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IT COULD BE a scene from a television drama: five Germans, three Frenchmen, a Briton, an Italian, a Bulgarian and a Hungarian, all cooking up a plot together in their London hideout.
But this not-so-dirty dozen are on the other side of the small screen, as they are taking part in Europe’s first postgraduate programme focused on writing and producing TV series.
Dubbed “Serial Eyes”, the nine-month course running between Berlin and London is a response to the new generation of TV series such as “Breaking Bad”, “Mad Men” and “The Killing”.
“Watch as many TV shows or movies as you can and you show us what you like,” special effects expert Erik Ellefsen tells the class at the London Film School in trendy Covent Garden.
The 12 students listen intently as Ellefsen uses a video sequence to demonstrate how to show a person shooting himself in the head in close-up. He then talks about special effects budgets, and about the working relationship with writers and directors.
“Collaboration is the key word,” adds Ellefsen, who created the effects in the British series “Misfits” and “Utopia”.
The writers’ room
The course gives intensive training in the writing and production of series with a focus on European markets, but with elements of the “writers’ room” culture that lies behind many of the top US shows.
The collaboration between the Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie (German Film and Television Academy) in Berlin and the London Film School was launched in January 2013 at the “Totally Serialized” television festival in London by the German academy’s boss Jan Schuette.
“There was a realisation that there is a lack of training about how to make TV series in Europe,” Lorraine Sullivan, the director of the “Totally Serialized” festival, told AFP.
Adaptation
She said that “working in a group doesn’t exist at all in Europe,” unlike in the United States where most major series have writers’ rooms gathered around a ‘showrunner’ where ideas can be bounced around in a high-pressure creative environment.
“The idea is not to import the writers’ room to Europe wholesale, but to bring in a bit of that culture of cooperation,” Sullivan said.
That will fill a gap, says Dominique Jubin, assistant director of drama at the French channel Canal Plus.
In France it is difficult to find “experienced writers who are able to work on developing a series that they have not necessarily created themselves,” says Jubin.
Whatever works
Laurent Mercier, one of two French writers on “Serial Eyes”, which costs €4,500 to take part in, said the course helped teach “a sense of what works and what doesn’t internationally.”
“It gives you an edge,” said Mercier, who graduated from a Paris-based TV screenwriting school in 2010 and has worked for French channels.
Anna-Katharina Brehm, a student from Germany, praised the quality of the lecturers, including Frank Spotnitz, one of the key figures behind the hugely popular US science-fiction series “The X-Files.”
“One of the best things I have ever, ever done,” she said.
The students are ideally between 25 and 35 and must have written or produced at least one television drama themselves to be accepted on the course.
Over the nine months, they must collaborate in groups of four to create a drama series and write one of their own.
Intensive
Mercier’s group wrote a police drama while his individual project was about football match-fixing, but done in the style of pioneering US crime drama “The Wire.” Brehm meanwhile came up with a series focusing on a community with hidden secrets, along the lines of “Twin Peaks” or hit French series “The Returned”.
The students spend six months in Berlin before returning to London for intensive work with Britain’s television professionals behind shows such as the award-winning country-house drama “Downton Abbey”.
“You meet the creme de la creme here and the idea is to take on board the American model, while adapting it for Europe,” added Mercier, who hopes to set up his own production company next year.
After London, the young screenwriters headed to Cannes this month for MIPTV, the world’s biggest media sales event — while Lorraine Sullivan is taking applications from the next set of Serial Eyes hopefuls with stars in their eyes.
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Hopefully they find the dirt that did this!
Accidents happen and we don’t know the facts of how this happened or who was to blame whether it be the driver or the deceased but it takes a certain type of low life to leave a man to die on the road and for that I hope they are caught and receive a befitting punishment.
They really need to change the laws around hit and runs, they are far far too lax,
Should be a min sentence of 5 or 10years for leaving the scene and
I got knocked down while walking home from a pub one night .i was 20yards from my home the guy that knocked me down walked me home told me he would call to me in morn ” after he sobered up ” next thing I knew the guards were at my house at 11 am to take a statement and to look where it happened he brought me to court for bursting up front of his car I was fined 120 pounds for obstructing traffic or 1 month in jail he got off scot free cos he knew d guards I was off work for 6 mths after cos I cud barly walk some justice system in this country my arse. Jail would b too gud for these people.
Think you told that story before, the name and some of the facts have changed though
Sorry but I haven’t told that story before. Might have happened to someone else as well .
Disgusting , leaving the scene, cruel to do it to an animal. If the person responsible is found I hope they are charged with manslaughter .
Anyone not wearing a high visibility at night while walking the roads at night should be fined, an innocent driver who hits someone in dark clothing at night is automatically branded in the wrong.
If the driver was innocent which could be quite likely they should have stopped…I know fear may have struck them but coming forward the next day would have been something. Cowarding away only increases the doubts of guilt
They drove off after hitting him. That IS automatically in the wrong.
Leaving the scene is inexcusable.
People shouldn’t drink and drive this guy was drunk cos I saw him that night in my local drinking so havin a highvis on or not he was in the wrong when u get hit by a car come back and talk to me god lad.
There is not much care on the roads up there. Too many hit & runs, many of them our northern drivers who don’t give a crap (sometimes).
To be fair that is a gross generalisation…be like saying all people ‘down there’ in limerick are druggies….the fact is no theyre not nor are all Northern drivers hoping the border to drive recklessly
The poor woman, discovering her dead husband. This is around the corner from my cousin’s house.
Also, that’s not how you spell Boynagh.
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