Who we are and what we do.

High-quality scriptwriting and content development are issues of great concern in the Film and TV industries within the European Union. While the US industry seems to produce a constant flow of new material to feed the increasing global demand for its content, in the EU producers still appear unable to produce films and TV dramas of sufficient quality or in sufficient quantity to compete globally and build sustainable domestic industries and, as a result, they continue to suffer from a lack of industrial growth.

At the same time there is the apparent difficulty of those who study scriptwriting to earn their living primarily from writing scripts.

A pilot project of the EU's Leonardo da Vinci Programme, ESPECTS has been set up to find out if there is a correlation between the different methods of University and Film School teaching scriptwriting throughout the EU and the ability of those trained to become professional writers, earning most of their income from writing.

ESPECTS will look into the relationship of different approaches to studying scriptwriting and their effectiveness in terms of a measurable output of produced scripts. Are there best practices? Should the training of writers be more industry-led or academically-led? Is writing for television more effective than the academic study of scriptwriting? Can the complex process of developing a script be improved? And if so, how could producers, directors, dramaturges and film-fund executives be better integrated into the process?

There are no agreed industry standards or clear-cut career prospects for professional scriptwriters in Europe. This situation, together with rapidly increasing globalisation of the media and the dominance in Europe of the American film and television industries, confirms that action is required to produce better-trained professional writers in Europe.

European scriptwriting teaching strategies are fragmented. There has been no coherent attempt to evaluate or harmonise best practices for training. Scriptwriters are also unable to do effective planning and structuring of their careers in terms of training and professional development.  ESPECTS aims to provide hard evidence for a better way forward for European writers and producers.