Begin­ning of April, MIDPOINT – a train­ing and net­work­ing plat­form for script and project devel­op­ment oper­at­ing under the aus­pices of the Acad­e­my of Per­form­ing Arts in Prague – invit­ed Ben­jamin Har­ris, the Head of Pro­gramme for Ser­i­al Eyes, to sit down togeth­er and to talk about what the 9‑month res­i­den­tial pro­gram has to offer and how to apply for the April 15 dead­line.

The orig­i­nal inter­view can be found here. Have a good read!

MIDPOINT: What would be the typ­i­cal back­ground of a Ser­i­al Eyes par­tic­i­pant? Who is the pro­gram tar­get­ing?

Ben­jamin Har­ris: Ser­i­al Eyes is aimed at up-and-com­ing Euro­pean TV writ­ers who have worked pro­fes­sion­al­ly in their home mar­ket and are now ready to step up to an inter­na­tion­al lev­el. The ide­al can­di­date thrives on team­work and will want to work in a writ­ers’ room set­ting. We accept twelve peo­ple per year, so it’s a pret­ty inti­mate set­ting. You have to be will­ing to work with eleven oth­er peo­ple in close quar­ters for nine months! Appli­cants should have at least 1–3 years of pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence as a screen­writer and should ide­al­ly have writ­ten at least one episode for a dra­ma or com­e­dy series for a TV chan­nel in their own coun­try. Alter­na­tive­ly, can­di­dates may also have suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a TV writ­ing pro­gram such as MIDPOINT TV Launch. Very impor­tant: can­di­dates must have a high lev­el of flu­en­cy in writ­ten and spo­ken Eng­lish. Ser­i­al Eyes is taught entire­ly in Eng­lish.

MP: Are Cen­tral and East­ern Euro­pean appli­cants wel­come?

BH: Yes, very much so. We encour­age appli­cants from Cen­tral and East­ern Europe, espe­cial­ly MIDPOINT TV Launch alum­ni. We now offer tuition schol­ar­ships for appli­cants from so-called low-capac­i­ty coun­tries (for a com­plete list of qual­i­fy­ing coun­tries please check our admis­sions web­page).

MP: How does the Ser­i­al Eyes train­ing work? Is it a day-to-day “school”?

BH: Ser­i­al Eyes is a full-time, res­i­den­tial pro­gram. That means par­tic­i­pants com­mit to liv­ing and study­ing in Berlin for the full 9 months. We car­ry a pret­ty packed, five-days-a-week sched­ule, espe­cial­ly in the first semes­ter, with all-day work­shops, sem­i­nars and writ­ers’ rooms. There are writ­ing peri­ods at reg­u­lar inter­vals in the course. But par­tic­i­pants should expect to be togeth­er with their peers on an almost dai­ly basis.

MP: What top­ics does the 9‑month pro­gram cov­er?

BH: Our focus is the writ­ers’ room expe­ri­ence. That means par­tic­i­pants learn the dynam­ics of the writ­ers’ room and prac­tice lead­ing a team of writ­ers. But we’re also a project incu­ba­tor that encour­ages a col­lab­o­ra­tive work­shop set­ting. Par­tic­i­pants are trained in nar­ra­tive tech­niques in ser­i­al writ­ing and the var­i­ous modes for con­ceiv­ing new series con­cepts. Each par­tic­i­pant devel­ops his/​her own TV series from ini­tial idea all the way to fin­ished project pro­pos­al and pilot script. They also col­lab­o­rate on group projects that are often writ­ten to a spe­cif­ic brief from one of our indus­try part­ners. Final­ly, our par­tic­i­pants must under­stand the exi­gen­cies and demands of the mar­ket­place and learn about var­i­ous Euro­pean mar­kets and their spe­cif­ic devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion meth­ods.

MP: What spe­cial seg­ments apart from the train­ing at Berlin’s dffb does the pro­gram offer?

BH: Our study trips are meant to intro­duce par­tic­i­pants to dif­fer­ent mar­kets and the TV pro­fes­sion­als work­ing there. Through our col­lab­o­ra­tions with the Lon­don Film School and the Nation­al Film School of Den­mark, we spent time in Lon­don and Copen­hagen respec­tive­ly and explore the local TV indus­tries, learn about their work­ing meth­ods and meet with oth­er writ­ers, pro­duc­ers and com­mis­sion­ing edi­tors from those mar­kets. We attend the Berli­nale Dra­ma Series Days and the Series Mania TV fes­ti­val in Lille and con­fer­ence in Lille, France, and host net­work­ing mix­ers at those events so that par­tic­i­pants can build their pro­fes­sion­al net­works.

MP: What skills, con­tacts, knowl­edge do the par­tic­i­pants grad­u­ate with?

BH: Ser­i­al Eyes is a pres­sure cook­er. So one of the most impor­tant qual­i­fi­ca­tions that our grad­u­ates are rec­og­nized for in the indus­try is their dis­ci­pline and their abil­i­ty to work well under pres­sure. In addi­tion, Ser­i­al Eyes grad­u­ates have built up a sharp under­stand­ing of series sto­ry­telling. They know how to man­age a team of writ­ers and are very com­fort­able in a writ­ers’ room. Final­ly, they have amassed a net­work of indus­try con­tacts across Europe. They will know how to speak to agents, pro­duc­ers and com­mis­sion­ing edi­tors and will be able to pitch their sto­ries with ease and clar­i­ty.

MP: What are some notable suc­cess­es of the Ser­i­al Eyes alum­ni?

BH: Some notable alum­ni include Jana Bur­bach (Writer of Bad Banks for ZDF/​ARTE, Co-Cre­ator of Tribes of Europe for Net­flix), Den­nis Schanz (Cre­ator of Sky­lines for Net­flix), Alexan­der Lindh and Julia Pen­ner (Head Writ­ers of Druck/​aka Skam Ger­many for ZDF­neo), Lau­ra Grace (Writer on Das Boot for Sky Ger­many), Wik­tor Piatkows­ki (Cre­ator of Wata­ha–The Pact for HBO Europe), Isaure Pisani-Fer­ry (Co-Cre­ator of Vam­pires for Net­flix), and Ivan Kneze­vic (Writer on Hack­erville 2 for HBO Europe). There are many more who are doing fan­tas­tic work. The main thing is that pret­ty much every­body is work­ing as a writer and/​or pro­duc­er in tele­vi­sion and get­ting paid for it. That’s a big suc­cess in my book!

The appli­ca­tion dead­line for Ser­i­al Eyes 2019/​2020 is April 15, 2019. For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it the admis­sion web­page.