Writer?s Table Screen Writing Initiative

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Writer s Table Screen Writing Initiative --

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 15:34

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In what has come to be known as the second Golden Age of television, audiences around the world are spoilt like they have never been before for quality drama.

American cable networks like HBO, AMC and Starz have long since become household names giving the traditional purveyors of quality drama like BBC, and the US majors a run for a share of audience. And just when you thought the battle lines were drawn, a whole new host of online players entered the fray bringing brands like Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, Yahoo, Microsoft and online retailer Amazon as taste makers for quality drama. It looks like the golden age of television is being replaced by the Streaming-TV Gold Rush .

The South African television industry is part of this global trend with over two thousand hours of new local television drama produced and broadcast in the last year. To serve this demand for original drama however, it requires a deep ocean of original writing talent which to a large extent seems to blossom in the US and European market. South Africa however, currently struggles to meet the demand for screen writers whose talents have been developed and honed to sufficient standards of expertise and professionalism. Ochre Moving Pictures, a subsidiary of Times Media, is addressing this challenge by investing in skills development in the field of narrative screen writing. The skills programmes, are funded through a grant from Times Media s The Argus Trust. Writing talent that participate in the programme will also have the opportunity to become part of Ochre Moving Pictures new writers hub, known as the Writers Table.

The initiative incudes screen writing for soap, novela and drama genres as well as a feature film writing programme and it will be rolled out over the course of the coming year. The programme is backed up by a script development fund and a production investment fund by the Times Media Group which will enable the best ideas and talent coming out of this initiative to make it to the big or small screen.

The first intervention of this broad ranging initiative kicks off on July 25 with an eight week screen writing courses in Johannesburg. Focusing on soap opera, training and mentoring for this course will be provided by leading industry players with track records of excellence in their fields, who are also experts in skills transference and development. These include multi award winning writer / director / educators Ilse van Hemert and Mark Graham Wilson, currently Show Runner and Story Editor of Ochres daily soap opera Scandal! and leading television and stage writer Bongi Ndaba.

The trainees, who will receive their mentoring free of charge, are being chosen through rigorous selection processes from the ranks of writers countrywide who have seen at least one of their works published or produced in the public domain. The course is experiential and outcomes based and will deliver trained, original thinking screen writers to the industry. The writers who successfully complete the course will be capable of creating and developing sound, original and exciting story premises and taking them to final draft script stage for production.

For more information on this course and details on how to apply, click here.

Ochre Moving Pictures will shortly be announcing the details of its feature film writing programme linked to a script development fund and a production finance initiative for the best projects that make it through the programme. This initiative is in collaboration with Indigenous Films, independent producer, writer and director, Robbie Thorpe.

For more information contact info@ochre.co.za

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