2.Main Content
Training
TV Forum North
Red Productions' international hit Queer as Folk
TV Forum North - Leeds
Thursday 28 & Friday 29 Feb 2008
After a successful pilot TV Forum in London in 2007, we're delighted to announce that Screen Yorkshire has invited us to present a two day training and networking event devoted to writing for the small screen (or even the plasma HD ready widescreen) in Leeds in 2008: TV Forum North.
While Film and Theatre require an audience to come to you, television uniquely reaches them right where they sit. If you’re serious about a career writing TV drama then spend two days with us finding out how to get your work into living rooms across the land.
Through a combination of training, guest speakers and panel discussions, TV Forum North aims to inspire participants to consider how their talents, ideas and aspirations may be suited to the wide range of TV drama opportunities, from soap writing to original single dramas or innovative sitcoms. Over two days, we aim to give screenwriters an essential overview of the current TV landscape coupled with the language, resources and industry knowledge required to further explore how to forge their own TV writing career.
Kay MellorThe Programme
Both mornings of TV Forum North will be devoted to practical training sessions while afternoons are reserved for a range of industry guests - commissioners, series producers and working TV writers – who will talk about their work and take your questions. So far the guest line up includes a keynote session from one of Brit TV's most successful writers, Kay Mellor; a company focus on Red Productions (responsible for Queer As Folk, Casanova, The Mark Of Cain and countless other international TV hits); info sessions from representatives from Channel 4 (Head of Drama, Luke Alkin) and the BBC (Creative Director, BBC Writers' Room, Kate Rowland); as well as on-stage reveals from working TV writers including Bill Lyons (Emmerdale) and Gwyneth Hughes (Five Days).
The meat of TV Forum North will be four practical workshop sessions, each taught by Rob Ritchie, a regular Script Factory tutor who has extensive experience as a TV script editor and story consultant.
Kay Mellor's Playing The Field
The sessions:
Small Screen Stories
Writing for TV involves skills and techniques unique to the medium: from handling multiple storylines to structuring a story in four acts. This session explores the challenges facing writers working in a medium where deadlines are immovable, the audience may have missed last week’s episode and dialogue is perhaps more important than pictures.
What’s On Tonight? Examining TV Formats
TV drama embraces a variety of different styles, genres and formats – everything from ten-minute plays to serials that run for years. This session examines the rules and conventions of the major British TV drama formats from daytime soaps to prime time series and serials.
Story of the Week - Drama Series
How do you create characters an audience will return to week after week? Why is the precinct of a series so often a police station or hospital? This session illustrates the role of story bibles, pilot episodes and research in creating characters and a world that will generate an endless supply of stories.
Casanova from Red Productions
What’s so Funny? The challenge of writing Sit-com
Sit-Com is one of the most challenging and popular forms of TV drama. This session identifies the premise of a range of comedies and explains why a family of characters sharing a flat or a workplace remains the essential formula for both British and US shows.
Practical Information:
TV Forum North
Thursday 28 & Friday 29 Feb 2008
The Carriageworks
3 Millennium Square
Leeds
LS2 3AD
TV Forum North costs £100 + VAT (£117.50 total)**
** Regional Screen Agency subsidies are available for this event from Screen Yorkshire and selected other RSAs – contact your local agency for details (Click here for a list of all the Regional Screen Agencies).
The programme is supported by a full training pack.
To make your booking please call The Script Factory on 020 7323 1414 with your credit or debit card details.
This event is co-presented by Screen Yorkshire.