Television Scriptwriting – (M.A.)

Contents

This is a part-time course divided into four 12-week semesters over two years. It is taught one day a week (usually on a Thursday), in a seminar group of around 15 students.

In the first year you develop and script your own original television series and write 'shadow' episodes of existing television drama. Workshops are led by the Course Tutor and guest writers who encourage you to produce concept documents, synopses, outlines, scene-by-scenes and second draft scripts. In the second year you are divided into groups to undertake team writing, having chosen a subject from the many TV genres. There are workshops on commercial series analysis, screenplay structure, genre television, pitching and submission strategies. All students do the following modules: Learning Scriptwriting Techniques, Writing for Existing TV Series and Serials, Team-Writing an Original TV Series/Serial, Writing Situation Comedy and Comedy Drama, Writing for Other Television Genres and Markets and a Final Script Project.

Teaching/assessment

Lectures, workshops and tutorials are led by the course tutors and visiting professionals. A visit to a BBC drama studio offers you a 'behind the scenes' perspective of television drama production. Industry-based script editors deliver a full and professional script report on your first year scripts. A visiting group of actors undertake a workshop reading from scripts so you can hear your dialogue spoken and interact with the actors to define and improve your writing skills.

You are required to write script reports and a 5000 word essay. However, you will be mainly assessed on the quality of your scripts, one or more of which you will be required to write for each module, and you are encouraged to circulate your work within the industry and the contacts forged by the course.

Staff

* Jim Hill (Course Tutor) is a freelance writer/producer/director. He is best known as the co-creator of the television series Boon. He has worked on popular shows including Minder, The Bill, Lovejoy, Casualty, and Pie in the Sky as well as directing a six part series about Subbuteo tabletop football for BBC Scotland.
He has been employed as a producer/director for LWT on reality crime shows Coppers and Crime Monthly and has worked extensively in Europe for Fremantle Worldwide Drama as a story consultant on a daily serial drama.
Jim wrote the Directors' Handbook for Lego's Stephen Spielberg Movie Maker Set. He has been working for McCann Erickson and their client The Carbon Trust directing a series of case studies about the business community and the effect of climate change. He has recently been adviser to InteraktÍv-Fiction (Hungary), which produces the prime-time soap opera Joban Rosszban for the commercial channel TV2 and is now developing drama projects with FireBack Films.
* Christopher Walker (Course Leader) is former head of the script unit of Central TV where he produced all seven series of the successful situation comedy The Upper Hand.
He was creative executive for Columbia TriStar Central Productions and subsequently developed comedy projects for Carlton Television and the BBC. He is also tutor for the undergraduate module on scriptwriting on the Media and Communication BA (Hons) at DMU.

For your final script you will be assigned a mentor drawn from the industry. Recent mentors include Jimmy McGovern (The Street, Cracker), Tony Marchant (Mark of Cain), Jed Mercurio (Bodies), Kay Mellor (Band of Gold) and Barbara Machin (Waking The Dead).