Film and television writers from minority ethnic backgrounds are being invited to apply to a boot camp programme promoting diversity in the industries.
The project is being run by the London Film School, the industry monitoring group Creative Skillset and Fresh Voices UK, which campaigns for better representation of people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds in film and television.
Successful applicants will be given the opportunity to work on scripts alongside senior industry figures.
“The UK is brimming with talented BAME writers who just need access and support from the right people in TV,” said Carol Russell, the managing director of Fresh Voices.
She added: “This course gives that access and has a proven record of progressing writer’s careers.”
The LFS/Fresh Voices boot camp will run over the course of seven weeks, beginning in February next year and the organisers said they were looking for six experienced writers to take part.
They said last year’s group included two writers who were commissioned by BBC Drama and the production company Left Bank Pictures, while a third was invited onto an internship on Coronation Street.
One of them, Catherine Johnson, whose project Blackbirds was eventually commissioned, said: “I would never have believed that after a couple of weeks I would be selling an original idea for a TV series to one of the biggest production companies in London. I could not have done it without this course.”
The successful applicants will be given the opportunity to work with TV executives from the BBC, Channel 4, Sky and ITV, testing out their ideas and learning about the development of scripts from pitching to commissioning.
Interested writers were asked to apply by email by Monday 28 December.
