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Monday, May 24, 2010

What happens in Bristol

5:04 PM / Television / 6 Comments

On a handful of occasions in the last six months or so, I've furtively mentioned trips to London and Bristol relating to what I rather cryptically described as an "employment opportunity". Having now clarified matters, I'm now in a position to give a little more of an indication of what that means. The terms of my contract prevent me from going into TOO much detail, but I've been told that it's okay for me to tell readers of this site that I was invited on to and am now participating in the 2010 writers' Shadow Scheme programme for the BBC medical drama CASUALTY.

A Shadow Scheme, as per the BBC Writersroom web site, is

basically a dummy run of the commissioning process. Writers are asked to pitch guest story ideas, and given a real serial document from which they are asked to write all or part of a script. Usually they are asked to write two drafts. This script is not for broadcast, but is used by the production to decide whether or not to commission the writer.

Très cool, non?

For me, this is the cumulation of a process which began last Autumn and has, in a rather unconventional way, landed me in a position of having a very real shot at getting to contribute to a programme that I'm very passionate about (as anyone who has read my rants about the show can attest). Last Monday and Tuesday, I was down in Bristol for the initial two-day induction programme, which I attended with several other prospective writers. Obviously I'm not in a position to give a blow by blow account of what the induction consisted of, but let's just say that I experienced what can only be described as a very enjoyable information overload. The Writersroom web site provides an overview of what last year's Shadow Scheme consisted of, and while the specifics of this year's event were somewhat different, the basic gist of it remains largely the same:

Casualty

Also looks for writers with TV experience and a good grasp of structure. Casualty needs writers who can not only handle serial stories and medical procedure, but who can come up with strong and arresting guest stories and who have something exciting and relevant to say about the world now. For the 2008/9 Casualty shadow scheme, writers were given a three-day induction course on how to write for the show, which included a set tour and information about the format and ambitions of the show. The selected writers then pitched guest stories and if these were thought suitable, those writers worked with Script Producer Bianca Rodway and Script Editor Jenny van der Lande to develop shadow treatments and a draft Casualty script. A fee was paid for each part of the shadow scheme.

Sorry for being somewhat cryptic about all of this, but the contract I've signed places some pretty rigid restrictions on what I can and can't say about the process, so in the interests of being safe rather than sorry, I've decided to simply direct you to information that is already in the public domain. I certainly can't tell you about what's coming up in the show, so don't bother to ask!

Anyway, yeah - I thought you'd be interested to hear about this. I'm not a fully fledged writer just yet, and it may very well be that nothing ultimately comes of it (I'm effectively competing with several other writers for a very limited number of commission slots, and this is a VERY competitive business), but these are incredibly exciting times for me and, while I have a lot of work ahead of me, I'm looking forward to every minute of it.

6 Comments

 
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