Does anybody know what sort of success rate there is for people who have won the writing competitions they sporadically run? Who have been the big winners? By which I mean have gone on to have a career?
Similarly, how good is The Writers Room at discovering new voices and talent? I'd be especially interested to hear from people who might have once done well in one of these schemes, but found it wasn't what they'd hoped.
Every single piece sent to the writers room has been returned to me, by the same person, with the same standard rejection, despite the Beeb's claim that they will always endevour to give feedback. So they're not telling the whole truth or someone is cutting through their slushpile the easy way, and my surname or postcode is in their area.
Those same pieces have nearly always met with better and favourable responses from individual BBC producers or independents. I short-circuit the writers room now and concentrate on developing personal contacts. The Beeb has to appear to be encouraging new talent - it's part of its mandate, after all. But appearing and actually doing are not the same.
I've faced a similar problem. In the last two years all the things I've sent to the Writers Room have been rejected by the exact same person. I don't mind being rejected, it's par for the course in this business, but I do mind when a supposed department dedicated to encouraging new talent, relies on such an incredibly small band of readers.
Hello. I was long listed for a BBC sitcom competition, yonks ago, called 'Two Timing'. They provided feedback on my script, and subsequently fast tracked me in the writersroom. My next script was returned on very slow tracks along with the standard rejection slip. In hindsight, the script was rubish ! I still think they're a pretty good bet for new writers, but by no means the only port of call.
Personally i've always thought the writersroom was a waste of time. Sure, it might be good for feedback but from what i've read on various forums it hasn;t been very good. However, there are rare occassions when something positive come out of it.
When I first started out wide eyed and thinking "I'm gonna be a star" blah blah blah, I sent them about 10 sketches (I have no idea why) and I got a rejection obviously because for one they were formatted in the most terrible fashion and I wouldn’t be surprised if I was blacklisted forever. Anyway a month or so later I got a letter and they sent me loads of advice on the website and so on.
So I don't think their all bad really.
Ive only ever sent them one script, and all I got was a standard reply with no advice, criticism or opinion (Other than they werent going to use it) what so ever. And it took about five months to get that! I was more than a little surprised by the lack of advice. Even if it was just 'we dont want it 'cos we think its shit', that would have been something. Its put me off sending anything else there, I stick to actual producers and production companies now.
do you just pick a producer out of the radio times?
Quote: Johnny26 @ February 12, 2007, 3:53 PMdo you just pick a producer out of the radio times?
Well thats one way, I just look out for contact addresses wherever they turn up. There is a list of some on this site in fact.
Getting a message to a BBC producer isn't really rocket science. If the producers name is Joe Bloggs, you can be sure that his e-mail address is joe.bloggs@bbc.co.uk unless of course they employ more than one joe bloggs!
Quote: Keith Rees @ February 12, 2007, 11:18 PMGetting a message to a BBC producer isn't really rocket science. If the producers name is Joe Bloggs, you can be sure that his e-mail address is joe.bloggs@bbc.co.uk unless of course they employ more than one joe bloggs!
The top executives at the BBC use a different format email address for incoming email so that they can filter out those who've guessed their address. It involves some 'x' characters.
Talking of BBC competitions, some of you might be interested to know the latest from sketch factor.
The final recording of Recorded for Training Purposes was completed on Tuesday night, and the producers were able to confirm last week that a second series has been commissioned. The writers are waiting to hear what role they get to play in it – there will be a core team of writers, another group of writers with mentors (like the last set was structured) and then a larger pool of non-commissioned writers.
The show is also set to be repeated in the 6.30pm slot too – which is great news for all concerned.
Apart from sending stuff to Writers Room, I went in for "Last Laugh" a while ago. Didn't win of course but does anyone know what happened to the winning scripts? Were they ever shown anywhere? Did the winning writers ever do anything else?
Sorry but I just wanted to get this back into everyone's conciousness.
If no-one ever wins these things and they never get performed/broadcast are we just wasting our time - and maybe getting our best ideas nicked?
I heard that the LAST LAUGHs winning sit-com thing was supposed to be getting a whole series, with the winner writing some and the original creators writing the rest. Hevent heard anything since though, and it has been quite a while; maybe it got axed after a pilot or something???