Changing Climate Narratives - New Professional Development Programme for Script Consultants and Development Executives
Climate Spring presents: Changing Climate Narratives, a new professional development programme for Script Consultants, Script Editors and Development Executives
APPLICATIONS FOR CHANGING CLIMATE NARRATIVES ARE NOW CLOSED.
Climate Spring, in collaboration with Torino FilmLab, presents Changing Climate Narratives, a new professional development programme focused on climate storytelling. There is an ever-growing appetite in the international film and TV community to explore how to meaningfully address the climate crisis in the stories we tell on screen, without compromising the authenticity of the creative process. Aimed at script consultants, script editors and development executives, this 8-week climate storytelling programme is designed to provide the tools, insights and reflections to build creative climate storytelling capacity across our industry. Led by seasoned development executives and script consultants, participants will explore how best to support projects about the biggest and most urgent story of our times; the story of how we transition through the climate and nature crisis.
ABOUT THE PROGRAMME:
How can script consultants, script editors and development professionals best support screen projects that inspire change? How can we best work with writers who are looking to integrate aspects of the climate crisis into their storytelling? How can we be more sophisticated in the stories we develop for film and TV - and move beyond warning apocalypse or simplifying the solution with superheroes or tokenistic small behaviours? And how can we do any of this whilst avoiding the ‘worthy’ or educational?
Climate Spring’s Changing Climate Narratives programme is designed to address these questions and to support industry professionals in advancing their understanding and practice of climate storytelling.
The programme has been designed - and will be led by - seasoned development executives and script consultants, offering a series of inspirational seminars as well as practical industry inside approaches. The programme will include lectures providing insights and conversations with specialists to inspire and inform. Aiming to investigate underlying narratives and explore climate stories in more impactful ways while keeping creative integrity intact, the lectures are combined with facilitated peer-to-peer small group discussions on the craft and science of the power of storytelling. These discussions will be facilitated by experienced script consultants. The programme will also focus on the process of development of narratives and scripted content for film and television with a climate change perspective. The aim is to inspire ways of working with storytelling and dramaturgy while investigating the underlying narratives surrounding the climate crisis, with a perspective on the wider implications on society, norms, behaviours, values, hopes and fears.
You will leave the course with the skills and network as well as the confidence to apply your learning about climate storytelling to any future projects.
PROGRAMME OVERVIEW:
Running weekly online in the fall of 2024, the programme consists of 8 afternoon sessions. Each session will comprise a lecture, Q&A, a facilitated peer discussion forum based on a live case study, as well as additional reading material. Contents and formats of the course will include:
- A lecture series by seasoned professionals who work with various aspects of the solutions to the climate crisis as well as specialists in narrative change, research praxis, and alternative storytelling.
- A forum for open discussion on the complexity of climate storytelling, sharing information and experiences with other working professionals and using case studies to consider alternative ways of storytelling.
- A range of live case studies, including winners of Climate Spring’s 2024 Hot House competition, who will provide their synopsis to be explored by the course participants. One synopsis will be used per session (six in total), and all the groups will discuss the same synopsis in any given week.
- Networking opportunities throughout, the aim being to invite full-time working professionals with a high level of experience to participate, keeping the outcomes of the discussions actionable as well as inspiring.
SPEAKERS:
Kate Raworth is an ecological economist focused on making economics fit for 21st century realities. She is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries. Her international best-selling book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think like a 21st Century Economist, has been translated into more than 20 languages.
Caroline Hickman has a background in mental health social work and working with community mental health projects. She is an integrative psychosynthesis psychotherapist who studied with Revision & archetypal & cultural psychology with Thiasos qualifying in 2000. She is a lecturer at the University of Bath researching children and young people’s emotional responses to climate change in the UK, Brazil, The Maldives, Nigeria & USA for 10 years examining eco- anxiety & distress, eco-empathy, trauma, moral injury, and the impact of climate anxiety on relationships. She is co- lead author on a 2021 quantitative global study into 10,000 children & young people’s emotions & thoughts about climate change published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
Additional speakers to be announced in due course.
DURATION OF THE PROGRAMME:
8 weeks (2 months), 3.5 hrs online weekly sessions
Dates: - September 11 - October 30 2024
Wednesdays 15.00-18.30 UK/16.00 -19.30 CET
FORMAT OF THE SESSIONS:
- 1.5 hrs Master Class/Lecture/Seminar and Q&A
- 15-minute break
- 1.5 hr small group peer to peer discussion led by facilitator
- 15-minute wrap up and reading list explanation
WHO IS IT FOR?
Experienced professional script consultants, script editors, development producers/executives, who are well advanced in their careers, and are working in film and television in the UK and Europe, for production companies, broadcasters or funding bodies, independently or as part of a larger organisation.
Total participants: 20 professionals
HOW TO APPLY:
Applications are now closed.
COURSE FEE:
£500 for freelance professionals
£700 for professionals attending as part of a company or organisation
One scholarship place is offered for a freelance professional that would otherwise be financially unable to afford the course fees, and who identify as one or more of the following:
- Global Majority
- LGBTQI+
- Disability
- Educationally or economically disadvantaged
To apply, please indicate on the application, including a short statement on your career aspirations. The scholarship is funded by Torino FilmLab.
CERTIFICATION:
Participants will receive a certification of participation from Climate Spring, upon completion of the programme, which can be added to a CV or company profile.
Pitch to us
film and TV, live action and animation, we’re
interested in stories in any genre and for any
age-group. Find out more about requirements
and how to pitch your idea to us.