Hi There,
LITHUANIA
I have had a packed and very enjoyable / lucky March. Earlier in the month in Belfast for a three-day Screenskills script editing course, a new granddaughter born and then a week in Vilnius, Lithuania at the end of the month as one of two mentors for a TV drama series forum organised by the Lithuanian National Film School.
This consisted of a day of talks by people from the Lithuanian industry, me (about lessons I have learnt from the writer success stories over the 16 years of the Channel 4 screenwriting course) and a fascinating talk from my fellow-mentor, American writer Susan Stanton, about her work, including as the only US writer who worked on all 4 seasons of Succession.
Susan and I had to select 8 projects from 30+ submitted and over the following two days we worked with these 7 writers and one 3 person writing team about their ideas (all given to us initially as one page pitches) before we all reconvened in the Film School cinema on Sunday for the writers to pitch their ideas to the audience (largely made up of Lithuanian producers and broadcasters).
This was such a fun, mentally stimulating few days and an enjoyably intense development process. On the 2nd day Susan and I each met with the writers individually and then on the 3rd day we met each writer together in a slightly longer meeting before on the 4th day the writers had to present their ideas in the cinema in the National Film School of Lithuania before an audience of producers, broadcasters and other writers / filmmakers. They each had 15 minutes – 7 to pitch / tell us their story, 8 in which to answer audience questions. The level of writing talent was really strong. All of the writers did a brilliant job at pitching their excellent ideas. And from our POV, it was exciting and gratifying to see how each of their projects had grown and developed over the 3 days on which they’d worked on them. The writers were also really supportive of each other – rehearsing their pitches to each other and giving each other helpful feedback and moral support.
Not only did they have the unenviable task of having to stand on stage and pitch their ideas to about 200 people – incomparably nerve-wracking compared to the industry reality of sitting in a room with one or two other people and talking about your idea in a much more organic, conversational, relaxed way with as much time as you need; they also had to do it in a foreign language. Lithuanian is (apparently) a distinctive / unique language and one of the things I was struck by in Vilnius was how virtually everyone I met, spoke almost perfect English. Both the written pitches we were given and these verbal pitches were delivered in fluent, confident, flawless English.
I discovered in conversation that many of them also spoke other languages fluently. So for instance, Vitas, head of the film school and in his 40’s, was of a generation that was brought up to speak Russian as well as Lithuanian – Lithuania only achieved its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 – so pretty much everyone of his generation speaks not only Lithuanian but also Russian and English, while the younger generation all seem to speak fluent English. The one writer who struggled a (very) little with spoken English was a journalist, a recent political refugee from neighbouring (Russian-occupied) Belarus – a native Russian speaker who was still mastering Lithuanian as well as English. Educationally these Lithuanians put us English to shame (perhaps just speaking for myself here!).
Vilnius is a beautiful city with many ancient buildings, lots of cobbled streets. It’s incredibly clean – it reminded me of Switzerland in this way, but unlike Switzerland very inexpensive – food prices in restaurants were significantly lower than in the UK. Unlike the UK, Lithuania is able to take advantage of all the economic and cultural benefits of being an EU member. For instance, this week-long TV series forum was mainly funded by Creative Europe – a major Europe-wide creative funding body – of which the UK is no longer able to be a member since Brexit (grrr).
Anyway, back to the pitches – they were generally superb. One thing I learnt / took away from this was how effective the use of images can be in a pitch (pitch deck).
One of the writers whose idea was about a dysfunctional family in which the lead matriarch character is producer on a TV prank game show – in which the pranks escalate in terms of their cruelty and danger until one goes badly wrong and a lawsuit is taken out against her – and then the pranks become about kindness and celebration – a brilliant character arc told through pranks! This pitch started with a memorable image of surrealist art – a screaming / laughing mouth – somehow this image brilliantly captured the tone and attitude of the writing.
One of the other pitches was set in the 1970’s and inspired by the real story of the writer’s grandmother, a travelling cinema projectionist – and how rescuing a man unconscious at the bottom of a well changes her life. This had the quality of a fable – and each episode is themed around the film the projectionist is screening that week – the first episode’s film is ‘Tarzan and Jane’ and the episode has many nods to that story. The imagery this writer used in her pitch was from the films that the lead character shows; and of the sorts of small rural towns and villages in 1970’s Lithuania where much of the series would be set. The writer made a virtue of the fact that many of these remote villages are pretty much unchanged to this day and could be used for filming.
I could go on – but I hope this gives you an idea of the brilliance and originality of the ideas.
At the end the audience were able to ask questions. There were a couple of middle-aged male Statler and Waldorf (Muppet reference – look it up) type characters from the Lithuanian industry who were generally negative and determined to show off their ‘superior’ knowledge – which made me understand something of the national Lithuanian TV industry identity crisis – which was one of the things this forum was set up by the excellent Vytautas Dambrauskas, the head of the film school, to address (a small industry struggling to sell specifically Lithuanian stories to the rest of Europe and beyond).
At the end Susan and I had to give our feedback on the pitches. In response to Statler and Waldorf, I went into a somewhat over-emotional celebration of the quality of the pitches, emphasising that these 8 pitches (some of which I hope to be able to persuade the writers to let me put in my Script Library) would compare in quality to anything from the writing markets I know something about – the UK and Ireland – and that these writers needed to understand that; and not be put off by parochial attitudes in their local industry. Anyway, as you can see, it was a fascinating, mentally-stimulating week and it was wonderful to meet fellow creatives from a country I knew literally nothing about until last week.
CREATIVITY FOR SCRIPTWRITERS
I will be running this course in central London on Saturday June 13th. A day spent doing a series of fun creative exercises that will help re-energise your writing, arm you with new ideas, characters and stories – in a warm, supportive, non-judgemental setting. This day is always a lot of fun – and many brilliant story ideas have come out of it. (Several of which are referenced in my screenwriting book!)
Guest speaker for the day is playwright / novelist / screenwriter / political activist, the brilliant ANDERS LUSTGARTEN.
https://script-consultant.co.uk/creativity-for-scriptwriters/
The next newsletter will be out on Friday April 17th. I hope you have an enjoyable and relaxing Easter weekend.
Best wishes
Phil
PHILIP SHELLEY
Friday April 3rd 2026