Prospero | Screenwriting

Looking to find the next hit television series? Try Berlin

When it comes to training young writers, the German capital offers the best facilities in Europe

By N.E.

BINGE viewing has become one of the world’s most popular cultural pastimes; Netflix’s 81m subscribers spend an estimated 10 billion hours a month watching content online. Productions from all over the globe are looking to sate audiences’ desire for compelling long-form television drama, and, consequently, the industry is constantly on the hunt for new writers capable of creating original and engaging content. But how—and where—are the next writers of “Broadchurch”, “The Killing”, or “Deutschland 83” being cultivated?

“We are in a golden era of television, a time of increased opportunity for writers,” says Amanda Davis, an agent who represents writers and producers of TV and film at the agency Curtis Brown. But it is still far from easy for fledgling writers, or even those with some experience, to break into the world of high-end series. The cost of making such a programme can be upwards of €1m per episode, and there is only a limited pool of writers who major broadcasters feel they can trust to deliver the right product. As a result, a select group of writers with proven track records are used and re-used. The writers that do break through have often honed their skills as part of a writing team on another successful series. Jeppe Gjervig Gram, now head writer on his own series “Follow the Money”, was previously a writer on all three seasons of the Danish series “Borgen”. Often, writers who pen a hit series are then booked for years at a time, says Jimmy Desmarais, co-head of Atlantique productions, leaving little room for new talent.

For most writers, success and creative independence comes after many years on less prestigious projects. Many successful British screenwriters began their careers on soaps, prime time series or long-running, soap-like dramas such as “Casualty”. Yet this gives them invaluable experience of delivering week in, week out says Ms Davis. In addition, new writers can demonstrate their voice by writing sample scripts. If a new writer’s script gets into the right hands they may get hired to write on a high-end series, and, if they prove themselves, it could lead to an opportunity to write their own.

Britain is fortunate: in many European countries there are not the opportunities for young screenwriters to work on this type of show. France faces typical problems. “It is difficult,” says Mr Desmarais, “when there are only a few soaps and no slots for anything except primetime series that have little room for experimental writing.” It’s even harder in a country like Greece, where austerity is severe and cultural outlets are often the first to suffer from spending cuts. (That said, Mr Desmarais has recently optioned a series by Katerina Gerothanasi, a talented new Greek writer.)

Part of the problem is the lack of quality instruction at university level. Institutions that teach screenwriting tend to have long-established traditions of teaching film, but are slow to catch up on television, even though some of the biggest names in Hollywood (Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbegh and Glenn Close, to name a few) have done their best work in recent years on the small screen. While there are exceptions—the International Film School in Cologne offers a MA in serialised storytelling—many students who want to specialise in writing series for television may not be catered for at all, or offered a token module taught by staff with little or no experience of the medium.

Things are changing. Berlin, as in so many other areas, is forging an identity for itself as the European industry hub. The Berlinale, traditionally a film festival, recently added a television series wing to its programme. The Prix Europa, a broadcasting festival, now features a week dedicated to critiquing and discussing European television drama. The city also hosts a two-week event, Drama Lab, where European talent shares ideas and workshops with American writers, producers and showrunners.

Perhaps the most significant development is a postgraduate course called “Serial Eyes” at the German Film and TV Academy Berlin (DFFB), which helps European students to experience and simulate the American “writers’ room” model of creating drama. Under the tutelage of industry professionals such as Mr Desmarais, Frank Spotnitz (the executive producer of Amazon’s “Man in The High Castle”) and Susanne Müller (the executive director of Feature Films and television series at ZDF, a German channel), students work on group projects as well as on their own concepts. At the end of the eight-month course they deliver a pilot episode and a “bible”—a detailed document outlining the premise of their series, descriptions of the main characters, story arcs, breakdowns of episodes and outlines for subsequent seasons—as they would do in the real working world.

Recently-graduated students must apply what they have learnt to the cold reality of the industry. Making use of the contacts they have made during the course, and by networking at the increasing number of television festivals across Europe (such as Serie Series in Fontainnebleu, France, or the Copenhagen TV festival), they can mingle with some of the most talented and influential individuals in the business. Here they can exercise the most valuable skill they have learned on the course: “We had to pitch all the time—to each other, to tutors, to producers and to broadcasters,” says Jana Burbach, a 2014 Serial Eyes alumnae. “Pitching trains you to focus on what is essential about your project. What was daunting at first became comfortable.” This has paid off: Ms Burbach has already worked in the writers’ room of a German thriller (“Bad Banks”) for the channels Arte and ZDF. She is currently working on a new legal drama—as head writer.

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