Hello!
Just got in from my meeting in London and I thought I'd give you a bit of an insight so if you get asked down by a producer, you know what to expect.
It was a nerve-racking experience, mainly because I was being looked over by a Bafta and 2 Comedy Awards in the meeting room! Weird stuff.
Both the producer and development head were great, lovely guys who both loved the script and were really positive about it.
They asked a bit about me and my writing, and the producer in particular was complimentary about me as a writer.
They said most of the unsolicited stuff they get - which gets through the net - is shit.
They asked what channel I saw it on, if I'd considered who to cast, and then we discussed ages of characters, sets, jobs.
Basically anything media based is out, even one off plots are frowned upon and it seems the BBC are looking for audience shows for pre-watershed BBC1 and post-BBC2. So there's who to aim for!
One very interesting thing was that they said that layout doesn't REALLY matter as long as it LOOKS like a script. So it doesn't have to be done in that BBC way that the scripts in their archive are.
Then they asked if I wanted to pitch it to the BBC - after my jaw hit the ground I said yes!
He said I should have no problem getting an agent - I was just staggered by all this, of course.
So I'm going to cut it down - it needs to be 40-45 pages, which I didn't know - so that's a good one to remember - then it could well be pitching time.
It was so bizarre talking about something I wrote in my spare time with such gravitas and seriousness.
Then I ate a jacket potato, looked round the big smoke, then came home!
I'm still on a high!
)