Every Cloud selects six emerging writers for Deadlock Script lab

Every Cloud Productions has selected six emerging screenwriters for a Script Lab workshop with Bryan Elsley to develop online drama series Deadlock. The workshop will use an innovative story development approach to mentor emerging screenwriters and explore the best ways to reach the target audience.

We received almost 200 applications for the workshop. The six successful applications are award-winning VCA graduate Billie Pleffer, Queensland screen and interactive writer Michelle Law, young writer/director Lucy Campbell from South Australia’s MAPS film school, Sydney-based comedy screen and theatre writer Seaton Kay-Smith, Indigenous writer and filmmaker Shane Salvador from New South Wales, and writer of ABC ivew series Noirhouse from Tasmania, Tim Logan. 

The workshop will take place in Byron Bay from December 14–18.  

Bryan Elsley will travel to Australia from the UK to join forces with Every Cloud Productions’ executive producers, Deb Cox and Fiona Eagger, along with multiplatform writer Mike Jones, local Indigenous writer Jon Bell and YouTube stars Danny and Michael Philippou, creators of the Racka Racka channel.

Together this team of industry professionals will guide young writers through the intensive Script Lab. To ensure authenticity of story, the workshop will also involve people from the Northern Rivers aged 16 to 18 years, who will help inform content and delivery platforms by sharing their stories, ideas and experiences.

Deadlock reveals the recklessness, vibrancy and resilience of Australian youth through the anarchic lives of its central teenage cast. When long-standing regional rivalries explode at a late-night party, the mystery and chaos of what happens beneath the tropical gloss of an idyllic costal town is exposed, divulging candid but also darkly humorous stories of the youth of the town...

Deadlock is an original concept by Deb Cox, developed for Every Cloud Productions with Fiona Eagger. The workshop is funded and developed thanks to Screen Australia's Enterprise Stories Program. Every Cloud will deliver the workshop in partnership with Northern Rivers Screenworks as part of the ongoing development process for the drama.

Bryan Elsley will be speaking at two public events while he is in Australia:  

Byron Bay on December 17, from 6pm–9pm, at the Byron at Byron Resort;
Sydney on Monday December 21 from 5.30pm-7.30pm at Screen Australia, Level 7, 45 Jones Street, Ultimo