The European Showrunner Programme (ESP) is designed for brilliant series writers with a strong creative vision, who know their craft and enjoy creative collaboration as well as leading teams.

Building on this foundation, the ESP aims to provide them with key insights and skills related to the production and creative leadership sides of the showrunner’s position, such as

• understanding budgets
• understanding schedules
• understanding their business partners and all members of their creative team
• understanding how to hire the right people
• understanding how to put their creative partners into a position to succeed
• understanding their social impact both as storytellers and team leaders

The following subject areas and topics will be covered:

Creative Leadership

The European Showrunner Programme centres on Creative Leadership. Leadership models and skills relevant for the role of the showrunner as well as individual showrunners leadership styles build the core of the ESP. These topics are addressed continuously throughout the program, both in class and in one-on-one mentoring sessions.

Hard Skills

Participants will learn how to structure and intertwine the dense writing and production processes required when creating and producing drama series today. They deepen their knowledge of areas such as producing, directing, and editing and explore various aspects of visual style.

Social Impact

The powerful role stories play in society, reaching and affecting the minds, viewpoints, and beliefs of local and global audiences alike, is a well-studied phenomenon. By featuring characters that audiences grow closely attached to – sometimes for a lifetime – series constitute a form of storytelling that has a particularly strong influence. A showrunner must take this into account as well as the fact that the work culture they foster, the diversity of their cast and crew, and the wasteful or sustainable way in which the show is produced also reflects this responsibility.

Analysis, Discussion, and Definition

At the end of each module, there will be a reflection on the topics and challenges addressed and a discussion on how to implement these findings into a future model of showrunning in Europe

Mentoring

Another important feature of the programme is one-on-one meetings with personal mentors. In four online meetings of 90 minutes each, mentors will support each participant individually in exploring what kind of showrunner they aim to be.

1. The ESP is no training in screenwriting. Applicants need to bring extensive screenwriting experience.
2. The ESP is no training in writers‘ room techniques. This knowledge, too, is a prerequisite for all applicants.
3. The ESP is no training for non-writing professionals. While future editions might include applicants with different backgrounds, the first edition is writer-centred.
4. The ESP is no project incubator. The focus of this training is on skills and insights. There will be no series projects developed in the course. However, since this is a part-time course, all aspects learned may be immediately applied to the projects the participants are currently working on.

Format

The ESP is designed as a blended learning programme featuring both on site and online sessions. The European Showrunner Training consists of lectures, seminars, interactive workshops, case studies, masterclasses, and mentoring in the form of one-on-one online consultations.

Module 1: The Showrunner as Creator
Module 2: The Showrunner as Head Writer
Module 3: The Producer’s Mindset
Module 4: The Director’s Mindset

Dates

(all dates are subject to change)

Sessions in Cologne

June 11 - 13  (3 days)
August: 29 - 31  (3 days)
November 24 - 25 (3 days)

ONLIne Sessions | weekend (Fri+Sat, 4h each)

June/July: June 30 - July 1 | July 14 - 15 | July 28 - 29
Summer break: July 30 - August 27
September: Sept. 8 - 9 | Sept. 5 - 16 | Sept. 29 - 30
October: Oct. 13 - 14 |  Oct. 27 - 28
November: Nov. 10 - 11

Online Recap Classes (Optional - in the evening, 2h each)

Visual Style: June  21  | July 5
Editing: Sept. 20 | Oct. 5

Mentoring – Online  

June – November: 4 individually scheduled one-on-one sessions

Fees

The European Showrunner Training has a participation fee of:

• 1,500 Euros, excluding accommodation, including meals for on-site training modules or
• 2,500 Euros, including accommodation and meals for on-site training modules (8 days in total)

The actual cost of the European Showrunner Training is significantly higher, but thanks to the support of the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and Netflix, we are able to offer this in-depth training for such a reasonable fee.

Scholarships

Partial and full scholarships are available in priority (but not exclusively) to candidates from the following countries: Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Cyprus, Malta, as well as [subject to the conditions being fulfilled for their participation in the MEDIA strand] Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine.)

For obtaining a scholarship, applicants are asked to indicate the request in the application form as well as to substantiate their request briefly in their statement of motivation for attending the European Showrunner Training.