Are you interested in a career in development or have an idea you want to pitch?
Watch the full panel discussion between Damian Kavanagh, Catherine Lynch and Kate Stannard as they share the qualities needed for a successful career in development and the key to grabbing the attention of commissioners.
“If you are defensive and precious about your idea, and you won’t let it evolve, whether that’s in your brainstorm or when you’re pitching to the commissioner, it’s just never going to go anywhere,” explained Catherine Lynch, creative director at Initial TV, which makes ITV gameshow Tenable.
Initial’s head of development Kate Stannard agreed: “What you end up seeing on telly is often quite different to the thing you first said in the room.”
The series – set to air on BBC Three later this year – will see teams of friends faced with four individual chambers, each containing a series of challenges.
Starting the game with £5,000 in prize money, the team must endure a series of shocks, surprises and scares as they complete the various challenges.
Each chamber will elicit a reaction from the team, from blood curdling screams, to shouts of joy, but each time one of the group screams, the prize money drops.
Comedy, the late, great Tony Hancock would often tell his dinner guests, was simply “frustration, misery, boredom, worry – all the things people suffer from”.
This may go some way to explaining the success of a crop of deceptively simple, single-camera comedy-dramas that have all but replaced our more traditional idea of the sitcom in the television schedules.
Oscar-nominated Lenny Abrahamson (Room, Frank) and Bafta-winner Hettie MacDonald (Howard’s End) are on board to direct the 12-part BBC Three drama, with filming due to take place in Dublin, Sligo and Italy.
The modern love story has been adapted for the screen by Sally Rooney, alongside writers Alice Birch and Mark O’Rowe.
Normal People follows the tender but complex relationship of popular and easy-going Connell and lonely and intimidating Marianne.
If anyone ever doubted that comedy and tragedy go hand in hand, look no further than the much-garlanded BBC Two sitcom, Mum, starring Lesley Manville as Cathy, a late-middle-aged mother coming to terms with the death of her husband.
Making a TV audience laugh is among the most difficult skills for any screenwriter to learn, but to make them laugh one minute and almost cry a few moments later is the hallmark of a very special talent.
A packed RTS Futures event, “Pitching script to screen”, offered aspiring writers and producers tips on how they should hone and sell their ideas to commissioners.
Leading the panel of seasoned comedy and entertainment practitioners was Tom Davis, the star of the RTS and Bafta award-winning BBC Three sitcom Murder in Successville.
Timewasters has charmed critics and attracted healthy audiences with its mix of jazz, time travel and good jokes. Notably, it also has an all-black leading cast but, according to its creator, Daniel Lawrence Taylor, it is, “first and foremost”, a comedy.
BBC Three is at a crucial point in its history. With a new controller, Fiona Campbell, a budget raised to £40m and a regular slot on BBC One on Mondays to Wednesdays, the corporation hopes that it can stem the tide of younger viewers washing up on the shores of Netflix and YouTube.
The eight-part series will showcase the UK’s most fabulous drag queens, under the watchful eyes of judges RuPaul and Michelle Visage.
Each week the glamorous pair will be joined by a celebrity guest judge with Graham Norton and Alan Carr rotating as resident judges on the panel.
