Celebrating Scotland at our Second Scottish Writers' Festival
Angela Galvin
Development Producer, ±«Óãtv Writersroom Scotland
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When I saw The Moff - award winning writer - sitting enthralled by our VR headset I knew this was going to be a pretty special day. It was. Our on Saturday was even better than we could possibly have hoped. The attendees, speakers, venue, ±«Óãtv Writersroom staff and volunteers worked together to create a truly inspiring day.
Doctor Who and Sherlock writer and showrunner Steven Moffat is interviewed by the Head of ±«Óãtv Writersroom Anne Edyvean
Flashback to several weeks ago when the tickets went within 11 hours of release - we knew then that it was a hotly anticipated event and wanted to deliver something that was worthy of the writers attending and of the buzz it had created…no pressure!
After months of planning, we felt pretty proud of - over 11 sessions and a special VR and content lab were available for all attendees.
The day was kicked off with a Q&A with the Head of ±«Óãtv Writersroom, Anne Edyvean, and Steven Moffat. It was a brilliantly frank, honest conversation about how he works and his career writing comedy before discussing his move into Drama. As an Executive Producer and Showrunner much of his work is dictated by the production schedules of shows such as and and so he tends to write very early in the morning before the calls and emails start to roll in, but he admits deadlines help him to focus and write. He’s not the only one! Unbelievably, even Steven struggles with days where he thinks the pages he has written are not what they should be, but that hard work beats talent every time. There wasn’t one writer in the room that didn’t draw comfort knowing that if someone with Steven’s credits can struggle with doubt then there is hope for us all.
Next up we looked at making films with Independent producer whose film credits include and . In the other session writer discussed his theatre work and the origin and development process of Sky’s massive drama .
We got all the attendees back together for a session with the Story King himself, - who ran a brilliant session on structure. John literally crammed his Into the Woods book into our 50 minute workshop, giving the writers in the room the perfect excuse to crack open their brand spanking new Writers’ Festival notebooks to jot down their thoughts and John’s insightful words.
Following the lunch break, suitably fed and watered we got back to work with the next two sessions:
Continuing drama and with Story and Script Producer and writer in which it was announced that a shadow scheme for writers who want to work on River City is on the horizon.
Meanwhile in Developing and Producing Comedy with ±«Óãtv Studios Scotland’s Comedy Executive , Gavin Smith from the Comedy Unit and gave a different point of view. They shared their insights into how they find talent, the development process from concept through to commission and gave tips on how to have a good meeting with them.
1 - See it as a conversation not a pitching session
2 - If the first idea falls down don’t start pitching 20 other projects
3 - Don’t follow them home
The dark art of How to write a treatment was tackled by Comedy Writer , and John Yorke who have read thousands of treatments between them. They shared some light on the subject, including keep it to no more than three pages and use it to nail down your story world before you go to script. All really useful advice on the thorny topic of treatments that has perplexed writers up and down the country.
Opportunities at and Scottish Gaelic language channel were the focus for speakers from ±«Óãtv Children’s, Radio Drama, Digital and ALBA as they highlighted what they were looking for and shared steers into their different genres. Watching and listening to the content before pitching any ideas was their key advice.
Our penultimate sessions were craft ones with two brilliant writers. looked at his drama career from to co creating for Canal + and was honest about the opportunities when living out of London. Writer and performer gave us an insight into how he writes .
Our final round up saw our speakers sharing their thoughts on the future of narrative content from Scotland. It’s a positive picture with a range of opportunities being looked at and developed. As Steven Moffat and others said on the day, NOW is a brilliant time to be a writer as you have so many opportunities.
Saturday was a really amazing day and I'd like to say thank you again to everyone involved and everyone who gave up their time to come along...
(We'll be adding video highlights from some of the events and interviews with speakers to over the next few weeks)