning our own moral compass by the end. We reflect on the story as a viewer, but the interactive element means the direction of the story also reflects on us.

Alys Metcalf (r) developing her story with Producer Sophie Sampson (l)

I was called into a BBC writing workshop last year, under the ambiguous understanding it had something to do with A.I. My first reaction was one of shock, um…I think you mean someone else, right? After all, I generally write comedy / drama, and my technical abilities basically extend to turning a laptop off and on again when it’s frozen. As far as A.I. is concerned, the advancement of robots properly freaks me out and somewhere deep down I do sort of think, in spite of all its incredible achievements, that we’ll inevitably exploit technology until it outsmarts us; leading to our ultimate downfall. I mean, if Hollywood sci-fis have taught us anything…it’s that…right?

However, I was pretty relieved to discover that this particular workshop had nothing to do with summoning the likes of RoboCop into the writers' room. Instead, we were to learn how to use a new piece of programming software, called Charisma.ai, in order to write a two-hander interactive story to be played online.

Charisma.ai is a platform that enables writers to intuitively program character dialogue and player responses through a series of connected nodes. The result is essentially a narrative-driven conversation, that is somewhere between a traditional chatbot (check out cleverbot.com) and a choose your own adventure. Despite sounding a bit complicated (and it definitely was a learning process to get to grips with), the basics were relatively fast to learn and I’m pleased to say there were surprisingly few moments of slamming the computer keyboard like an eight-year-old.

Under the bonnet of Charisma.ai - just a small section of the connected nodes that make up Alys's story The Act

At the end of the two-day workshop we were asked to pitch potential story ideas that would be made for the BBC Taster online platform. I wracked my brain for something that played into my strengths (no sci-fi then!) and pitched a comedy idea called The Act. The premise is that the ‘player’ is the Artist Manager of a world-renowned popstar, who is shortly due to perform a big arena gig…but has gone AWOL. The ‘player’ needs to get to the bottom of the popstar’s problem and to convince them to perform. If the ‘player’ is successful then the popstar will perform, but there are various other roads to go down and different outcomes, some more ridiculous than others! I wanted to introduce a level of jeopardy into the mix – that the ‘player’ will potentially lose their reputation and have to face the fans’ wrath if they don’t manage to convince the popstar to perform. This is partly to motivate the ‘player’ to keep invested in the story and also to up the tension and excitement, so they feel that there is something at stake.

I wanted to flesh out the popstar role, ‘Zeejee’, as a three-dimensional, nuanced character, with various quirks and hang-ups. He is charming and funny, but insecure about his abilities as a singer and can sometimes be overly-dramatic and petulant. From time to time, ‘Zeejee’ resembles the stereotypical diva-ish popstar, with ridiculous demands on his rider and the need for constant reassurance. But ultimately, the ‘player’ has the opportunity to get to know the real man behind the façade. We never see ‘Zeejee’, as the interaction is all through typing, so I had to work hard to bring him to life in other ways - one of which was by hearing him sing a section of his new song, after the ‘player’ helps him come up with some new lyrics.

Catfish written by Sonia Jalaly

It’s taken me slightly longer than originally anticipated to write The Act, for a few reasons (…and for once it had nothing to do with self-discipline…although my living room is always curiously clean when there’s a deadline!) One of the challenges is you need to program many diverse responses for ‘Zeejee’, to respond to whatever the ‘player’ types, and it’s almost impossible to second guess what someone might write. So I took a good amount of time coming up with a range of reactions. When programming the potential ‘player’ responses, there’s the option of inputting a ‘wildcard’ node, which accounts for any unanticipated phrases or words. It’s important to make the ‘character’ responses to these wildcards sound specific and tailored.

It’s hard to road-test your own story, as inevitably your own mind works in a specific way and someone else’s is entirely different. Helpfully, The Act was sent out to some people for play-testing, who kindly looked for any bugs, problems in the programming, or strange moments in the dialogue. Fingers crossed anything like this has been ironed out! Top tip: if you break the game, you could always try turning it off and on again?!

It’s been a really enjoyable experience getting to grips with this piece of technology and learning a new skill. I wonder if interactive storytelling really is the way forward for mainstream media, in dramas, sitcoms and films?

Alys Metcalf (l) writer of The Act and Sonia Jalaly (r) writer of Catfish. Both interactive stories are available now on BBC Taster.

Broadly speaking, we’ve become accustomed to having zero input when watching TV / online programmes, other than to turn the volume up. With the development of A.I. in storytelling (including Virtual Reality), we’ll soon have the ability to dictate the direction of our favourite drama, whilst sensorially being a part of it too. In terms of audience enjoyment, I suppose it depends on what you’re after - whether you want that level of agency and immersion. I recently watched cheerleading documentary Cheer on Netflix (hope it’s not blasphemy to mention Netflix on a BBC platform?!) and my god, I would not want to have any interactive part to play in that series. Not unless I had hefty health insurance and a history of being tossed into the air like a devil stick and landing to tell the tale.

But there is something in the thrill of losing yourself in an interactive story. In the chance to step out of your own shoes for a moment and walk in another’s. To speak to characters and temporarily live in worlds you may never otherwise experience. Socially, it may even help build empathy and understand each other’s perspectives a little better… or perhaps it’ll create a league of amoral sociopaths…who knows!

For now, using Charisma AI has given me a fantastic opportunity to explore a different form and discover that, ultimately, the player has as much of a part to play as the writer as I do.

There’s something weirdly fulfilling and freeing about that.

Try The Act, written by Alys Metcalf on BBC Taster

Try Catfish, written by Sonia Jalaly on BBC Taster

Find out more on a blog post by R&D Producer Sophie Sampson

Writing MyDG - a new perspective on CBBC's hit show The Dumping Ground

2020-03-05T15:11:00+00:00

Thabo Mhlatshwa is the writer behind the first series of MyDG, one-minute shorts which show stories from CBBC's The Dumping Ground from a different point of view. Viewers can also post their comments and get replies from the characters. Thabo explains how he got involved and what he's learnt from the process.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a storyteller. But having had my lack of directing skills ruin a number of decent short scripts, I finally had the humbling epiphany that maybe I wasn't meant to be the one calling the shots whilst behind the camera. And so I decided to stick to screenwriting - something, I felt, that I was at least passable at. And having had scripts get to the full read-through stage and receive positive feedback in both the comedy and drama script windows of the BBC Writersroom, as well as getting shortlisted, or placing in other writing opportunities I gained confidence that like Craig David, I was ‘Born To Do It’.

But writing for a kid's show? Nah, surely not me. Which is actually a weird thing for me to say because my work tends to be concerned with the issues that young people face. I love the raw emotions that youngsters display, before society and adulthood gets them to suppress their feelings - they can laugh at the funniest joke anyone has ever told, cry at the saddest story anyone will ever hear and fall in and out of love with their soul mate - and they can do all of that before they’ve had their first mouthful of Corn Flakes. But when I heard about an opportunity to write online content for CBBC’S drama, The Dumping Ground I have to be honest and admit, I was not sure I was the right fit.

At this moment I feel I should bring it back for just a second, and tell you how this opportunity landed on my lap. Sue Needleman - not only is she 'The Dumping Ground’s' casting director but, in another, admittedly lesser-known role, she is also my Ambassador of Quan - I call Sue this every time I see her, despite having my doubts about whether she has ever even seen Jerry Maguire, and even if she has I reckon she does not remember Cuba Gooding Jr's character using that term in it. But calling her that is better than screaming ‘Show me the money’ each time we meet. Anyway, I met Sue through my 9-5, which thankfully happens to be adjacent to the creative industry. I eventually spoke to her about the fact that I'm an aspiring screenwriter, in a genuinely conversational, non thirsty kind of way. Sue, perhaps thanks to my not being pushy, then asked to read one of my scripts. I wasn’t sure she would be a fan but I was wrong. Not only did she love it, but she stuck her neck out by mentioning it to various producer friends of hers, which has led to that project getting an option with Lime Pictures. As I said, she’s my Ambassador of Quan.

Sue then mentioned my writing to The Dumping Ground’s Exec Producer, who was kind enough to give me advice about some of the opportunities that open up for new voices on the show. At this point I felt that I should really get acquainted with the show. So one weekend I blitzed a whole load on the BBC iPlayer. For those of you who don’t know, The Dumping Ground is set in a kid's care home, and was given the name by perhaps its most well-known, former resident, Tracy Beaker. As the show stars children from the most broken of homes serious issues are never far from the fore. With its disparate group of characters and thought provoking issues, the show kind of reminded me of Byker Grove, a programme which I can still quote from, despite having not seen an episode in over 20 years. Clearly Byker had a strong impact on me, and I could see how The DG could have a similar effect on today’s younger generation. The show finds a way for its big laughs and tear-jerking moments to sit alongside one another, without ever appearing jarring. A feature I try to incorporate in my writing. “Make them laugh, Make them cry…”

So when the BBC Writersroom - at the urging, I’m sure, of The Dumping Ground’s Exec' - alerted me to the fact that they were looking for writers to work on an online spin-off entitled, MyDG, I was by then a fan of the show, and I knew I had to give my all to be involved.

The aim of this spin off was to have a character give a retelling of a storyline from each episode via a voiceover, and for this retelling to give the audience a new perspective on what they had just seen. All this was to be done in a social media format - I guess like what you would see on an Instagram story. Oh, and this all had to be done within one minute. This opportunity is an example of how shows are continuing to increase their online presence, keeping fans hooked by allowing them to engage with original extra content, and (just as importantly!) providing us writers with additional opportunities to work with the characters and world in a creative environment. So, I threw my hat into the ring, by pitching two MyDG episodes based on previously aired episodes of the show. Thankfully the team liked what I sent them and called me in for an interview, and then they liked me in person and so I was commissioned to write the first 12 episodes of MyDG. After getting sent previews of all 12 episodes of the current series, I had to pitch which character I wanted to write for, and what angle I would take. And that’s when the really hard work began.

Now I know what you’re thinking because I thought the same - one minute to tell a story? I’d be able to knock these out in my sleep. Especially as I had a half-hour episode to draw from for inspiration. But that thought process led to my first mistake. The self-congratulatory pats on the back I gave myself when completing a first draft quickly morphed into something more violent when I realised I hadn’t just allowed myself to be inspired by the main episode, but had fallen into the trap of simply writing an abridged version. I was tasked with giving a fresh perspective. The only way the audience was going to go online and watch my creation was if they felt that MyDG was giving them bonus material, that was not to be found in the main broadcast. A truncated version of what they had just seen wouldn’t cut the mustard.

And so to allow the characters a fresh take on the episode I employed the Rashomon effect, where no two accounts of the same event will ever be identical. And to set this in motion I imagined how the characters might relay the event if they met a friend outside of The Dumping Ground over a couple of pints… of milkshake. This allowed for their personal motivations to influence their retelling, and helped give me that fresh look we were all looking for.

With this being my first CBBC commission, I was obviously keen on making a good impression. The way to do that, I told myself, was to let loose with some million dollar, showy writing. Flip the characters, on their head, and show a side to them that might not have existed previously. Really put my stamp on the show. That would be good right? Wrong. The reinventing of a character was not my job. What I wrote had to fit into a universe that existed long before I joined it, and will carry on long after I have left it. For the brief moment I was part of it my job was to be a custodian of these characters and leave them in a good place for the next step on their journey. Sometimes the best way to make a good impression is by just simply sprinkling a dash of salt on to what is already a well prepared dish.

So, just a few months after hearing about this opportunity, I had pitched, interviewed, got commissioned, and written 12 x 1 minute long episodes, all of which I am really proud of. And these episodes cover topics that range from losing a parent, relationships, pressures of social media… basically, a lot of heavyweight issues. So in that short space of time what did I learn?

Children’s TV is not to be sniffed at. It definitely required some adjustments from me, but once these were made I found that young people naturally provide a rich source of drama and comedy, and for a writer, both of these go hand in hand. And as an audience young people's tastes are as sophisticated and demanding (perhaps even more so) than adults.

Sometimes what we write does not have to be perfect - This is slightly controversial, but as writing is such a collaborative process, sometimes it makes sense to just get your ideas out there, even if you feel they are not quite on point, rather than struggling (and more than likely failing) to get them to that perfect state where we all feel they should be. A fresh pair of eyes reading your work will bring fresh ideas, that will allow your story to get to a place that might be different from the one you had imagined, but is more often than not infinitely better. Just get it done and get it out there. Remember, a half decent, finished script is of more use than a half finished banger!

ABN - Always Be Networking. I know that like pitching, networking is something that fills so many of us writers with dread. Especially as the word networking is so often followed by the word event! I get it, it all feels so forced. But the fact of the matter is that no one will be more passionate about your voice and your work than you. So do it. All the time. Until it's organic, and feels as natural as you talking about what you had for dinner. At that stage you might find yourself casually talking to a friend who you would never normally dream of networking or pitching to, and that friend might become your Ambassador of Quan.

And (this is one thing that I didn’t really touch on above) the importance of writing in a character's voice - No matter how good your story is, if the voice it is written in is not quite there, the audience will not be able to buy into it. So if you are ever invited to write for a continuing show, engrain yourself into it. Read the scripts. Watch the extra online content. Get to know the nuances of each character. That extra work can be the difference between hearing ‘mmm, something doesn’t feel right’ to hearing ‘that’s a really solid draft.’

Watch MyDG now on the CBBC website - whole series (episodes are unlocked after each episode of The Dumping Ground is broadcast)

Join in the conversation and read the character's replies to each episode

The Break 4 on BBC Three - Meet the Writers

2019-09-09T09:00:00+00:00

The 4th Series of The Break, our returning strand of exciting contemporary drama shorts by writers new to broadcast, launches today on BBC Three. For this 4th series all the writers are from Northern Ireland.

Watch all five now on BBC iPlayer and find out more below, including meeting the writers and hearing from the Executive Producers about why it is so important to tell fresh stories and showcase the wealth of talent from Northern Ireland.

These five contemporary films about life in Northern Ireland gave our brilliant and dedicated emerging writers (Jan Carson, Karis Halsall, Louise Nesbitt, Seamus Collins and Emily DeDakis) the chance to tell stories and tackle vital real life issues affecting young people here and beyond.

Developing these heartfelt, universal tales that could only come from here was a treat, and helping our writers to paint their picture of a contemporary and relevant Northern Ireland was a welcome and refreshing change. We are among the best storytellers in the world and we have more than one story to tell, hopefully these ambitious, arresting and unique pieces can break through and show that to as wide an audience as possible.

Thanks so much for the writers and their dedication and invention, to BBC Studios and Artis Pictures for putting so much into making them, to NI Screen for their constant support and to BBC3 and Drama Commissioning for the opportunity.

Keith Martin – Producer, BBC Writersroom/ Executive Producer, The BREAK

This year's projects shone out with their empowering and unexpected points of view on provocative or sensitive subjects. As a modern showcase for Northern Irish talent and fresh Northern Irish stories, these films introduce audiences to unforgettable characters and contemporary stories, with universal themes. We strove hard to subvert and inspire and dare to dare. All the teams rose to the many challenges of making such ambitious stories on a low budget and the economies and focus to tell what was most vital in just six minutes. We all learned a huge amount along the way, on screen and off. The result we hope will be wonderfully unexpected to audiences, films that are revelatory in content and character. We congratulate all the teams for all their hard work and talents, which we had the privilege to support.

Kate Croft - Executive Producer, Artis Pictures

Karis Halsall - Writer: Clean

The subject matter in CLEAN is currently a very divisive topic in Northern Ireland. It’s also something I have direct personal experience of, so working on it brought both private and public challenges. That said, my first take away from this would be - write the thing that scares you. It can be incredibly cathartic and rewarding.

Right from the offset I knew I didn’t want another maudlin, stereotypical depiction of a ‘victim'. It was really important therefore that I showcased my central character Kerry’s humour, despite what’s happened to her. Being a ‘victim’ doesn’t define her. Her character does. Kerry to me personifies the whip-smart wit, warm nature, wicked humour and resilience that define the people of Northern Ireland.

Coming from a theatre background, writing a five minute piece for TV was a steep learning curve. Thanks to Keith and my brilliant script editor Hamish, I quickly learnt that less is definitely more. TV holds your audience in a confined, intimate, close up space. You don’t need to use lyrical writing that’ll impact people sat at the back of the Gods. It was a hard lesson in brevity!

The team at BBC Writersroom were so incredibly supportive throughout. I always felt safe, heard and championed, which was vital when making work about something so personal. They were always fighting for me and my story and I am so proud of what we created together. So often in the media, survivors are presented as nameless victims. It’s easy to dismiss a nameless victim and I’ve been surprised by the flippancy with how people have spoken about the issue. I hope in some small way, Kerry might make people re-evaluate their behaviour.

Watch CLEAN on BBC iPlayer

Louise Nesbitt - Writer: Hot Mess

HOT MESS is a comedy about dating while mentally ill. After reading that about how almost half of all young people in NI have experienced mental health issues it felt important to tell a story that wasn’t about being cured but about finding joy in living. I wanted to show a character with mental illness who was funny and likeable and loved, the antithesis of what we normally see on screen.

For me the script development was the most important part of the process. Finding out how much better the development can make a script has changed the way I write. I’ve found that now I’m considering so many more factors from the very first draft and asking myself essential questions about every aspect of a script. Overall it’s made my writing much more robust and reasoned allowing me to assess what’s really important about a story.

From being on set surrounded by people with copies of the script that I had written to seeing my work on screen, the scale of it was completely surreal.

I am so grateful for the support of the BBC Writersroom in trusting me to say something that I felt was necessary while also letting me really go all in with my Legally Blonde jokes.

Watch HOT MESS on BBC iPlayer

Emily DeDakis - Writer: Last Night in Belfast

You rarely think about how it began once you’ve seen how it ends.

This tiny love story set in my neighbourhood, North Belfast, started as pure homesickness for 24-hour diners in Washington, D.C. Then realising that the only all-night places in Belfast are staffed by one person behind bullet-proof glass. The oddity of someone else shopping for you in the middle of the night. Questions about desire — wanting what’s on the other side of the window. What happens when you have no control over whether you go or stay? Early in the drafts, I described it to one of the producers as ‘a cross between St Elmo’s Fire and a deportation letter my friend got from the Home Office’. Unrequited love can be for a place too.

This is my first go at TV, and I learned tonnes. I had amazing support from Hamish, Keith & Anna at BBC Writersroom and PJ, Kate & Steven the producers, not to mention the folks at the all-night petrol station next to my flat. Storytelling in this new-to-me way meant switching out all of my usual writing muscles (I’m mostly a prose person). Pitches and treatments became beat sheets and eventually scripts. Multiple drafts of all of the above. So many iterations of even something so small. Part of what I now love about writing TV are the many versions of this that exist for me as the writer: I remember the rejected titles, the things that were of course impossible to pull off in the shoot (songs, police vans, dogs, a sweeping shot of the Crumlin Road courthouse as Vivi sprints by), and what was added with Aidan’s and the whole creative team’s minds in the mix: the vintage sneakers, the headphones, the graffiti, and new emotional depth. I can enjoy how Vivi’s written lines lived and changed shape in Ana’s amazing voice. (It was her first time working in English. Total hero.) What I first imagined as kinda silly and cinematic became more polished, sweeter and darker — and yet also exactly what it started as, a tiny love story set in my adopted neighbourhood.

I’m really fortunate to be part of the BBC Writersroom development group in NI, Belfast Voices, which is where I heard about this opportunity. There are so many deserving voices here; please listen to these here in The Break series, and seek out more. If you’re a NI writer, start something, get it out there and stick with it. Through all the many drafts.

Watch LAST NIGHT IN BELFAST on BBC iPlayer

Jan Carson - Writer: Wings

The Break was my first experience of writing for television. I’ve written a number of pieces for BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3 and love radio so much I’d never really considered screen writing as an option.

I’ve always heard that writing for television is incredibly competitive and difficult to break into and so I’m incredibly grateful to the team behind The Break for giving me a really fantastic -and I think- authentic experience of what it’s like to work with producers, directors, actors and all the various creatives who worked together to bring my script to life.

I gained an incredible amount of insight into the world of screen writing through The Break. It was practical and hands on and there was always a team of more-experienced writers on hand to support me throughout the process. I learnt how to write more concisely, how to bring immediacy into my writing, how to take critique and direction, and above all, how to create within a team. I’m primarily a novelist and normally work by myself or with a single editor.

The opportunity to work alongside a large production team was a really invaluable creative experience for me and definitely something which I’d like to repeat in the future.

Watch WINGS on BBC iPlayer

Seamus Collins - Writer: Bin Bagged

I have always said* that my three favourite types of people are underdogs (like Frodo Baggins), people who aren’t afraid to stand up to authority (like Muhammad Ali) and people who swear a lot (like Gordon Ramsey.) Therefore, it’s unsurprising that my first idea for The Break series 4 was about a tiny, hairy-footed boxer/political activist who travelled around Middle Earth improving restaurants (while swearing a lot.)

Thankfully, my next idea was better. Chloe – a young girl in foster care who makes a huge mistake at school and desperately tries to get away with it (while swearing a lot.)

I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to work with and learn from the many wonderful script editors, producers and directors involved in this project. They all gave me such great advice and help (while swearing a lot.) As Chloe became more and more developed, I realised that I have a fourth favourite kind of person – people who are lost and in need of help.

This is what I wanted to capture with Bin Bagged. I hope I have done that (while swearing a lot.)

*I have literally never said this.

Watch BIN BAGGED on BBC iPlayer

WATCH ALL 5 EPISODES ON BBC IPLAYER

Find out more about Series 1, Series 2 & Series 3 of The Break

Social Media and TV Drama

2019-06-17T14:38:16+00:00

Ben Rawson-Jones is a freelance Social Media Producer who started his career setting up and running the official feeds for The Apprentice and The Great British Bake Off. He then moved to BBC One as their Social Media Executive, leading campaigns for Doctor Who, Poldark, The Missing, Doctor Foster and Our Girl before leaving to run The Crown’s social accounts for Netflix and work as a part-time Social Media Creative Director on EastEnders.

Social media is seen by some as the scourge of good television drama. The battle to avoid spoilers for fans of shows like Line of Duty, Game of Thrones and Killing Eve has seen Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the rest take on the role of the archetypal antagonist that seeks to thwart your goal. Yet social platforms are also playing an increasingly prominent role in connecting audiences – especially younger ones - to the narratives and characters of drama. Not through hubristic marketing pushes or tacky memes, but with creative extensions that aim to immerse the audience even further in the story.

The Rise Of Television Social Media

When I first began working in the social media industry (in the dim and distant world of 2010), it was very much the domain of entertainment and reality shows. Setting up and running social feeds for the likes of The Apprentice and The Great British Bake Off involved plenty of dubious punnery and whipping up excitement in a jazz-handed manner. But soon patterns emerged as posting plans started to take on a fixed narrative structure that would play out during and beyond the episode.

Potential heroes and the challenges they faced were foregrounded, with the hopeful audience only uncrossing their fingers to launch supportive tweets. One main protagonist would tend to emerge, often needing to overcome their self-doubt to stand any chance of success in the final act. If the hero/heroine were successful, the joyous audience would be treated to a self-reflective speech that highlighted their character growth since the beginning of the series. Such words are social gold that would travel far and wide…

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BBCOne/status/651849019954696192

The Move to Drama

In contrast, until a few years ago, coverage of dramas on social media tended to be limited to marketing pushes driving people to broadcasts alongside reproducing key moments, such as a nice character quote. It was more a case of replication than doing anything consistently creative alongside broadcast of the fictional material. However, a turning point emerged with the first season of Sally Wainwright’s BBC One drama Happy Valley.

Running the reactive social media campaign during the broadcast, I sought to turn the Twitter feed into an emotion-led individual rather than a detached curator. A viewing companion for those who can’t resist ‘second screening’ on their phones or laptops while a show unfolds.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BBCOne/status/468856988646899712

My aim was for the commentary to really root for our heroine, Sarah Lancashire’s beleaguered Sergeant Catherine Cawood, and react in a way designed to relate to the feelings of viewers sat on their sofas watching at home. Through studying each episode in advance of the broadcast, I identified the key character moments and turning points in the plot, and shaped these into posts.

The tone of voice was crucial and derived from the empathy and determination of Catherine Cawood. It needed to have a sense of urgency and convey the high stakes of the drama unfolding on screen, while also knowing when to release the grip in line with the feelings of the audience.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BBCOne/status/471389274240475137

This approach proved successful, with social posts being shared widely on young-skewing platforms and attracting new audiences to the show.

Following this success, more time and investment was accorded to drama coverage, with talented design teams coming on board to work on priority productions, ensuring that social media posts looked suitably ‘premium’.

The social campaign for period drama Poldark’s first season built on this, connecting younger viewers to a genre that traditionally skewed towards an older audience by focussing on emotion in a way that didn’t feel stuffy or traditional (but also didn’t betray the narrative tone).

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BBCOne/status/582285523848437760

Being ‘social’ on social media and giving viewers a voice proved pivotal too, with key character choices put to those at home for their verdicts. This helped to draw people closer to the story and to take them inside the heads of the characters, which heightened reactions to later dramatic (and sometimes devastating) payoffs.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BBCOne/status/592434446336401408

The launch of Doctor Foster in 2015 built on Happy Valley’s strategy of getting us all rooting for the scorned lead. As with many new dramas, it was slow-going at the beginning of the series in terms of engagement on social, as people were still getting to know the characters and forming their allegiances. I played the long game, as seeds were sown with posts such as this inciting incident in the first episode:

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BBCOne/status/641704602518323200

Unlike a conventional marketing push where the impetus is around the premiere and the season finale, the smart strategy for social is to build each week – leading into a finale where the payoffs arrive and the engagement goes through the roof.

For its stunning first season finale, Doctor Foster delivered BBC One’s most liked Facebook post of the year:

Social Exclusives & Narrative Extensions

The next evolution was to use a show’s social platforms for more than just promotion and reaction. This of course relies on the writer, production and cast being game.

BBC One’s Our Girl is a great example of the value of social media in creating a devoted audience that’s highly emotionally invested. The fledgling show, about female medics in the British Army, was scheduled opposite the then ratings juggernaut X Factor for its first season in 2014. Gulp. While the ratings were steady, it emerged as the most tweeted about new drama of the year and cultivated a young, devoted (and mainly female) online fanbase from scratch.

The show was supported by ‘narrative extensions’ that played out on social after every episode, in the form of a series of letters.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/bbcone/status/523904045699039233?s=21

These letters were written home to loved ones by the soldiers. That concept stemmed from a brief scene in the opening episode where we can see a few of the soldiers scribbling away in their overseas army base. Wouldn’t it be interesting to read their intimate thoughts?

I was very privileged to work with Our Girl’s creator and writer Tony Grounds on assembling these letters each week, which expanded on key emotional beats and plot developments just witnessed. They brought the audience closer to the protagonists – and encouraged deeper emotional investment in the story.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BBCOne/status/518870783666688000

Later seasons of Our Girl not only shifted the protagonist from Lacey Turner’s Molly Dawes to Michelle Keegan’s Georgie Lane, they also developed the social extensions. Gone were the old school letters and in were the mobile phones. These posts offered the now well-established fanbase something special, that they felt was ‘just for them’, alongside helping to engage with potential new fans.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BBCOne/status/916981760893771778

Of course, this requires the drama’s writer to understand the value of social media extensions to the world they’ve created and be open to them, something which Our Girl creator Tony Grounds has embraced. As he explains: “Social media is here to stay and dramas need to embrace it. It will get bigger and bigger. Influencers are becoming more important than reviewers, who no one reads. The success of a show is as much about word of mouth (in which social media is key) and the actors using their fan base to get people to tune in.”

However, Tony Grounds also thinks writers need to develop a thick skin… “Someone once said to me social media was like diving into an amazing ocean... until your programme actually transmits then you realise you are clinging on to a sewage pipe and you have to cling on tight as the s**t and vitriol smash you to pieces. It’s part of the real world, albeit a very small part, and often the s**t is the stuff that sticks rather than anything pleasant, but I’m not sure the noisy ones reflect the nation. So part of me thinks no writer should go near it, but... it’s too tempting not to dive in.”

Social media extensions to drama also have the ability to push the limits of the world and develop it in a way that would never happen within the traditional television broadcast.

This year on EastEnders, I wrote a special fake preview scene for April Fool’s Day that was incorporated into the filming schedule and featured stars Danny Dyer, Ricky Champ and Luisa Bradshaw-White all in character. It started off like a normal scene, but the boundaries of plausibility were soon pushed. The clip quickly racked up over one million views on Facebook and garnered positive media coverage. All credit to the EastEnders production team for seeing the value of social and making this happen.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/bbceastenders/status/1112657523004399617

Finding Your Voice

Much like ensuring character voices remain distinctive in a script, finding the right tone of voice for a social campaign surrounding a drama can be pivotal to its success and also extend the world to a younger audience.

As an example, I worked on the Twitter feed for the first two seasons of Netflix’s The Crown. The intent was to embody the essence of the young Queen Elizabeth II in the personality of the social platform – to mimic her voice and even interact with the audience ‘in character’. Obviously, a twenty-something monarch from the 1950s hasn’t been swept up in a time storm and transported to the present day in order to tweet. No amount of persuasion could entice writer Peter Morgan into incorporating that as a subplot!

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/TheCrownNetflix/status/939215527658115073

To achieve this, I had to comb through the scripts and episodes, noting down key phrases and recurring words spoken by the Queen – and also her rhythm and flow of speech. Not unlike a sportsperson training their muscle memory, a writer can imbed a character’s voice in their head with a lot of hard work.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/TheCrownNetflix/status/966695986994216961

And how does the show benefit from this? The payoffs involved plenty of fun and increased interaction, really helping to drive attribution and loyalty towards the show by giving it a clearly defined personality.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/TheCrownNetflix/status/950482649088438272

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/TheCrownNetflix/status/946074088396722176

What Next?

With the social media juggernaut growing and being so embedded in the lives of young audiences, how long is it before continuing dramas and soaps seek to not just incorporate but start running the fictionalised social media lives of their characters? It’s hard to imagine a Phil Mitchell Instagram feed (presumably it would solely feature awkwardly framed, filter-free photos of fry-ups from Kathy’s café), but many of the characters in the soap world do have social feeds and are often seen scrolling away and taking snapshots to share.

A precedent has already been set by SKAM, a Norwegian series about a group of teenagers that played out solely using social media posts and mobile communications between the characters. It was snapped up by Facebook and remade in the United States last year as SKAM Austin. Could it be a sign of things to come for an industry that needs to reach younger audiences?

Virtual Reality needs talented writers

2018-06-25T10:35:30+00:00

What if virtual reality was more about writing craft than tech? VR offers writers undreamt-of possibilities. As Mathias Chelebourg puts it: "Think of the classic horror shot in cinema. You’re in the living room and you can’t see the monster coming from the hall. But in VR you can lean around the door and look in the hall."

Chelebourg was speaking at a BBC Writersroom and BBC VR Hub writing workshop – an event held with the aim of introducing a new generation of talented writers to the challenges of writing for VR.

Mathias Chelebourg (front right) at the workshop for writing Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is often portrayed in terms of technical advances. But to achieve its creative potential as a storytelling medium, it needs great writers too. BBC television drama evolved in a similar way - from its earliest days with static cameras capturing theatrical productions to creating specially written television productions. Those came out of creative experimentation, using technological advancements that allowed ambitious shooting, cutting and mixing. VR can win huge audiences in the same way, by harnessing cutting-edge technology to the best storytelling.

Today, VR is still highly experimental and constantly evolving, but the technology is improving fast. VR is now ready for the creativity of writers who have learnt their craft in other worlds including theatre, film, TV, radio and games. For some genres, such as documentary, there is some understanding of how to create compelling VR content. But drama - and scripted drama in particular - needs more experimentation to redefine it for VR. This means making better use of techniques only possible in VR such as fully immersing viewers in other worlds which they can interact with.

And there’s much to experiment with because VR comes in many forms. The biggest distinction is between interactive (game-like) and non-interactive (film-like). Interactive VR is usually delivered in a game engine - a CGI world generated in real-time, which you can walk around and alter by your actions. Non-interactive is often live-action, filmed with 360 cameras, but can be a 'baked' CGI world, or animated/drawn, or any other visual style you might find in film. Scripted stories can be delivered with either approach.

Writers from the group had the opportunity to experience different kinds of storytelling in Virtual Reality

Although we are trying to provide writers with useful pointers to help them adapt their writing to the needs and possibilities of VR, Chelebourg was keen to stress that there are no rules and that experimentation is vital:

“VR is evolving. Keep watching VR. Keep trying experiments. If you think you can’t do something in VR, someone will be doing it and it will be working.”

Mathias Chelebourg, based in Paris, has worked in VR since 2012 and has written and directed a range of VR experiences including commercial work for brands. Recently he has created some high end drama experiences that merge immersive theatre with VR, such as Alice - a virtual take on Alice in Wonderland where you become Alice and interact with characters played by actresses using live motion capture techniques.

For Chelebourg, VR does not change writing, rather it has added a series of new tools to staging and editing. That includes compelling interactions within a narrative. He uses a variety of scripting techniques for VR, from storyboarding with images for films, through to detailed scene by scene descriptions breaking down each moment into character, environment and interactions.

There were plenty of other perspectives too at the workshop. Game writer Rob Morgan offered some important advice on a fundamental shift in thinking that writers need to make when approaching VR - and that involves focusing on the audience - and the active role they play in a VR experience. He says there is no such thing as a non-interactive VR experience.

“As players in VR we need to understand our role in the scene. We are more radically present in that scene then we are in any other type of media. We are participants in the simulation, never just spectators.”

Morgan stresses that to be successful, VR has to be a collaboration between player and story. Writers need to show the player where they stand in relation to the fourth wall and the characters. For this reason, VR is closer to theatre than to cinema.

”You have to build the space around the player. You have to create a space that ensures that wherever you’re looking they get it. And you have to work with the player to create that experience.”

A player can just be a ghost observing the scene – but their role needs to be consistent. And as long as you tell the player what they are then it works.

“All the conceit you need is: what object am I? It could be a toaster! As long as you tell the player.”

This is important for 360 video too, as well as for CGI-based interactive VR experiences.

Experiencing Virtual Reality at our writers' workshop, held at Digital Catapult's Immersive Lab

Alastair Leithead, the BBC’s Africa Correspondent shared a tip his team used when filming the BBC News VR documentary Damming the Nile.

Here the viewer travels with Alastair down the Nile, to discover the impact of a huge dam being built in Ethiopia.

Alastair’s production crew gave the 360 camera they used to shoot the film a name – Marvin – and even bought him a hat to keep him cool.

“Giving the camera a name was one of the best things we did. It gave him an identity and we started to relate to him as if he were there.”

Alastair Leithead in Khartoum with 'Marvin'

This meant that when they filmed a scene sitting around a table in an Ethiopian restaurant their first thought was where should Marvin sit? As a result, when the viewer puts the headset on to watch the film – they become Marvin and feel included in the experiences. Alastair even offers them a glass of water.

In the next few weeks we will blog again to explore in more detail some of the writers’ thoughts on how to approach writing for VR. Meanwhile here are some guiding principles from the BBC’s VR Hub about how to get started.

VR Hub Tips on Writing for scripted VR drama

WHAT CAN VR OFFER DRAMA?

VR can take you to places and provide experiences that are impossible or not advisable in real life.
It delivers immersion - where the place is the story. Hard-to-visualise places are especially good, where VR can show the viewer a sense of scale and how things relate in a space.
Presence: it can place you in the scene - helping you to feel present, and allowing you to emotionally engage directly with the characters and story in a way that’s unique to VR.
Embodiment and interactivity - occupy new and impossible forms, using your new body to interact with the world and characters around you.
Distraction-free, ‘enclosed’ viewing allows for potent creation of mood and atmosphere.
Remember to ask: Why is this story best told in VR!?

DRAMA AND SCRIPTED STORYTELLING IN VR

Think theatre - VR drama is closer to theatre than film. Sequences, cuts, and close-ups don’t drive the story. Scenes do. If you are faced with a challenge, thinking through how you might solve the problem in theatre will often lead to the solution.
Who are you? Give the user a concrete presence in the scene. They could be a person, a fly on the wall, a prop, or even a camera (a ‘role’ users understand best from documentaries). Disembodied users feel less connected to your world. It is preferable to see this virtual ‘body’, but not always essential.
Think ”Story-worlding” - create the rules for a story universe and then set your action within it.
Attention - can only be steered, not forced. Spatial sound can help draw attention, as can lighting and movement cues, and scene/set design.
Surround the viewer. Reward exploration of the scene. Make each viewer’s experience slightly different. There’s always somebody who will watch the back wall!
Games Storytelling - Get familiar with video game narrative styles. A lot of VR storytelling challenges have already been solved by games.

Further Reading

27 ways to tell a story in VR by Sam Saxton
Writing for VR: The Definitive Guide by Jesse Damiani & Dylan Southard
The Making of Damming the Nile

Some VR Experiences to try

The Break III 'Love' on BBC Three - Meet the Writers

2018-02-05T15:48:13+00:00

Developing and Producing the latest series of The Break in Scotland gave us the perfect opportunity to tell contemporary stories not only set here but about life here. All five of our selected writers (Anita Vettesse, Stewart Thomson, Omar Raza, Grace Knight and Sophie Wu) have worked tirelessly to create their own unique, thought provoking and compelling monologue that looks at love in all its various shapes and forms. I have to give special thanks to The Comedy Unit and the entire cast and crew who were brilliant throughout the process and were instrumental in bringing these fantastic monologues to life. We hope you enjoy them.

Angela Galvin, BBC Writersroom, Scotland

There's nothing more exciting than working with passionate new writers who have such original voices. Huge thanks to the three very talented directors (Stuart Elliott, David Hayman Jr, Raisah Ahmed) across the shorts who have done a superb job of realising the vision of the writers from page to screen. I am so proud to have been involved with such talented individuals and I’m sure their innovative story telling will be a hit with audiences.

Gavin Smith, Producer

Meet the 5 writers and watch their episodes

This external content is available at its source: The Break 'You really got me going'

You Really Got Me Going started after reading an article about male loneliness in Britain. I’d always thought of loneliness as a disease that happens later in life, not to 20-year olds. The more I began to research it, the more I realised this wasn’t just afflicting Britain, this is a worldwide epidemic.

From day one of creating The Break it’s been the most brilliant, rewarding experience. The support from BBC Writersroom Scotland, especially the note sessions, pushed the project to a new and very exciting place that I don’t think I would’ve got to otherwise.

The day of filming itself was quite surreal. Nothing prepares you from being cooped up in a room with your laptop to be being out in the fresh air with lots of people bringing the story to life. It’s a lovely feeling!

Anita Vettesse

This external content is available at its source: The Break 'Gloss'

I'm interested in baddies. So the idea I originally pitched to The Break was just that: an exploration of a completely amoral character. A few drafts later and something happened to me that had never happened before: I got the same set of notes twice. So I chucked out my whole story. I kept the character and put her in a situation where the stakes couldn't be higher. I got through.

The entire team were gloriously, fanatically perfectionists. The Costume Designer Carole Fraser plucked the perfect costume from a vague note saying the character is 'neatly dressed' and director Raisah Ahmed saw right to the heart of the character and turned her into something real. I spent the day on set in astonishment as the character I made up stood there in the flesh.

Grace Knight

This external content is available at its source: Soul Journey by Omar Raza

I thought I stood no chance when applying for ‘The Break’. In fact, when I was selected, I cried and then I cried a bit more through sheer happiness.

Throughout the entire development process BBC Writersroom Scotland and The Comedy Unit have continued to nurture my idea, support me in its development and help me to break down barriers. Specific barriers that I had been struggling to break down on my own for years as a writer.

My idea focuses on the complexity of cultural, religious and sexual identity blending together. I wanted to showcase a character that deals with making a respectable, responsible and independent choice about their identity without self-destructing. Rather than it being a problem, my story was seen as ambitious and became a real labor of love for everyone working on it.

Omar Raza

This external content is available at its source: A Vocal Minority by Stewart Thomson

I’ve been a Rangers fan my whole life. My father is a Rangers fan as his father was before him. The passion for Rangers and Celtic is unrivalled, the baggage of hatred fuelled by religious division is as problematic as it’s ever been. Most fans are tired of the curious banners and unsavoury songs, an ever present background noise with little relevance to the modern football fan. Having recently moved to Swansea (a one team city) Glasgow’s ‘vocal minority’ has never felt louder. I was drawn to the imagined quandary that only in Glasgow would a young man be more concerned about telling his father what team his boyfriend supported than the fact that he was gay in the first place.

Seeing the script take shape and being present for the shoot itself was a fantastic experience. Through the development process it became obvious that as well as dealing with the negative side of The Old Firm, it was important to shine a light on the positive too. Glasgow has its problems with football, but with the most passionate fans in the world, most of whom are ready to leave the past where it belongs, hopefully one day that problematic monitory can be silenced.

Stewart Thomson

This external content is available at its source: Franny Wong by Sophie Wu

This is a story about a half-Chinese social outcast doing anything she can to pick some scraps from the feasting table that is the school social scene. It is a story about the comedy of desperation, loneliness and the impossibility of acceptance. Being half Chinese myself the viewer may lazily assume that this is in some way autobiographical, and make the knee-jerk, uninformed assumption that these are the sorts of sorry events by which my own school life was marred. They’d be absolutely right, of course. For that reason I have loved transforming these horrendous anecdotes into something enjoyable and of course therapeutic, in a way.

In this monologue we see Franny Wong trying desperately to get into a party, to which she has brought a bottle of (my favourite) dry sherry, in order to snare the man of her dreams, Ferdinand Trotter. (Disclaimer: All names and likenesses to real individuals are purely coincidental.) I am of course extremely grateful to the BBC Writersroom for giving me the platform to vent my excruciating teenage angst and of course to give me as a new writer confidence, help and a writing credit!

Sophie Wu

You can also watch all 5 episodes of The Break plus Series 2 on BBC iPlayer

Find out more about Series 1 & Series 2 of The Break

Viral Success! But what does it mean?

2018-01-17T12:24:36+00:00

Graham Hughes took part in our Fast and Funny Scottish comedy writer's scheme back in 2016. He explains how his final sketch from the scheme has gained over 1 million views in the last few days...

Ah, the halcyon days of late-2015. Back then we were hearing grim news about beloved celebrities on a near-daily basis, and a piece of ill-advised pop-culture media had threatened the outbreak of World War III. How times have changed.

At that time, I had also just submitted an application to a new BBC Writersroom and BBC Scotland scheme, Fast & Funny, which was looking for people to create short, comedy content for an online audience. They were specifically looking for people that had already dipped a toe in that field. So I submitted a few sketches, gifs and vines I’d made over the years, a lot of which involved my dog, and it was enough to get me a place on the scheme. My dog got rejected, though. She’s still bitter.

There were twelve participants, and over six months we were treated to various masterclasses with other writers and media professionals, and were given monthly challenges to make comedy content. These included things like making a vine, or making a Valentine’s Day-inspired video. After each challenge, the scheme-runners would pick a couple of their favourites and these were shown on BBC Scotland’s various social media channels. For the final challenge, we were allotted time with a professional crew, and given access to shoot on the River City sets in Dumbarton.

This external content is available at its source: Fast and Funny sketch

(Watch Graham's sketch, originally published on YouTube)

All of the sketches were published on the BBC website and YouTube, and from what I’ve seen, most got between a couple of hundred views and about 10,000. The sketch I wrote was sitting at around 400 views, about 200 of which were mine. (I think the rest were my Mum). A couple of the sketches were put on Facebook and they performed better there, getting into the tens of thousands, but they hadn’t exactly set the world on fire. Which is fine, because the world doesn’t really need any help in that department.

Fast-forward to last week. Now, I’m an avid Imgur user. I like to browse and post OC (original content) to the site. Getting to the front page is the Golden Goose; it’s notoriously difficult so getting on it gives a pretty good high! I’d not posted in a while, but after my dog went viral last week for wearing a hat and cardigan (honestly) I got that buzz again, and I wanted to keep it going. Since I had no new ideas (the dog has all the best ones), I started ransacking my back-catalogue, trying to figure out what old piece of content I could recycle as a gif. And that’s when I remembered the Fast & Funny sketch.

After ripping the sketch off of YouTube and plastering some subtitles on it, I put it onto Imgur. Within about 5 hours it had gotten to the front page. Wanting to plug some of my other work while I had a captive audience, I made a botched front page-edit, and somehow managed to split the post into two. Shortly after that, some gumptious user spied the new post and put it on Reddit, which simultaneously diluted and exponentially increased the views. 3 days later 9gag got a hold of it and it ended up on their front page too.

It’s interesting that that the original sketch had little success on YouTube, but people have really connected to it as a gif. This is maybe just the right audience… which is ironic because the sketch is about YouTube. Who knows? It’s also surprising that it's taken off now, as the idea felt current to me back in 2016, and now, two years on, people are engaging with it. I thought it would be stale, but maybe the idea just hadn’t taken root yet. Again, who knows? Maybe it’s that age-old cliche that nobody outside these borders can understand what on earth anyone with a Scottish accent is saying, and it took converting the video into a silent, subtitled gif to make it a success. Your guess is as good as mine.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “where can we see pictures of your dog in the hat and cardigan?” And you’re probably also wondering how I feel about writing a sketch that became a gif that got 1,000,000 views, and not receiving a penny for it. Well, it’s all worth it now that the good people at BBC Writersroom will throw a blank-cheque development commission my way! Really though, it’s a double-edged sword. It’s always been that way with starting out as a writer or creative in most fields. You just keep doing work for “exposure”, because it will “look good on your portfolio”, or because “it’s your passion”. Until someone actually thinks you’re somebody worth paying. In fact, I was technically already paid for writing this sketch. I think it was £50. So I can’t complain. Besides, if I wanted to make money I wouldn’t have put it on Imgur in the first place. I probably shouldn’t have done that anyway, since I don’t “hold the intellectual property rights”.

This external content is available at its source: Man Flu vs Woman Flu

(Graham's video Man Flu vs Woman Flu which also got over 700,000 views on BBC Scotland's Facebook page)

So, is this the future of comedy? Gifs, random videos where our friends tag us and say nothing, and vertical Facebook videos of builders doing wacky antics on construction sites? Are these things the pinnacle of comedy success? Well, it depends what you define as success. If you mean views, then yes, almost certainly. But then you are essentially saying that my video about how Benedict Cumberbatch can’t say ‘penguins’, which took 5 minutes to make, is more successful than my comedy feature film, which took 2 years to make and almost killed me.

Actually now that I see that written down, it does seem more successful.

So is it critical success we should be striving for? What good is getting a ton of views if nobody actually likes what they’re watching? Well, during the Fast and Funny scheme, the BBC Writersroom was posting monthly blog updates on our progress, with links to our work. And there was one guy who kept uploading mean comments about us. He wrote things like: “This is garbage. I expect more from these new writers who are on an educational scheme. My taxes pay your salary.” And he obviously knew what he was talking about because he spent a lot of time looking up the posts and stating his opinion on them. I tried not to take it to heart, but when the final sketches went out and weren’t hit with immediate viral success I really started to wonder if I was actually just not funny. After a lot of soul-searching and denial, I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter. I enjoy making comedy, and I’ll keep doing it. That’s the power of the internet: any idiot with a computer can get an audience.

So that brings us to the close of this rambling, incoherent blog.

There’s been a lot of ups and downs since finishing Fast & Funny. Doors were opened. I’ve continued to make videos for BBC Scotland (through Short Stuff and The Social), directed a few bits and bobs, had a feature film project fall through two weeks before shooting started, got signed to an agent, and I received 55 rejections (yes, I counted) in various forms last year. Right now, I’m writing my third feature film, due to shoot this Spring/Summer. It’s a horror about a man that makes unsuccessful videos for the internet.

Well, they say write what you know…

Graham's sketch 'A Serious Medical Condition' on Imgur

Watch all the Fast and Funny sketches

Find out more about Graham Hughes

Children's Digital Residential

2017-11-01T17:09:42+00:00

The internet, the world of forums/message boards, AIM chats, fandom and friends from all over the world were my teenage years. I grew up through the friendships I made online and took my first foray into creating characters and writing through message boards. So to find myself in Cove Park with 9 other writers taking part in a three day Children’s Digital Residential was a little bit like coming home.

Having been an early subscriber to the online world, it still feels like a second language when it comes to apps and the new in-thing, (even if I do refuse to get sucked into the world of Snapchat streaks or unboxing videos). However, at 31 and as a writer/director in film, I’d never written with a focus on young people, so when the BBC Writersroom Scotland team got in touch with me and asked if I would be up for spending a few days away with a group of writers and a number of CBBC and Digital experts to learn, brainstorm and pitch then the only answer I could give was YES! My excitement at being able to delve into the world of CBBC was clear, but the fear I felt at working with an audience I hadn’t had the opportunity to tap into for a number of years was also very real.

The writers with BBC staff in the glorious surroundings of Cove Park

To take you back to my own roots, I’ve been an avid reader since I can remember but coming from an immigrant family I didn’t get the opportunity to attend drama club or do any extracurricular activities. The library was my favourite place. Then free AOL dial-up trials got me onto the internet and the online world was a place of safety, where I could create my own characters and stories and grow as a creative.

I studied Literature with the masterplan of becoming a young adult novelist, but then an apprenticeship at GMAC Film led me into the film industry. For the past seven years I have been developing as a screenwriter with a focus on film, being shortlisted for the Sundance Writers Lab twice and having my short films play at both Glasgow Film Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Despite the slowly building film success, television has seemed more out of reach, that is until the launch of the BBC Writersroom in Scotland. Which nicely brings us back to Cove Park and the Children’s Digital Residential.

The view from Cove Park

On arriving at Cove Park we had initial introductions, which never get less awkward for me! Fortunately some familiar faces reduced the levels of nervousness. After some intros from BBC Producer Dave Howard and Angela Galvin from BBC Writersroom, we had the opportunity to hear from Catherine McAllister, Head of Safeguarding & Child Protection for the BBC. The immense amount of knowledge Catherine had about the issues that young people face today was eye opening. Having been one of those kids at one point, it was almost scary how much more dangerous the online world is now, or perhaps we just understand it better and I got lucky?

Day two was less frightening and more enlightening in different ways. Jack Kibble-White, took us through some of the work the BBC have been doing and some examples of other interesting approaches to using new technology in storytelling. Branching narratives were definitely my favourite, a new approach to the ‘choose your own story’ books I remember reading when I was younger. We also had the opportunity to hear from Richard Bond, Exec Producer of Cyberbully, about the way in which he’s used his documentary background to tell narrative fictional stories in interesting ways. Just like my fellow Cove Park attendee and blogger, Will McLean, I also found the talk with three thirteen year olds from a local school insightful and fascinating. Much of what was said by the girls echoed Catherine’s findings from the day before. The addictive nature of snapchat streaks, hashtags, anonymous messages and the need for followers and likes as self validation. The day culminated with a chat with writer Joe Lidster, whose excitement and energy about writing for children’s TV was addictive. The little fear I still had in me around writing for children’s television began to disappear the more that Joe spoke about how he got into it and the things he loves about writing for that particular audience.

We were then set the task of coming up with some ideas for the BBC online space ‘Stay Safe’ to help rebrand it and focus it on a new generation of young people that see online as just as real as everyday life. The second day ended with some brainstorming, bonding, magic tricks and walking down the hill to our pods while the moon shone brightly in the sky.

The accomodation at Cove Park (previously used on Taransay in the BBC series Castaway)

On day three, everyone was feeling a little nervous about pitching our ideas, but the team from CBBC made it really easy. For me, this was an opportunity to go back to my love of fairytale revisionism and use everything that I knew about the online experience and combine it with everything I’d absorbed from all the amazing guests who had spoken to us.

For me, coming from the world of film, the residential has left me really excited about what I can do with the digital space. It has allowed me to remember all of the reasons why the online space is so important, and that it should be a place of empowerment and not danger, especially for young people, who can use the space to be more open to the diversity of the world as a whole.

Find out more about Raisah Ahmed

Read an interview on the Creative Scotland website

Helping kids to stay safe and secure online with a Scottish writers' residential

2017-10-18T11:46:22+00:00

When my old colleague Dave Howard asked if I wanted to go to a residential writer’s retreat focused on online safety and security for young people, my first thought was, “How did he get my email address?”. My second thought was “Well, this looks like a great opportunity to learn more about this subject in a dynamic and challenging learning environment”, which is definitely a thing I thought at the time and not something I carefully put together later, like all writers do.

Before you accompany me on a magical metaphorical journey to Scotland (or not, if you already live there) a little bit about me. I have been writing professionally for about ten years, starting out (and continuing) in comedy, but branching out into children’s TV (or “children’s multiplatform content” as it’s now known). I love writing for kids (or “Sub-adult multiplatform content consumers” as they’re now known) as they tend to be a very astute audience: they appreciate honesty, are more attentive to what they’re watching and seem to invest more into their viewing, emotionally speaking, than adults, whose emotions have withered away thanks to years of constant grinding disappointment. Or so I hear.

The 10 writers on the residential

And so it was that I, along with ten or so other writers, descended on Cove Park, an artist’s retreat situated on a bracken-tufted hillside that slants down sharply to the cold deep waters of Loch Long, on Scotland’s West Coast. It’s difficult to describe how immediately freeing this location is to one’s thinking – most writers, if they have any claim to the title at all, will spend their days on a laptop at a desk in a room, intentionally narrowing their focus to the work in hand, (and possibly Facebook), a bit. Cove Park is the opposite of all that, and the sense of space - and possibility - is dizzying. The weather is capricious and changes rapidly, too - within the space of a morning we were treated to drizzle, brilliant sunshine and not one but two short-lived but spectacular rainbows.

The gorgeous surroundings for the residential

Of course, all of this gorgeous scenery would be merely incidental if it wasn’t feeding into something creative. We had been assembled to apply our collective brain-power to helping 9-12 year olds manage and “own” their presence online. This tight focus proved crucial – we were invited not to think so much about the extreme tabloid horror stories of online grooming and radicalisation (though to keep those in mind), but to concentrate instead on the far more prevalent (and therefore more easily-overlooked) issues involving the online lives of young people.

Most young people will experience a degree of stress online, and it was eye-opening to hear how widespread the problem was, and how much even the standard everyday online interactions can become worrisome, addictive or, in some cases, horribly toxic.

One of the better talks was from three girls from the local school, who were able to not only pour scorn on our ideas of how they spent their time online (“Facebook is for your mum!”), but also to correct the lazy assumptions that older people often make about the young. One of the girls was adamant that we understand that the idea older people have of young people constantly glued to their devices is “a stereotype”, and that her digital life was always a secondary consideration to her real life. She will go far.

It was also extremely exciting to hear about the variety of ways the internet enables writers to tell stories – from short videos to branching narratives that encompass all of the major outcomes of a drama, the guest speakers helped us re-imagine our approach to narrative. Particularly helpful were Jack Kibble-White, who works in-house at the BBC in Digital Development, Richard Bond, who produced the hard-hitting Channel 4 drama Cyberbully, and the writer Joe Lidster, who as well as speaking passionately about writing and character development, liked us all so much he stayed on for the evening and helped all the wine mysteriously vanish.

It wasn’t all fun and games though – our visit culminated in a pitch to the assembled BBC luminaries of our idea for a narrative designed to arm children with the necessary skills for a better and less stressful online existence. Pitching is an essential but often-overlooked skill for writers and gave us all a common, and slightly terrifying focus. It will be fascinating to hear all the ideas that everyone came up with.

So, new people, new perspectives, and new opportunities - all things any writer worth their salt should welcome with open arms. I can wholeheartedly recommend the Cove Park experience, and “experience” is very definitely the right word for it. If you get the chance, go – and come back changed and refreshed.

Find out more about BBC Writersroom Scotland

Stay Safe - the BBC's current area for safety online (the writers were developing ideas for an updated version)

Inside the Writersroom - a new series of podcast interviews with the UK's leading TV drama writers

2017-09-13T09:00:00+00:00

When the idea first came up, to interview TV drama writers for the BBC Writersroom’s first podcast series, Inside the Writersroom, the consensus was to make it as intimate and insightful as possible for our listeners. That meant keeping the process simple and unencumbered with minimal production staff, editing and equipment – in other words me and a recording device.

The aim was to capture a nuts and bolts style interview to get to the nitty gritty of the writers' processes. A dream list of writers was put together. Sally Wainwright was the first (and fastest) to say yes. After that, it wasn’t hard to get others on board.

The idea behind going to the writers’ homes and recording the interviews from where they write, was to strip away formality and have the writers feeling comfortable enough to divulge their deepest and darkest secrets. Hopefully you’ll think that it worked! Twenty general questions are used as a loose guide to the conversation so there was some uniformity across the interviews. It’s fascinating to see the wide range of responses to most of the questions. There are a few questions that now seem like duds. For example, “Do you celebrate when you finish a script?” Despite hoping for a champagne pop, as it turns out, no writer – at least in this series - ever really feels this is the end of the process. For the most part they are too busy and humble to stop and gloat over their achievement. The list of questions was also tailored depending on the direction the conversation was taking and the particular experiences of the writer.

Most of the interviews ended up being between 90 and 120 minutes in length. Even though the hope was that editing would be light, the process of actually listening to the six interviews took days of work with the editor. It’s amazing how meandering a conversation can become and how annoying my voice began to sound! So we cut as much of that stuff as possible and tried to mostly just let the writer speak. You’ll probably hear more ambient sound than you’re used to in interviews. For example, the rather rude sounding squeaks of a sofa in Sally Wainwright’s interview (I also apologise for the less than brilliant sound quality we were unable to rectify in the edit) and the children shouting in the school playground next door in Daniel Fajemisin Duncan and Marlon Smith’s interview. You’ll hear people masticating, smoking, scratching and sipping drinks. Hopefully this all adds to the authenticity of the interviews…or something!

What feels most important about the series is that they are useful in some way to the listener. Whether you’re an established, emerging or aspiring writer, hopefully you’ll find things that inspire you and perhaps make you feel less alone in what can otherwise feel like quite a solitary endeavour. What’s clear from these interviews is that the writers are immensely respectful and supportive of each other’s work and achievements – they see these as a collective success. I like the idea of peer support and encouragement in the writing landscape. There’s no doubt we are in a golden age for television writing – with more outlets and appetite than ever. Whether you write twenty drafts for every one draft you send out – like Jack Thorne – or aim for one draft with no notes like Sally Wainwright, there’s certainly never been a more exciting time for television drama writers.

Hopefully this first series of Inside the Writersroom compels you to persevere with your craft and perhaps offers something that improves your own writing process.

Please listen, share and rate Inside the Writersroom.

You can download the six interviews or stream them online from Wednesday 13th September 2017. The full line-up is:

How producing my own web series started me on the road to Albert Square

2017-05-09T14:12:14+00:00

So, I’m sitting in a room filled with soap-writing royalty. I’ve got Daran Little on one side, Carey Andrews on the other and a little way down the table is Rob Gittins. Across the table, Sean O’Connor, is waiting for me to pitch my ideas for my first episode of EastEnders. No pressure then.

Nope, not an anxiety dream, but my new job as a commissioned writer on one of the biggest shows on the BBC. I was one of eight writers selected for the EastEnders Shadow Scheme in 2016 (here's a blog about that from Lee Sutton).

Since then I’ve written my first ‘proper’ episode and am currently working on my second.

The road to Albert Square

When you’re a brand new writer, trying to get something, anything, off the ground seems pretty daunting. My biggest piece of advice is to try a bit of DIY – do it yourself. That idea you’ve got burning inside – can it be turned into a webseries that showcases your ability to write on-going episodes, develop characters and write to cliff-hangers - all essential skills for TV writers.

My route into writing television was via short films, a stage play and webseries. My first short was produced in 2012, and my play followed hot on its heels. In 2013 I wrote and directed a webseries based on the play, 3some (careful when Googling that!) and a publisher picked up the play. That was where things started to gently snowball. I say ‘gently’, because it really was a slow process, more like a snail’s pace than an avalanche. We released the webseries to decent reviews and moderate views. One year on, the awards and festival season kicked in. Suddenly we were being nominated for, and winning, awards and being selected for festivals worldwide. We released the series on multiple platforms and watched the views creep up (across all our platforms we’re currently hovering around the 3.5 million mark). I won the 2014 Indie Series Award for Best Drama Writing, and soon there was press interest too. Then a few job offers came in and I signed to an agent. That made me eligible for the BBC Shadow Schemes… and here we are.

Lisa Gifford

Doing your own work doesn’t need to cost a lot of money – get a group of filmmakers together that are all at the same stage as you and collaborate. Don’t know anyone? Get in touch with local schools, colleges and universities. Find local clubs. Trawl social media. Find your tribe. They’re out there. When we made 3some I worked with a mixed group of students and newcomers to the industry and we shot over weekends. Now most of our crew are out there doing awesome work and getting paid well for it (and we still get together when we can to collaborate for fun). Everyone has to start somewhere and for many people that’s on low budget projects. Bring together a team you trust, who will give you honest feedback, keep you grounded and kick you up the backside when you need it.

But before all that, it’s up to you, as the writer, to bring the script – something collaborators can’t say no to. Write it, write it well and don’t rush it. Yes, you’ll eventually need to learn to turn work around quickly, but your first few projects are not the time to worry about that. Craft your work, and hone it carefully before even thinking about shooting. Find other writers in your peer group to give you notes and listen to what they tell you – you might not agree with the note, but it indicates something hasn’t connected somewhere. If you get the same note more than three times, you’ve got something that needs fixing. If you are lucky enough to get an experienced reader or writer to give you notes – listen carefully to what they say. They’ve been around the block enough times to know how to make your script better.

This external content is available at its source: Watch the official trailer for 3some

With this in mind, write to what you can achieve. If you have no kit, write something you can shoot on a phone camera. If you’ve only got your house to shoot in, set it in your living room. If the script and acting are good enough, it will be compelling regardless. If you want to be a professional screenwriter you will have to write within restrictions and budgets – now’s the time to start. If it fails, that’s fine too. You’ll learn more from your failures than you will your successes. You don’t have to release it if it doesn’t work. Use it as a learning experience and do better next time.

In reality, it’s hard for new writers to get their scripts read, but if you’ve got something tangible to show, especially if that something has festivals and awards attached, it becomes a lot easier to get attention. It’s a big ask for someone to plough through a full length script from a new writer – even the first ten page read is quickly becoming the first couple of pages. But if it’s a four minute web episode they can watch while eating their lunchtime sandwich, it’s a much more reasonable ask. And, of course, you’re going to make your first episode so compelling that they have to watch to the end – aren’t you? And then they’re going to be fired up and request your work.

And here’s the caveat to all this. You MUST have a portfolio of writing ready as a back up before you release your series. I made this mistake in the early days. A few shorts are not enough; you need some solid TV scripts that showcase your best work ready to fire off at a moment’s notice, and some brilliant ideas for pitches in your back pocket. When you’ve got all this together, you’re in a strong position to move forward.

I did it. You can too. It was hard. It still is hard. I still make my own work. I shot a short film over a weekend last month and I’m currently raising finance for a feature film. No matter where my career goes, I can’t imagine giving up that ethos of doing my own thing alongside it, because it’s fun, it’s fulfilling and it means I get to work with my friends. There are no guarantees, but why not do something to give yourself an edge?

So what’s stopping you? See you at the web festivals.

Watch Lisa’s webseries 3some and find out more about Lisa on her website

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