Before I say anything about entering this years BBC Writersoom (comedy), let me just say that I’m no expert. I’m young, inexperienced and most of the advice I’m offering has been handed down to me by far more knowledgeable people.

I entered my script for the BBC Writersroom scriptroom 9 (comedy) back in March. At the time I was living in Melbourne, and I actually wrote the script whilst sitting on a park bench as I had no internet at my flat. I wrote a pilot called Leonard’s Having A Baby, about a twenty-something who discovers his girlfriend is pregnant just before he can break up with her.

This story has been covered before but I guess what was original about my script was my take on a familiar subject. The writersroom are looking for your ‘voice’ to come across in the scripts they read. You might be writing a flat-share comedy or a sitcom set in a hotel, that’s okay as long as you make sure you have something new to say about that tried and tested subject.

Entering is really easy as well, you just go the writersroom website, click submit, create an account and upload your pdf. Don’t worry about including a layout of the whole series, I didn’t and it didn’t affect my chances. Just make sure your script is as good as it can be. Make it funny, make the characters stand out, the dialogue zing and the story surprise.

There were over 2,200 scripts entered so I didn’t hear anything until July. I was invited for a meeting at Salford’s BBC. I met with the head of the writersoom and one of their producers. We talked for a long time, our meeting ran over a bit, which is usually a good sign. They told me they liked my ‘voice’ –- there’s that word again — and we spoke about my writing plans for the future. I made sure that they saw how passionate I was about writing and the other projects I had been working on. That takes me onto my first tip.

1. Make sure you have written other scripts before entering a competition. If you win something you want to be prepared for people who say, ‘okay, we liked that, but what else do you have?’ I’m not saying you need to have written tons of stuff but at least have a few scripts and a couple of ideas in the pipeline.

2. As this is comedy, make the reader laugh on the first page. You only have ten pages to impress them but lots of readers will make a decision on a script after only reading the first few.

3. Get to the story as quickly as possible. Don’t spend the first ten pages introducing your characters. Put them in a situation, give them a goal. Be as economical as possible. This mainly applies to sitcom as you only have 25-30 pages to tell a story but if you’re entering a 90 page script then you have a bit more leeway.

4. Make sure it looks like a proper script. If you don’t want to shell out a hundred pounds for Final Draft download Celtx for free. I used it for years and it’s great.

5. Great characters make great comedy. Think of all the great sitcoms, it’s the characters not the situation that keeps you coming back week after week. Make sure all your characters have different points of view. Comedy comes through difference, not just conflict. An easy way to highlight their differences is to get them talking about the same subject.

6. Finally. Have an active protagonist. This is probably the most important piece of advice I can offer. Passive characters are the death of a comedy script. It’s the characters who get themselves into tricky situations (David Brent, Alan Partridge, Mark and Jez) that make comedies.

But at the end of the day, what do I know? Some people break all these rules and get hailed as geniuses. You might disagree with everything I’ve said and get chosen as one of the 2016 winners. But trust me on the sunscreen.

Laurence Tratalos

@loztrat

By Georgia Woodward

Producer of A Shared House

Reading about the life and work of comedy engineers Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and the gals from Broad City – I felt this overwhelming excitement as a young artist. I noticed the thing these broads had in common was that they were the creators of their work, they kick started their careers by getting people together to make good stuff. They didn’t sit around and wait for a phone call or a green light.

I was inspired by this attitude of being a part of a competitive industry by just literally doing it, taking the industry in your own hands by doing what you love. I contacted a Director, Joshua Lundberg who I had worked with in the past on a short film. We had always shared a similar sense of humour and witty banter– I thought he was a visionary Director; he’s one of those very rare ‘actors Director.’ Who treats his crew and cast like kings and queens. I said to him lightly one day ‘’ I want to make something fun, a series, lets just whip it up in our holidays for shits in giggles.”

What I wanted most was to collaborate with likeminded people and tell a good story in my spare time from drama school and work. Joshua agreed. We decided to strike whilst the iron was hot and we met a few days later over coffee to discuss creating a character driven comedy. We spit balled ideas around for hours around character, concept and form and walked away loaded with ideas.

A few more weeks went by, with no contact. Then one morning as I was sipping my morning coffee, it was around 530am, I received the 1^st drafts of A Shared House. I always remember my gut reaction – I burnt my tongue on my coffee and I actually laughed out loud which isn’t always easy to do on paper. I could see these characters and the world they lived in so clearly, Josh had written with such rhythm and clarity it was enticing. Whilst the script still needed obvious polishing and development, I knew we were onto something.

Months went by, Josh was in the middle of a degree whilst writing the series, and I was at drama school also trying to get a degree. All through those months we worked and grew the world of A Shared House. Whilst we wanted to create something for fun both Josh and I share the same values in terms of professional, polished products and work by the mantra of “Do something, do it properly”.

We met with designers early in the process who designed our logo and the branding for the series; we went through the casting process and began our social media marketing (with no experience in the area). I can’t stress enough how much we winged, we learnt on the job. Very quickly A Shared House had gone from being this fun little project, to something we felt had legs and perhaps a journey ahead of it

Then came production week. We gathered up our birthday and Christmas money to pay for food on set and few costumes, wrangled together a group of generous professionals and incredible talent. We felt very lucky to have such brilliant artists work for free.

We had a week to shoot approx. 4 x 15 -20 minute episodes. Josh’s friends gave us their bachelor pad to shoot in. The only available week to shoot was in the winter. In 2015 July had its coldest winter on record during the week we shot. We shot out completely out sequence, our schedule made no practical sense but was the best we could do given time and money, our location was still being lived in the entire week, our family members catered and our lead character had curly hair with the actress (me) having straight hair = 3 hrs in make up.

It was a small pocket of time we had to get the work done, we had every obstacle you could imagine in the way. I was a first time producer and playing Charlotte, I’d arrive on set a 7AM and pull underwear off the line, scrub the bathroom and kitchen with our designer, Rhys Farmer and then be called into make up – it was a bizarre experience. Josh was allergic to hairspray but we needed a tone of it to keep my curls in tact and it was mother f****ing freezing!

Much to Josh and my surprise and delight, there wasn’t an argument during the entire shoot. Our cast and crew worked like one big machine – listening and building on each other’s ideas. We all embraced the reality of working on an indie production and laughed the entire time. It sounds lame, but it was truly magic, everyone was there because they loved the script and wanted to see it made, everyone wanted to do what they enjoy doing in a business where it’s not always that easy. There is an incredible energy that comes from experiences like that, I believe that it develops and engages an artist’s muscularity, patience and teamwork like no other experience really can.

We left the house and went into post production, Josh was up to his ears in editing for a few of his student films that he was working on at the same time, And I had dropped out of school to work on ASH, I had a gut feeling that this show was a game changer and I needed to wholeheartedly participate, I have never regretted it. After many anxiety attacks, sleep less nights, endless conversations – Season 1 of A Shared House went Live on Friday November, 13^th 2015. The same day as the dreadful Terrorist attacks in Paris, a terrible time to release a comedy series on the Internet, we just felt really wrong. On a business end, it meant rightfully so…no one would be watching our show.

A Shared House hit over 1,300 views on it’s first weekend live (a sweet little achievement for an unknown intellectual property) and was titled “The Best Web Series of 2015” by online web series critic WEBSERIES2WATCH (WHAT U WANT 2 WATCH), It received a 9/10 rating by The AU Review and was well received by it’s audiences. It kick started it’s festival journey with an Official Selection at LA Web Fest to take place in April 2016 at Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank, California.

Since the day of it’s release Josh, the team and myself continued to find ways to better the series. In terms of it’s social media presence, marketing strategies and planning for future seasons. We aimed to expand our audiences by releasing a Mandarin Subtitled version of the series. A Shared House was fast becoming a business.

Web Series need to fight hard for viewership with the internet having such high traffic it can be a relentless task to get an audience however the web series format, I feel gives such ownership and opportunities for artists to get their stories out their and flex their creative muscles.

In January 2016 we announced that we would make a Season 2 of ASH with intentions of improving every single element we can. This included starting a writer’s room to get fresh minds developing the project and to achieve sharper, more comedic ally rich writing for S2. We are launching a crowd funding campaign on Thursday March 10 2016 with Pozible to hopefully lock done some funds to increase all areas of production values.

A Shared House was a game changer and has high hopes for the future. It’s been a huge journey, with our goals getting bigger everyday. Our cast and crew have become a family and a team that works efficiently. A Shared House was made with a whole lotta love and dedication, enjoy and welcome to the house!

Blog post by Seb Bance – Horseboy Productions

I think I’m quite a normal person – a little weird and excitable in crowds of 2 or more people but generally pretty normal. Then I list some of the things I’ve done in pursuit of a career in comedy and think maybe I’m not so normal:

• I’ve filmed a girl on a remote Scottish Island who thinks she’s a faerie
• filmed a male pornstar do un-typeable things to himself during a comedy ‘variety’ show
• had a middle aged man in a nappy sit on my lap while preparing his award winning Edinburgh show
• Helped a knight of the realm learn his lines for an ITV sitcom – he made me Earl Grey tea and gave me biscuits.
• produced a critically acclaimed Edinburgh show where the act is whipped live on stage by audience members
• paraded around on stage in front of an audience that included my Mum in a far too revealing 1 direction onesie
• Produced a music video for the only love song that contains genuine equine healthcare advice which gave us the name of our company Horseboy Productions

My comedy journey has been a lot of fun. Tough as hell. Demoralising and utterly shitty at times – working 18 hour days, 5 days a week, then 12 hour days on the weekend for what seemed very little reward other than being vaguely close to a dream I once had.

I started doing an internship in BBC Comedy commissioning 5 years ago and then worked for an Indie for 3 and a half years. I went from the intern at BBC to being a judge on an awards panel that included one of the heads of department for the very same commissioning department. I think she was a little surprised but pleased to see the hyperactive intern from 3 years earlier as a judge alongside her. The competition had a £5000 prize and offered the performer the chance to sign a DVD deal with BBC and 2Entertain.

I definitely felt pleased to be there and it was nice to come full circle before heading out into the world of comedy on my own – knowing that I wouldn’t have a tv company behind me or a more senior producer to fall back on if I completely fuck up. I am now where the buck stops and if I don’t sell tickets to my live show or sell the children’s cartoon I’ve invested all my money in (and a lot of other peoples too) then I’m the only one accountable. Which is awesome!

I like having the fear it’s pretty much my main source of inspiration. In a tradition heading back to our university radio show I tell my writing partner that if I haven’t completed a scene or written the next part of our series bible by a certain deadline he’s allowed to make up any forfeit for me to complete that he can think of. The punishments are pretty unusual from flicking the yoghurt of his choice on my face each morning for a week, to wearing a filthy, disintegrating banana costume all day every day including to lectures, meetings and on dates with my girlfriend at the time (perhaps this is why we broke up thinking about it).

Some of these more elaborate punishments have spilt over into the night I run with my business partner Andy Davies – who hosts the event as his alter ego Quint Fontana. I love running Karaoke Rumble and I think we’ve tapped into a bit of a niche market with its interactivity. Newcomers are welcomed by the regulars and everyone will drink at the bar together before the show sharing memories of previous shows like “did you see that girl who was so drunk she didn’t realise she’d won?”, “Remember that guy that sang the Hindi version of Kula Shaker?” Or “Who was that guy that got booed off after 10 seconds?”. It’s a bit like joining an exclusive club – almost like we’re the mafia of comedy nights as my brother says.

No matter if you’re on your own or come with mates you’ll likely have made several new friends by the end of the night because who doesn’t bond over booing someone else off stage! I think as a shared experience it’s great because whether you sing or don’t, you choose together who wins and who is forced off stage and by the end of it all you’ll all be singing and dancing together anyway regardless of the result.  As one of the hosts it’s great because it’s like having an audience of mates every night even if I only met most of them that evening.

Relationships are important in this industry and retaining them is vital. From the contacts I’ve made through work to the ones I’ve made socially pretty much every single one of them has helped shape my career in some way – whether it’s coming to my show, providing a location or being a sounding board for ideas. I first met Jon Jayson, who started this whole Comedy Crowd with Peter Wright, while playing for my brothers work team. I think it might be because I scored a goal and set up 2 more in an 8-0 win that we stayed in touch. Or it might be that he, like me, left a decent job to pursue his own path in comedy.

It’s one of the reasons I wanted to join The Comedy Crowd as they share the same ethos as me. I can’t be bothered to sit around waiting for a mythical comedy deity to make my dreams come true. I’d rather find a group of people who want the same thing as me. Who want to go out and film things, create things, cause mischief and generally be silly and passionate in the pursuit of having fun.

I’m really excited about the year ahead – I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Big money may come, it may not. I’m just glad to be doing what I love. I may be a millionaire by the end of it all – selling my cartoon would be a good start – or I may have to sell my organs on the black market – a commodity whose value I think is diminishing with each day. If you want to get involved with anything we’re doing shoot me an email, visit our website www.horseboyproductions.com or come along to one of the shows.

Behind every great venture there is a personal story. This may or may not be true, but it works well for an intro to this blog so please accept it. We want to tell you our story and why we founded The Comedy Crowd.

Peter and I wrote a sitcom together. Like many old friends and comedy enthusiasts we had talked about doing this for a while, sharing ideas and making each other laugh, without ever actually trying it. Why?

1. 1. One reason was time. We both had full time jobs and family commitments, not to mention important social commitments like playing football manager. We soon realised that if you want something enough you will prioritise and find the time, even if that means failing to lead your fake football team to virtual glory. So we started writing sketches and scenes to one another, and we decided the concept had potential as a sitcom (check out our 5 tips on writing with a day job, and the productivity area of the Comedy Academy for more on making the most of your writing time)
   2. So was it any good? Well we loved it. But then our feedback wasn’t exactly objective. Our thought process went as follows: “We’ve got a script. Now what we need is a production company with a budget to invest in it and source actors and technical filming expertise.” Easy. Unfortunately it turns out productions companies with budgets don’t read scripts from people with no contacts or experience. Also it turns out no one really wants to read a script. This became apparent when even asking family members to have a read proved challenging. So we decided to film a short scene.
   3. Where do you find a project team of like minded comedy performers and people with technical filming expertise based in the same location? Well if you don’t already know these people, the answer is its very difficult.  We did manage to film a scene, but it would have been better if the project team was created based on a group of like minded people all bought into the content.

These challenges are all common problems for people starting out in comedy and often lead to wasted talent and ideas. We started The Comedy Crowd to help people on this journey and to create grassroots comedy without the obstacles. Find out more and by signing up to our free weekly newsletter for creators