NPA Writers Events
THE NEW PRODUCERS ALLIANCE
 Supported by the UKFilm Council Training Fund
NPA Script Development Programme
ScreenLab logo
JANUARY 2006
To book email queries@npa.org.uk

WRITING SOAPS: A SURVIVAL GUIDE
10.30am – 5pm Saturday 21st January 2006

COMEDY WRITING FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS
10.30am – 5pm Saturday 28th January

This screenwriting programme is designed for experienced writers, directors and producers working on a new project; those new to screenwriting; and individuals and teams needing mentoring on their current project. Evening events and one-day courses focus on hands-on exercises, professional feedback and ongoing mentoring.

A linked Feedback and Mentoring service helps writers through drafts of their outlines and scripts. Outstanding scripts are offered further help to get them sold and made.

WRITING SOAPS: A SURVIVAL GUIDE
10.30am – 5pm Saturday 21st January 2006
£55 NPA members/£75 non-members
Tutor: Katharine Way
Booking: telephone: 0207 613 0440

Jack Rosenthal did it. Jimmy McGovern did it. Paul Abbott did it. Just about everyone who writes TV drama will have written for a soap at some point and the soaps and ‘continuing drama’ series dominate the TV market worldwide.

Writing for soap provides an excellent training ground, a paid means of learning the craft and an opportunity to form those all-important working relationships with producers and script editors who will, in future, be commissioning original projects. At their best, the soaps tell ground-breaking (and taboo-busting) contemporary stories that enthral millions of TV viewers. They also give writers a chance to make their voices heard, even within the frame-work of a show created by others. It’s a pressured, creative and intensely collaborative working environment.

This one-day course is both a survival guide and a taste of what it’s like to work on the top rating dramas for real. A maximum of 15 participants will engage in a one-day ‘story conference’, plotting out individual episodes from given storylines, troubleshooting problems, feeding in ideas for long-running stories, creating new characters – and dealing with the crises that inevitably erupt behind the scenes.

COMEDY WRITING FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS
10.30am – 5pm Saturday 28th January
£45 NPA members/£60 non-members
Tutor: Fenella Greenfield
Guest tutor: Paul Bassett Davies
Information: Contact Fenella Greenfield on mobile: 07958 244 656 or e-mail on: fenella_greenfield@flextech.co.uk
Booking: telephone: 0207 613 0440

You may think you could never write funny. Think again. By the end of this one-day workshop you’ll have made the others laugh – even if it was only once . . . Can you really learn to write comedy? Yes, with a lot of work you can. In this intensely exercise-based workshop you’ll write some jokes, gags, sketches and a comedy monologue.

You'll create the comic characters, settings, events and structure that are the basis of successful sitcom. And you'll be given some tips on how to crank up the humour in your feature-film scripts. Working on your own, in pairs and in groups you will:
Learn some joke formats
Write some comic dialogue for stock characters
Practice writing quickies and sketches
Write some satire from the day's newspapers
Get an introduction to sitcom writing
Network and write with other wanna-be comedy writers
Learn how to get comedy from your sad, lonely life

Past comments from participants have included:
I found the reading out of work quite hard because I don’t generally like being the focus of attention. But once I did it, it got easier. It helped me understand that the punchline is not necessarily the funniest part of a joke.
Designed for people who are comedy-writing beginners.

Guest tutor: Paul Bassett Davies' TV credits include writing for Spitting Image, Jasper Carrott, Smith and Jones. Radio work includes writing and producing shows with Jeremy Hardy, Griff Rhys Jones, Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer. Paul wrote the screenplay for The Magic Roundabout. His next feature film, which will be released next year, is based on the legendary counterculture heroes The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

ABOUT THE TUTORS
Katharine Way has been a commissioned TV drama writer for eleven years, working on THE BILL, CASUALTY, EASTENDERS and other programmes as well as developing original drama projects of her own. She is Chair of the TV Committee at the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

Paul Gallagher is Director of Euroscript, a Media-2 funded project developing scripts for EU companies; a tutor at the London Film School and Birkbeck College, London University; a script consultant, commissioned screenwriter and columnist for film magazines.

Fenella Greenfield works full-time as a TV promo director. She has had several radio plays and sketches broadcast, has made a number of short films (funded), has written for TV soaps and is on the Executive of the NPA representing screenwriters.

VENUE AND BOOKING DETAILS
As places go quickly we advise prior booking:
Telephone: 0207 613 0440
E-mail: queries@npa.org.uk

Venue:
The NPA Film Centre
1.07
The Tea Building
56 Shoreditch High Street London, E1 6JJ
Nearest tube Liverpool Street.
Out of Bishopsgate entrance turn left. Tea Building is 10 minutes walk.
Map

To receive information on future courses e-mail swcontact@screenwritersworkshop.co.uk writing SUBSCRIBE in the subject field.


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