Story Development for Film and TV

FÁS Screen Training Ireland is running a course on Story Development for Film and Television over a three-month period starting on 22 September, 2009.

Participant Profile:
Irish professionals involved in producing, writing, development, directing and script editing in the television and film industry. Participants should be involved in developing current serialised or feature fiction projects.

Course Profile:
The aim of this course is to enhance participants' understanding of the story development process for both for serialised content and feature films. Through project development, participants will gain an understanding of the TV drama and feature film development process, the different drama formats, how cinematic and televisual storytelling differ, and the roles and responsibilities of writers, script editors, directors and producers in the development process.

The course will mentor eight projects through 3-4 months of development from idea to first draft stage – four television projects, and four feature projects. Projects can be writer-led or submitted by companies, and projects with either one participant or a team are welcome. Teams can be comprised of writers, writers/directors, writers/directors/producers, writers/script editors, writers/script editors/producers, or writers combined with anyone involved in the creative development process. Through project development, lectures, exercises and case studies, the creative team identifies the key milestones in the development process, and how to achieve the best possible results through creative collaboration.

An additional strand of the programme seeks script editors to apply without a project, and collaborate on writer-only participating projects. There will be two script editor participants who will attend all project sessions and also partake in additional sessions in order to enhance their story development, communication, and production skills. These two participants can be freelance script editors seeking to enhance their skills, development assistants in production companies, assistant script editors on television, or development personnel seeking to enhance their understanding and engagement in the script development process.

On completion of training the students will be able to:

• Identify suitable TV drama vs. cinematic/feature concepts
• Identify different drama formats and slots.
• Correctly structure an episode of television drama or feature film.
• Explore character and story arcs over the course of an episode and a series
• Identify different television formats – series, serials, etc.
• Write a treatment for a television drama or feature film.
• Write a Step Outline for a television drama or feature film.
• Write a series bible
• Work collaboratively with writers, directors, script editors and producers.
• Work to tight television and feature film deadlines
• Be aware of and rewrite for production considerations

The cost of the course is €750.00, and all applications must be processed via the FSTI web site. The deadline for application is: Wednesday, 2nd September 2009.