The AWG kindly invited me to cover the 50th annual Awgie Awards on Friday 25th August.  I interviewed the winners after they came off stage.  The interviews were:

Richard Lane Award for Outstanding Service and Dedication to the AWG - Kelly Lefever

Theatre For Young Audiences - Finegan Kruckemeyer

Children's Television 'C' Classification - Thomas Duncan-Witt

Children's Television 'P' Classification - Melanie Alexander

Animation - Tim Bain

Stage - Leah Purcell

Interactive - Que Minh Luu, Chris Burke

Music Theatre - Danny Ginges with Philip Foxman

Community and Youth Theatre - Lachlan Philpott

Television Serial - Faith McKinnon

Comedy Situation or Narrative - Luke McGregor and Celia Pacquola

Comedy Sketch or Light Entertainment - Declan Fay, Henry Stone, John Campbell, Stuart Daulman, Greg Larsen, Jonathan Schuster

Documentary Community, Educational and Training - Sam Meikle

Documentary Public Broadcast or Exhibition - Sally Aitken and Tim Ross

Feature Film Adaptation - Luke Davies

Television Telemovie or Miniseries - Kris Wyld and Kym Goldsworthy

2017 Major Award - Leah Purcell

This AWG Event was recorded live at 107 Projects in Redfern, Sydney on 1st May 2017. 

Writing for interactivity can present many challenges to the newcomer, and involves shedding a lot of what we've always been taught about storytelling.  Are beginning, middle and end really essential?

Moderated by Teresa Crea, Christy Dena, Leena van Deventer, Anna Irwin-Schutze, Krister Collin and Nicole Stark talk about their experiences in writing for interactive media. 

Rebecca is currently writing a rom-com feature film.  Her career started when she was commissioned to write a sitcom for the ABC and soon transitioned into freelance script consulting and editing.  Highlights in her career include being Creative Executive for the Producer of Capote, William Vince, writing script notes for Terry Gilliam's The Imagination of Dr Parnassus and story consulting on Paul McGuigan's Sci-fi feature Push.   

AWG NSW Write Night event recorded live from the Harlequinn Inn in Pyrmont.

Featuring screenwriters Debra Oswald, Shane Krause, Rebecca Sommi-Fisher and Story Consultant Karel Segers.

Holly Lyons has written for Neighbours, Home & Away and details her experience working on and writing for the soaps in the UK.  We also detail the importance of pitching.

Mithila Gupta entered TV land via Neighbours as a Storyliner and worked her way up to Script Editor and then Writer.  After going freelance she worked on Winners & Losers and Home & Away.  most recently she's worked on ABC's Indigenous sci-fi series Cleverman.

Recently, I recorded a speed pitching event at Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). You'll hear several minutes of pitch by Screenwriting students followed by several minutes of assessment by Producing students. 

The first Producer was Dominic Hart.  Pitchees are:

1. Keaton Stewart
2. Dave Bloustein
3. Stephanie Basile
4. Luke McKenzie
5. Gareth Richards
6. Sarah Emery

The second Producer was Sarah Bassiuoni. Pitchers are:

1. Suzanne Slack-Smith
2. Tasman Porter

We then got some professional assessment of the pitches by Andrew Gregory, Development Manager/Executive Producer at the ABC and Home & Away screenwriter Nick King.

A different type of episode this time. Where I briefly interviewed Awgie winners after their win at the AWG Awgie Awards on Friday 14th October.

Winners include:

1 - Rachel Spratt

2 - Adam Spellicy

3 - Angus Cerini

4 - Claire Stone

5 - Donna Abela

6 - Gerard McCulloch

7 - Hilary Bell

8 - Jason Herbison

9 - Katie Found

10 - Marcia Gardner

11 - Nick Pearce

12 - Sally Hardy

13 - Josh Thomas, Liz Doran, Thomas Hardy

Recorded live at the AWG's Write Like A Man event at King's Cross Hotel, Donna Abela interviews award-winning playwright Patricia Cornelius.

She is known for her confronting plays that often deal with people living on the margins of society, struggling with poverty and prejudice.  Patricia has written over 25 plays, including SHIT, Savages, Slut, The Call amongst many more.

Patricia's many awards include a Gold AWGIE, numerous other AWGIEs, a Green Room Award and Patrick White Playwrights' Award.

This Ep is Helen Bowden and Jason Stephens who recently left Matchbox Pictures and Fremantlemedia respectively to form Lingo Pictures.

Helen has produced shows such as The Slap, Devil's Playground and Underground: The Julian Assange Story, while Jason started as a writer/performer on The D Generation, but more recently has produced The King, Devil's Dust and Mr & Mrs Murder, amongst many more. 

You can get in touch with me via Facebook...

facebook.com/aswpodcast

or Twitter...

https://twitter.com/DuncanRichards7