This semester in ‘Drop the Pilot’, our class devised a television series coined ‘Behind Bars’, a drama/comedy that followed a rural halfway house fighting for survival. Our final work encompassed an individual segment of the series’ 40-minute-long pilot script, whereby students were able to add their unique touch on the story world crafted by the entire class.

Much of the semester centered around crafting ‘Behind Bars’, including devising the setting, characters and scene breakdowns, which would form the basis of the show. For myself and many others, this experience would’ve been our first experience in a writer’s room (hypothetical or not), meaning we were rather new to the collaborative process. I thoroughly enjoyed this process and found myself becoming more engaged with the content as the semester went on.

An aspect of this class I really enjoyed was the pitch deck process, as I thought it gave me a great level of clarity over the story world and its characters. On a personal note, I thought my own group’s work of mapping out and solidifying the town of Barrel, was engaging and something I’m proud of.

The final script that I crafted gave me an opportunity to cement the knowledge I had learned throughout the semester. This was no doubt my favourite part of the learning process, as it gave me a chance to put my own individualism on how I thought the show should sound.

This course gave me greater confidence in my own writing and showed me a side of the industry that I had never seen before. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work alongside the people I did and to be guided by Stayci, who always gave us great freedom and confidence in our work.