Newsjack - Series 10

Apparently series 10 kicks off on Thursday 6 March.

Yay for the return of weekly disappointment

Another six weeks to prove how throughly useless I am at writing topical sketches?

Sounds like a plan.

Wow the thread started early this series.

Good work Viv on hounding the information out so early. Dare I ask if you got a Tuesday invite this series given your sterling work on series 9?

And I think there might be news of another series of TSWYW around the same time so could be a busy few months!

All the below is probably all still valid from last time.

I will edit this list as more relevant stuff becomes available/people post additional things, so it's all in a single place.

Submission Guidelines for Series 10

First deadline is the Monday before broadcast (4th March) at 12noon for sketches (2 each per show this series) and 4pm on Tuesday for one-liners (max. 3 each in each of 3 sections).

Below, I've tried to collate a lot of helpful (or unhelpful: delete as applicable) information.

Newsjack Twitter Feed: They may update this as the recording nears if they need particular one-liners on a breaking topic.

Ed Morrish's what and how to write for Newsjack. He doesn't produce it anymore, but this is the one thing you should read, if nothing else below.

Lyndsay Fenner's blogs about how they make Newsjack: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/How-we-make-BBC-Radio-4-Extras-Newsjack http://www.ideastap.com/ideasmag/the-knowledge/newsjack-producer-lyndsay-fenner-open-door-radio-comedy

List of helpful videos from the staff about script editing, the writers' meeting, etc. Script Editor Jack Bernhardt talks about writing The cast talk about which voices they like doing The Show What You Wrote's 'Tips for Writers' video; a lot of which is relevant to writing any radio comedy sketches

Ed Morrish's advice on jackapps and one-liners. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kvs8r/features/one-liners

Radio comedy writer James Cary's advice on why you should write for Newsjack(he script-edited other radio shows but is not affiliated with Newsjack)

Here's series 7's 'One Liner Rejects' thread, if people want to read them to get in the mood. Here's series 8's one and series 9's one.

Lots of sketches available in 'Critique' forum to study/see what's wrong/rip-off. Majority will show up in a search for 'NJ:' to get the majority of them in a list.

The last webchat with the crew is available on the link at the top, as are other blogs by other writers.

Justin Edwards talks about the process

Here's a writer's experience of what could happen (in an ideal situation, which happened for her!) http://mums-the-nerd.tumblr.com/post/40292001463/im-coming-over-all-topical-panel-show

And Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch's fast track 'How To Write For Newsjack' advice.

Here's Alakazam's most excellent 'Prince Albert's Shins' sketch that was broadcast (along with production edits) from last series. And StephenM's 'Billy Footballer'.

Here's Ian's 'how they edited my sketch' sketch (from series 4, I think): https://www.comedy.co.uk/forums/thread/20167/

Here's (former) script editor Gareth Gwynn's blog on comm/non-comm submissions.

Here's a series 6 webchat, with links to three previous (series 5) webchats below it and here: series 5 webchat 1, series 5 webchat 2, series 5 webchat 3

Formatting:
Instead of us all arguing about formatting, as that repeats here more than Last of the Summer Wine, the producer have kindly supplied templates on the submissions page. Use whatever they put here.

OLD NOTE ABOUT FORMATTING THAT IS WORTH KEEPING IN FOR REFERENCE:

Formatting: here's a template for the sketches in Google Docs if you don't have/want to use Word. Unfortunately Google Docs has changed so you have to download in .docx rather than .doc and I don't know if that's compatible with the BBC yet. (I write in G-Docs, download then convert in Word to 'old-fashioned' .doc format

quote from Mr Feeoree on January 17 2013, 10:10 PM GMT
Also people, further to Mr Sweryt's post with the template, here's a blog that then Script Editor wrote 3 years back, re formatting and how much they like it to look proper! : http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/2010/01/newsjack_script_smart_or_smart.shtml
/quote
This is the blog that *everyone* at the BBC (and even external prodcos) refer to when asking for radio submissions, so use it. The instructions are written down for you, and there is a link to a copyable/downloadable Google Drive version above that does the same thing, if you don't have Word, and allows you to still send in a Word doc, and I reiterate, even if you don't have Word. As a script editor of an open submissions show myself (and the one who usually painfully puts the final script together), CAN YOU PLEASE USE THIS EFFING TEMPLATE, FOR GOD'S SAKE! It is a massive pain in the arse to have to change your formatting, if it's not like this.

Marc Paterson's pain in writing for Newsjack is very similar to my experience over the weekend. (He wrote this in the run-up to series 7)

Twitter vibe from the producers in series 8 episode 1 was that there are a lot of idiots who don't put their name or email address in their one-liner submissions. Try to avoid this, as angry producers notoriously don't find things funny.

Here are some very good blogs from our own Mr Salisbury about 'The Killer Premise', 'Things to Consider Whilst Drafting' and 'Sketches Need Characters' . Newsjack went reasonably well for him in series 7 so listen to his wise words. David also has a very useful list of what NOT to write for Newsjack.

Let the fun and games (read: 'rejection and hair-pulling') commence...

Dan

It's all too much. I'm still recovering from last time.

38 pages of thread to beat. Easy! Easy!

Mike.

Thanks for all the above consolidation Dan. Much appreciated and very helpful.

I read that as consolation. Probably more appropriate.

Quote: StephenM @ 9th January 2014, 9:57 PM GMT

Wow the thread started early this series.

Good work Viv on hounding the information out so early. Dare I ask if you got a Tuesday invite this series given your sterling work on series 9?

View original

V flattered that you've got so much faith in me, Stephen, but actually it was because I was chasing a payment and I asked the nice man what does the dosh.

My personal highlight of series 10 could well be my starting this thread (I'm usually the last to know anything).

there's no email from BBC yet regarding applying for tickets...

yes, they email and you can apply - but there hasn't been an email yet for newsjack. I really wanted 'Up The Women' tickets but I got an 'unsuccessful' email about those.

Can anyone point me in the direction of recordings of past shows? Just so I can get used to the style.

Quote: thebda @ 30th January 2014, 9:34 AM GMT

Can anyone point me in the direction of recordings of past shows? Just so I can get used to the style.

View original

I don't think they can - at least not to official recordings.

I think it's maybe with being topical, but AFAIK they only ever appear on iPlayer for a week and are then not officially available.

IIRC last year they made a best of the last series available for a bit before the new series started, but I may be wrong on that.

The newsjack website has lots of clips of different sketches from the past few series which will you a good idea of what they want.

Quote: Bonzo @ 30th January 2014, 12:06 PM GMT

The newsjack website has lots of clips of different sketches from the past few series which will you a good idea of what they want.

View original

Whoops! I forgot that they'd started doing the clips.

On an off-topic (but related) note: Anyone heard anything about TSWYW yet? Does it look like they're waiting to run the submission window at the same time as Spring Newsjack again?