76: Ben Lewin Pt 1 (The Sessions)

Erin Good is an exciting new writer/director in the Australian Screen Indstry. She's produced a couple of series for Tik Tok, including her latest, Krystal Klairvoyant, which has been nominated for a Rose D'Or and C21 Internatinoal Media Awards. We had a great chat at Content London 2023 about writing a scripted series for a new social media platofrm like Tik Tok. Check It out on... Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@krystalklairvoyant Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/krystalklairvoyant/?hl=en  

This is the first in a series of interviews I recorded at Content London 2023. Grainne is a highly experienced, strategic executive in the creative industries and current Director of Contant at Screen Australia. Before this she was the Head of Screen NSW. In this interview we talk about the benefits of the conference, how Screen Aus are there to help and loads about fudning.

Ben Lewin is an Australian writer and director. Despite contracting Polio at the age of 6, he's had a long and distinguished career in both TV and film. His TV credits include Rafferty's Rules and his best known films include Paperback Romance (1994) and The Sessions (2012), which starred John Hawkes and Helen Hunt, receiving an eye-watering number of award nominations.

Libby Butler (Neighbours and Erinsbrough High) and newcomer lewis Mulholland chat about their web series "Loving Captivity", which they wrote, funded and produced whilst living through the Melbourne lockdowns.  We chat about their writing process, how rom-coms influenced them and how they're doing during the second Melbourne lockdown. You can watch the series for free via Youtube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngzJdWk1eGo or Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/lovingcaptivity/  

Caden is an early-career Indigenous screenwriter, director, and producer from Cairns in Far North Queensland, Australia. He proudly got his start writing for The Epoch Times Australia during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. In his current lifetime his family is from the Bagarrmugu and Kuku Yalanji clans from Far North Queensland, with Scottish, French and Irish heritage as well. In 2020, Caden produced, wrote, and directed a half-hour documentary in association with Australian public broadcaster NITV. I bumped into Caden at Content London last year and was lucky to get to know this talented emerging screenwriter with an incredible story to tell.  

Roger Simpson is a giant of Australian drama and shouldn't need an introduction!  If you've watched Aussie drama, you've seen one of his shows. In this ep he chats about the resurrection of a very popular series of tele films, that first from 1994 to 2002, Halifax FP.  Breaking with tradition though, Halifax is now an 8-part series. Roger goes talks about the development of the series, his long and incredible career and imparts some TV wisdom.

As Commissioning Editor for Drama in England and Scotland, Elizabeth Kilgarriff commissioned projects like Bodyguard, Poldark and Luther to name just a few of her hits.  But now she's branched out and heads up her own production company, Firebird Pictures. I spoke to her during Content London about why she left the BBC, her process in developing and staffing new shows, opportunities for Australian writers and much more.

This episode is another story of Aussie writer made good overseas.     I first met Micharne whilst working on Celebrity Apprentice a few years ago and now she's on the writing staff of Law & Order: SVU, the longest running US live-action series on television.  How cool is that?!   We talk about how she made it on to the show, why we shouldn't be too anxious when work gets in the way of writing and we get to hear some great insights into the writers room of SVU.

This is the third in my series of interviews from the recent Content London Drama Summit. Carly Heaton is Executive in charge of Drama Production at Australia's cable TV broadcaster, Foxtel.  In this quick episode, we talk about what sorts of shows Foxtel are looking for, the benefits of Content London and how to pitch to them, among a few more. 

This is the second interview in a series from the recent Content London Drama Summit.  I got to chat to experienced producer Stuart Menzies outside by Regents Canal, to talk about Content London and various other issues pertaining to the industry. Stuart is currently working as a freelance producer after many years as CEO at December Media and a decade at the ABC as Head of Documentaries, Controller of ABC 2 and finally Head of Content and Creative Development.