There have been debates about whether a Christmas advert made for just £50 is better than the John Lewis £7m Christmas advert featuring Elton John. We know that budget doesn’t matter; it’s all about how you deliver story – so we’ve broken each advert down into their five acts.
Perfecting the structure of a story makes the difference between a good idea and a successful piece of screenwriting. In this one-to-one session, the John Yorke Story team work with a screenwriter as she masters some of the core elements of five-act structure: inciting incidents, moments of hope and despair, and the point of no return.
What’s the key to great comedy? How can you engage the audience while still making them laugh? What should a new writer look out for? Actress, writer and producer Katherine Press met up with BBC Studios Executive Producer for Comedy Simon Nicholls to clear up all these questions and more in an exclusive interview for John Yorke Story.
Our Story for Screen students are halfway through the course, so we invited writer, story producer and tutor Ciaran Hayden to answer their questions on troublesome midsections, characters’ desires and how long to make a series.
What does a script editor really mean when she asks a writer to ‘dig deeper’? Caroline Young, tutor on our Story for Script Development course, reveals the truth behind script editor clichés – and what writers hear when they read ‘We’re so nearly there now.’