Here we'll be directing the spotlight on the news behind the news.

Fantastic Resource

David Collier, a producer of The Basil Brush Show and My Parents are Aliens, used to be Create Studio's Screenwriter in Residence and tutored our courses until recently. Now his work takes him all over the world.

His latest work includes a pre-school puppet show called Big and Small, found on CBeebies and featuring the voices of Lenny Henry and Imelda Staunton.

But despite David's workload he still finds time to keep in touch with Create Studios. David enthused, "Create is a fantastic resource for filmmakers, photographers, animators, in fact anyone interested in developing their experience of the visual media. It helps and encourages people with a wide range of experience and abilities. Importantly, it provides a regional support system for people wanting to deepen their knowledge of their chosen field and encourages links between groups for their mutual benefit.

"I have always been impressed by the enthusiasm and care that Create shows to the people it works with and those who use their facilities."

David feels his time with Create has developed his own talent. He added, "Working with the writers undoubtedly gave me more experience to read and discuss a wide range of scripts, which directly fed into my work as a script editor. Developing and running courses is a useful background to the organisational aspects of production as well as being good training in working with people."

Awards

David was the Screenwriting Tutor on the Create production Icehouse, which won Best Thriller at the First Light awards. He has won other awards, too, as well as having three BAFTA nominations for My Parents are Aliens and one for the series Best Friends.

We asked how the Icehouse award compared. "I was extremely thrilled and proud when Icehouse won because it’s a great short film and The Boffin Group was a truly fantastic group of young women to work with. It was particularly exciting to be in the cinema when the award was announced because I had been involved in the very early stages of the script’s development and so saw the film move from being scribbles on index cards to, a year later, winning an award. Although the filmmakers were very sure about what they wanted to do - I just offered a little guidance.

"It was a very well-deserved award, which is always good. It’s also good to win an award - more fun than a nomination in some ways! My Parents are Aliens won a Royal Television Society award for Best Children's Programme and that was more fun than not winning a BAFTA. Particularly as I think we were robbed - although receiving the nominations was brilliant and the event itself is very enjoyable, not least because of the vast amount of champagne that flows…"

David's Top Tips for aspiring media professionals...

Think very hard about why you want to work in film/TV/new media. If you think it’s all about fun and glamour and high wages - well, think again. A lot of people do have a great time and earn decent money, true, but there’s often a lot of slog involved and, particularly in the earlier years, wages can be low and work unpredictable. It’s an industry that’s very heavily based on freelance work, which is often unstable. There are so many different types of work in the media, too. It comes across as a bit flaky, to be honest, when people say ‘I want to work in the media’. What does that mean? A writer? Director? Costume designer? Location manager? Accountant? Catering assistant? Lighting camera? Working in drama, factual, entertainment…

Do thorough research into the area you want to work in. Watch TV, go to the cinema regularly, play computer games, etc. That looks obvious but it always surprises me how often I meet people who say they want to work in TV and they hardly watch it, or they want to write for films and have no idea what sort of films are currently being made in the UK. And, importantly, you should start to develop critical approaches to the work. Why do you think certain programmes or films are successful? It’s not enough to ‘be a fan’ (although that’s a definite advantage) you need to develop a professional appreciation. And consider the creative qualities of the different areas available, too. If you want to write for soap operas - great, nothing wrong with that at all - but watch them and think about why some episodes - some scripts - are working better than others. If you want to edit game shows - again, great if you like game shows - but look to see how they are put together. Try to talk to people doing the work you’re exploring to see if it’s really what you want to do.

Be flexible. Be stubborn. Don’t give up.