BBC writer’s Academy is an annual scheme designed to help discover and nurture undiscovered talented screenwriters for drama broadcasts. Only eight places are available upon this valuable course, but accepted applicants will embark upon an intensive screenwriting apprenticeship designed to equip them for future writing for drama.
BBC Drama Screenwriting Course
The controller of drama, John Yorke orchestrates this three month screenwriting course, where writers have to complete intensive writing exercises, including writing an episode to well known BBC Drama, Doctors. At the end of the course, the hopeful writers will be commissioned to write an episode to other well known dramas, being Casualty, Holby and Eastenders.
Criteria for BBC Writing Apprenticeship
The applicants can apply only if their work has been produced or broadcast in a professional capacity, which may include the theatre, radio or television. The application must also include an original sample of their writing.
This intensive screenwriting course provides valuable experience and the equipment needed for budding screenwriters to win commissions for writing for high profile TV dramas.
This screenwriting course includes:
- Classroom lectures from the country’s best writers and scriptwriters including Richard Curtis and Jimmy McGovern
- Advice and instruction of television production
- Rigorous writing exercises, including essential aspects of scriptwriting, such as screenplay structure, fictional characterisation and the story arc
- Individual screenwriting tutorials
- Workshops on TV production, including directing, casting and editing
Writing for Broadcasting Dramas
The end of this intensive BBC course will require that each writer rotate in writing an episode for Eastenders, Holby City and Casualty. If the writers show continued promise, the BBC may offer future commissions.
Writing for Television Drama
John Yorke summarizes the aims of the Writer Academy, “One of our duties is to train the next generation of writers, to equip the industry for the future. There's no doubt that some of these writers will go off and write for ITV, Channel 4 and whoever else. These shows are brutal for young writers; it takes time to learn your craft. To mix metaphors, we give the green shoots more opportunity to grow without the axe hanging over their heads.” (You Live and Die by Your First Script” Gareth McClean, The Guardian, 16 April 2007)
Screenwriting Classes for Drama
The BBC provides talented but undiscovered writers development and training in the form of the BBC Drama Writer Academy, where applicants must complete intensive writing exercises and write episodes for Eastenders, Holby and other BBC dramas. At the end of the screenwriting course, hopeful writers have the best chances of finding commissions for writing dramas and further TV projects that could mark the beginning of a new writing career.
Useful Links Relating to the BBC Drama Writer Academy
“You Live and Die by Your First Script” Gareth McClean, The Guardian (16 April 2007)
Rachel Shirley - I have written and illustrated several art instruction books entitled Oil Paintings from your Garden and Oil Paintings from the Landscape ...
