Chair Ian Kennedy with guests at our launch event

Things are livening up on the networking front. We’re working with the new Producers’ Forum CEO Alison Grade on several fronts – feel free to send us any comments or thoughts about the PF and its activities for us to feed back to her! We’ll be presenting at the Forum’s Marketplace event on October 25th, delivering an exclusive preparation session to the attendees – a Speed Pitching workshop (following our successful delivery of this activity within our Introduction to Professional Screenwriting c0urse earlier this year!) to help the delegates hone and practice their pitching before they do it for real to the many senior film and TV producers attending the event. We’ll also be pitching projects to them ourselves afterwards! To find out about the Marketplace (applications are now closed but it’s very likely to return next year) click here: https://producersforum.org.uk/events/film-tv-marketplace-2018

If you’re not registered for that event, or can’t attend our Script Development Group, that’s not your only chance to catch up with us. We’ll also be at:

• On 26th September, the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP holds its annual conference, which includes a keynote speech from PEAKY BLINDERS/LOCKE/BURNT/DIRTY PRETTY THINGS writer Steven Knight! Well worth attending with us to find out about his plans to bring a major studio into Birmingham. Steven provided an exclusive talk for us at an event a few years ago and was a fascinating speaker. https://gbslep-conference.co.uk/
• If you’d like to consider taking your work in the arts international, then a new online platform is here to help, and its launch event is on 27th September at Centrala Gallery in Birmingham. Our Chair Ian authored and designed two online assessment tools for this platform, working with many European partners through an Erasmus+ funded project. Catch him at the event to find out more! An organiser says: “It’s at Centrala, there’ll be beer and pierogi. It’s just an hour of people’s time if they happen to be interested … feel free to share the invite!” https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/learning-to-internationalise-your-creativity-tickets-49208519005

Meanwhile, Jamie has sent through an opportunity from the actress who many of you met at our January session:

ENTER STAGE WRITE contest! Entry fees of £10 (basic entry), or £30 – which includes a 20 minute 1-on-1 coaching session. £7 for U16s and students. Scripts should be 7-10 minutes long; anyone can enter into the competition as long as they are a British citizen or currently reside in the UK and they have studied or are studying in the UK. Deadline – Midnight Nov 19th. Prizes/incentives:  £1000 prize + a select number of scripts will be produced and performed at the prestigious Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on December 1st. The judging panel includes producers who have worked for the likes of Channel 4 and the BBC and are actively looking for new projects. Writers can also choose to opt-in to a database with Transition Stage Company – producers worldwide can see and use this database to potentially pick up a project they like. https://us19.campaign-archive.com/?e=&u=84e00b5650eebe7256f502117&id=4680e3408f