Our journey in TV writing begun with decisions around genre, setting, and format. We opted for a prison drama, set in an Australian country town drawing inspiration from the rural upbringing of one of our classmates. Our choices then led us to create an eight-episode series with 40-minute episodes, tailored for streaming platforms.

The concept for our series, now known as “Behind Bars,” took shape as we envisioned the lives of inmates working in a prison bar appropriately named “Bottom of the Barrel”, after it’s town’s name “Barrel.” Josh, our protagonist, portrayed the fish-out-of-water, a young entrepreneur from the city who finds himself working behind the bars of this prison pub.

In our writers’ room, the creative process started to flow as we begun learning to storyline, craft beat sheets, and scene breakdowns. We also embarked on the task of character development and world-building; the latter was the topic assigned to my group for the pitch deck presentation.

The pitch deck served as an all-encompassing overview of our series, intended for potential channels, streaming platforms, or investors. My group’s responsibility was to provide a detailed look at the hub of our world and the broader setting of our country town.

With the groundwork laid, it was time for us to learn, and get to work on the screenwriting phase of our pilot episode. After a crash course in the software and conventions, each of us was tasked with writing a section of the pilot episode.

This course has been an enjoyable, collaborative, and sweeping taste of what it is like to be in a TV writing room. Learning to write more succinctly and use words wisely has been a skill I will take forward. Having such a number of minds working together on a fictional world created a nature of collaboration was engaging in its entertainment and excitement. Overall, I am happy with and proud of our classes work on the series outline and pilot, I think we have created something original, fun, and something that could resonate with the real world.