Name: Ed
My hotcourse: Screen Writing
Institution: London Academy of Media, Film and TV

Ed tells us about his forays into the tricky world of screenplay writing…

I took a classes in screenplay writing because I know I have an exciting screenplay just waiting to burst out of me, which will herald the way to enough riches and success that I’ll never have to work (properly) again.

Having completed the screenplay writing course, I now realise that coming up with ideas for films is easy. The hard bit is getting these ideas down on paper, finding the motivation to put the Playstation controller down and switch the laptop on, and having the patience to chip away at your script until it is at least vaguely readable.

Reality bites
The screenplay writing course was run one evening a week over six weeks, and the tutor was a grizzled veteran of film, TV and radio who certainly knew his stuff and wasn’t afraid to burst any misconceptions as to how jolly a career in screen writing is, or how easy it might be to enter.

In the first couple of sessions, we looked at the differences between writing for a variety of media and the skillsets each one requires. A lot of the sessions were interactive, and often we’d split into smaller groups and brainstorm ideas – a highlight being the sitcom we came up with about a patriotic, right-wing tramp living in the shed at the bottom of a rich, liberal leftie’s garden. Trust me, it would have been hilarious.

Developing ideas
In the second half of the course, the tutor encouraged us to come up with and then develop our own main screenplay project, then bat it around the rest of the group for feedback. Finally, each screenplay was constructively broken down and then built back up again by  the tutor, which helped us to learn where we were going wrong.

My idea was to set the classic Jewish monster story of the Golem (the vengeance-seeking creature made of clay, not the little fellow from Lord of the Rings) in Eastern Europe during the Second World War. However, the tutor wasn’t  quite convinced: ‘Too generic,  too obvious, there’re too many Second World War films,’ he said. ‘Why not set it in the Soviet Union in the 1950s?’

Sadly, this is where it has stayed, and as yet the screenplay that will make me rich and successful remains in the realms of my imagination. But at least the course helped me develop my idea further and taught me how to construct it properly. Once I put that controller down and switch on the laptop, riches and success will no doubt swiftly follow.