The Showrunner Lab, organized by the Toscana Film Commission in collaboration with Good Girls Planet and ITTV, International TV Forum&Festival of Los Angeles, is a master/specialization course aimed at filling an existing gap, in the Italian audiovisual industry, with respect to this specific and increasingly relevant professional figure. The role of the showrunner, or creative producer, is not yet sufficiently known or developed in our Country. The showrunner is at one time a screenwriter and a producer; he/she is the show’s Deus ex machina, especially in connection with long running series. He/she guides the “writers’ rooms” and positions them towards generating a coherent and successful product. The showrunner also supervises the whole process, from choice of locations to casting, from pre-production to post-production.
The objective of the course is to create Italy’s first laboratory specifically focused on the role of the showrunner, relying on an educational format which, following an initial startup and testing phase, may become a template easily extendable to other Italian regions.
For this reason, we have decided to organize ad hoc courses which are structured across multi-level classes: a comprehensive basic preparation which is then enriched by master classes with international showrunner and executive producers, laboratories and seminars.
The objective of the course is to create Italy’s first laboratory specifically focused on the role of the showrunner, relying on an educational format which, following an initial startup and testing phase, may become a template easily extendable to other Italian regions.
For this reason, we have decided to organize ad hoc courses which are structured across multi-level classes: a comprehensive basic preparation which is then enriched by master classes with international showrunner and executive producers, laboratories and seminars.
Through the lessons of teachers Cristina Borsatti and Francesca Scanu, the course participants are getting to know every aspect of television series useful for the Showrunner profession: from the key elements and principles of dramaturgy to the formats of fiction, the storylines, the writing phases, the concept, the pitching, the work during the shooting, up to the post-production. The students, divided into four teams, are developing, at the same time, as many TV series projects, living the concrete experience of the writers’ room, and will try their hand at the serial project adaptation of two novels, Azzorre (Neo Edizioni) by Cecilia M. Giampaoli, winner of the 2021 edition of the Segafredo Zanetti UN LIBRO UN FILM Award, and Carnaio (Fandango Libri) by Giulio Cavalli.
The Showrunner Lab aims at:
Creating a new professional figure and skillset which legitimately qualifies as one of the key;
Roles contributing to modern audiovisual production;
Train young students as they learn the fundamentals of the audiovisual market and the processes surrounding and affecting this industry;
Offer participants an opportunity to meet and learn from Italian and International producers;
Authors, showrunners and from all other key professional figures in the audiovisual industry;
Offer the most effective tools to organize and propose creative ideas when “pitching” a project;
Organize writers’ room with the students;
Allow each participant to engage in stages and internships at national and international companies;
Courses, Meetings and Laboratories are supplemented with Workshops that expose students to figures of excellence in the international audiovisual industry.
Headquarters of the Showrunner Lab shall be at Manifatture Digitali Cinema in Prato.