How the European Writers Club is opening doors & why it’s needed

European Writers Club session (©Marcin Lewandowski)

Getting scripted shows off the ground has never been easy but squeezed budgets and streamer pull-backs are making life even harder. Richard Middleton explores how one European scheme is connecting creatives, producers and broadcasters.

The past 18 months have been something of a turbulent time for the European scripted sector, with all manner of obstacles thrown into the paths of those looking to get shows onto screen.

Streamers such as Disney+ and Viaplay have been re-evaluating their spending on local originals, while others such as Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max have pulled spending entirely from certain regions.

We aim to spark and facilitate collaboration between creators, writers, broadcasters, and producers of European TV-series to boost creativity and originality

EWC’s CEO Thomas Gammeltoft

At the same time, commercial broadcasters have found the advertising market squeezed, causing a consequent hit on their own spending, while public broadcasters are being asked to maintain output with declining budgets. It has made for a challenging environment for many on the creative side and posed larger questions about the types of dramas we can expect to see on our screens in the years to come.

Why now?

Yet such circumstances can also provide the impetus for action, as evidenced by the European Writers Club (EWC), which launched just over a year ago. The organisation was born out of a European Union (EU) initiative – Writing European – that aimed to help nurture regional talent but also break down divisions across the continent.

TV series, the EU decided, could help to do this and so it provided funding for two pilot schemes – one of which was the EWC – that would empower creatives and assist those who control what goes on our screens.

“With EWC we aim to spark and facilitate collaboration between creators, writers, broadcasters, and producers of European TV-series to boost creativity and originality in telling important and entertaining stories that transcend to a large European audience at once,” says EWC’s CEO Thomas Gammeltoft, whose previous includes heading up the Copenhagen Film Fund and being a partner at Denmark’s True Content Entertainment.

European Writers Club participants (©Marcin Lewandowski)

A quartet of EWC schemes have been conceived to deliver more joined-up thinking between creators, producers and commissioners.

Boosting Ideas, Boosting Impact (new session 2023/24), Boosting Concepts, and Boosting Broadcasters (see below for more info) all vary in their approach but the ultimate aim of each is to leverage talent and broadcasters to create shows that are genuinely European – as opposed to generic stories produced with the global market at the forefront of mind.

“By collective and collaborative processes of sharing, exchanging, and getting inspired, EWC is all about creative empowerment and building an infrastructure that can compete with those of the global streamers,” Gammeltoft tells TBI.

“By creating a room of trust, EWC is focusing on involving the key-creative partners from the very early development, to optimise the chances of realisation. We want to make our local private and public service broadcasters the most attractive go-to place for the best European talent.”

Broadcast ready

On that front, EWC’s network of broadcast partners comes in handy, with relationships with organisations ranging from Germany’s ZDF, Denmark’s TV2 and France Televisions, to Norway’s NRK, SVT in Sweden and RTE in Ireland, plus numerous others.
Dr Simone Emmelius, ZDF’s SVP of international fiction & coproductions, tells TBI that the pan-European nature of Boosting Concepts was immediately attractive.

“It was the idea of enabling authors from different countries to write international series by supporting them with new methods of dealing with their ideas and building up a network of writers who are interested in working trustfully together,” Emmelius says, echoing comments from SVT’s head of drama, Anna Croneman.

“There are a lot of initiatives available for emerging writers. What we liked was the idea of doing a writers-programme for more experienced writers,” the SVT exec adds. One of the projects it put forward – Mona Masris’s The Building – was selected and has now been put into development.

European Writers Club session (©Marcin Lewandowski)

Morad Koufane, head of international scripted series at France Télévisions, adds that the goal of finding projects that were ”authentically and organically European” was key, but says strengthening ties with broadcast colleagues was also a boon.

And, reflecting the industry more broadly, Croneman, Koufane and Emmelius add that the scheme enables European partners to work more closely with each other at an earlier stage, a vital benefit in the current landscape.

“Most of the authors and the producers are used to dealing with domestic shows, but it’s becoming increasingly necessary to join forces especially as the younger audience is more cosmopolitan and expects international shows,” says ZDF’s Emmelius.

“High-end content is also difficult to finance without partners, and with regard to content as well as to creatives, the competition became much harder due to the various streaming platforms.“

Creative thinking

For those on the other side of the equation, the EWC’s schemes provide another potential route to market. Gammeltoft’s organisation claims to reach more than 3,000 writers and producers across Europe, and ambitions for results are high.

One project to have emerged from Boosting Concept is Alpha, created by French duo Alexandre Charlet and Louis Aubert, an “intrinsically international show” the pair say.

This is a fantastic opportunity to take our European stories, ideas and point of view around the world, and we must seize it

Alpha co-writer Louis Aubert

“We immediately saw the Boosting Concept initiative as an excellent opportunity to bring our story face to face with an international perspective,” continues Aubert, who says the chance to spend two weeks with fellow writers and consultants, but also broadcasters from across Europe, was a unique opportunity.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it before,” Aubert adds, “and to get confirmation that the story can resonate outside France too was also great.”

Aubert adds that Boosting Concepts also ensured Alpha, which has been backed by France Televisions, was “confronted.. with different points of view and cultures.”

He continues: “Even if we’re all Europeans, we all have our own culture and our own way of thinking, and that’s very interesting to understand when you want to make a project that appeals to a broad international audience. Learning from others and from their way of working was also really enriching.”

The EWC’s schemes are also being seen as an increasingly important facilitator to deliver improved writing across Europe, says Aubert. “The audiovisual landscape has changed enormously since the emergence of streaming platforms. The audience is no longer just national, as it was with traditional TV. Now we can talk to the whole world without waiting for the Americans to remake our series.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to take our European stories, ideas and point of view around the world, and we must seize it. But we have to admit that we’re lagging behind in terms of storytelling skills, compared to the Americans for example. That’s why it’s so important to create links between European writers in order to pool our strengths and know-how to create a truly European creation. Tomorrow, we won’t just be writing in our own countries, and that’s great news. Let’s get ready for it.”

“Louis is right,” Charlet adds. “And to go further, in terms of production, we feel that our TV projects need significant financial resources to compete with US creations and that European creative actors must work together to be stronger. EWC is this creator of links, is this place where there are these room of trust to boost projects and give it adapted and international financial supports.”

Schemes & Ideas

The European Writers Club offers a raft of initiatives designed to increase the amount of scripted content coming out of Europe:

Boosting Impact
Designed to facilitate deeper collaboration between journalists, scientific researchers and the world of storytellers, the purpose of this scheme is to co-create and accelerate impactful and entertaining stories with importance and relevance for a large audience in Europe and beyond. (To be launched at MIA Market, Oct. 2023 with session in 2024)

Boosting Ideas
Turning the seed of an idea into a fully fleshed concept across two one-week camps. 12 established European writers worked with Le Groupe Ouest, using the innovative methodology of pre-writing to develop each other’s ideas, with 10 European broadcasters offering direct feedback and collaboration opportunities.

Boosting Concepts
Six concepts and their teams of creators and producers came together to supercharge development during two one-week camps, led by Torino Film Lab. Gathered in an eclectic writer’s room, the creators, consultant writers, producers and broadcasters united under the same goal: to boost the concept into being ready for script commissioning.

Boosting Broadcasters
Featuring ten European broadcasters, Boosting Broadcasters was made up of four two-day camps, which took place during Boosting Ideas and Boosting Concepts. The aim is to strengthen collaborative endeavors, while also exchanging ideas with the creators, writers and producers.