Script Angel Inclusion Scholarship - Professional Screenwriter Development

The Script Angel Inclusion Scholarship

We are delighted to offer an Inclusion Scholarship to writers from backgrounds underrepresented in film and television, who have talent and professional ambition.

The scholarship will fund three months of free screenwriter coaching for one writer from a disadvantaged background, who otherwise couldn’t afford it, working on one developed script. This will take the form of three monthly video-call sessions with your coach to discuss your script and your development strategy.

The Script Angel coaching programme gives you the one-to-one support and opportunity you need to develop your skills and creative confidence. We will work together on your script, taking into consideration your experience and the amount of time you can dedicate to writing each month. We will help you work towards your writing goals, and offer advice, support and assistance in reaching them.

We want to help you feel entitled to be heard.

As always with Script Angel, you still own the work you produce, and we will keep in contact with you, to offer ongoing support for future opportunities and schemes.

The Inclusion Scholarship is currently CLOSED.

You can read about our Spring 2020 scheme, including details of the shortlisted writers, here.

Eligibility criteria

This scholarship is open to anyone from an underrepresented background in the film and television industry. This may include your socioeconomic background, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability and illness or might include an underrepresented demographic, such as being from a traveller community or growing up in care.

You must be aged over 18 and a UK resident.

The ideal candidate

You may have previously written short films, short plays and may have had work produced, or may still be waiting. You will have a strong sense of what you want to write, but you might not have had any formal education on your journey to becoming a writer.

You will have a comedy or drama script – whether this is for television or film. We don’t want completely polished work – we’re going to help you with that, but we would love to see that you’ve developed this work over several drafts, thought about the audience and where your idea would fit (e. g. is it a BBC primetime drama or big budget Hollywood feature film?).

We do not require that your script be written with any particular software, we do not require perfect spelling, punctuation and grammar and we recognise that story talent comes in diverse forms, so we’re not looking for one particular thing.

How to apply

Currently CLOSED for applications

Details of our previous application process are below.

Please email inclusion@scriptangel.com and we will send you:

An application form, so we can find out a little bit more about you.
An equal opportunities form, so we can track the success of this scholarship in engaging hard to reach writing talent.

What to submit

Completed application form
Completed equal opportunities form
The script you would like our help to further develop – this can be a full-length feature film screenplay OR one-hour tv drama script (plus series treatment up to 2 pages) OR half-hour comedy script (plus series treatment up to 2 pages).
Writing CV (if you have one)

At this stage we cannot accept theatre scripts, as we are focussed on screenwriting and there are other, specialist schemes for playwrights.

Evaluation

We would like this opportunity to go to a writer who faces several barriers to entering the film and television industry. While you will be first assessed for your screenwriting talent and potential, we do also want to ensure that we are helping someone most in need.

The deadline for future iterations of the scheme will be announced here.

If you don’t have a script ready just yet, please look out for further opportunities with us. You can write to the email address to be added to our inclusion mailing list, where we may stay in touch with you with further relevant opportunities, including the Script Angel newsletter mailing list (you can unsubscribe at any time).

We are trying to open up a dialogue with writers from underrepresented groups, so please do engage. And we really hope to run this scheme again, so we are grateful to hear about any efforts we can make to be even more inclusive. Should you have any specific inclusion or access needs, please let us know.