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MIDPOINT TV Launch 2019

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This "idea-to-market" project development program is the only existing residential, project-based program targeting and tailoring its content for emerging television professionals – both creative teams and development executives - coming from the Central and Eastern European region and the only project-based program of this kind accepting mini-, digital / web series, as well as ongoing series projects.

Organizational information

The workshop uses group work, individual consultations, tutorial analysis, lectures, presentation of experts and pitching as its methodological tools. The participants will also be actively writing during the workshop working days, under the supervision of the tutors. Thus, participants leave the workshop with actual results and progressed materials. 

The working language of all MIDPOINT meetings and events is English, which is why a good knowledge of English is essential for participation.

MIDPOINT TV Launch is realized with the support of Creative Europe - MEDIA Programme of the European Union.

Dates and venues

Workshop 1
November 10 - 17, 2018
Banska Stiavnica, Slovak Republic

Workshop 2
April 10 - 16, 2019
Pilsen, Czech Republic (within Finale Plzen FF)

Workshop 3
August 16 - 23, 2019
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (within Sarajevo FF)

Who is it for?

project team members

  • writer/s
  • producer

junior (aspiring) development executives

The program focuses on participants primarily coming from Central-Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic countries and the wider Mediterranean area, with a possible background in filmmaking or with previous experience in TV writing, wanting to shift to quality television production. 


Contact person

Katarina Tomkova
Program Coordinator
katarina.tomkova@midpoint-institute.eu

Awards

HBO Europe Award 2019

5.000 USD handed out by the partner of the workshop, HBO Europe, to celebrate the Best Television Series Project of the MIDPOINT TV Launch 2019 program, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, within the Workshop 3. 

Awarded project: Willows

Marseille Web Fest Award 2019

Participation at the Marseille Web Fest Writing Residence (October 14 - 19, 2019) includes travel, accommodation, lunches and tuition costs and is granted to a Web Series Project of MIDPOINT TV Launch 2019 by the partner of the program, Marseille Web Fest.

Awarded project: Playgirl

"We have come into the first workshop with an idea and came out of the last one with a fully developed story."

Julie Zackova
Producer, TV Launch 2019 Alumna

Projects

100% fine crystal

TAŠJA (28) and DORIAN (31) are friends from childhood. Dorian pursued his calling and is now a recognized painter of the younger generation, whereas Tašja never had the courage. After his ...
MIDPOINT participants: Ana Trebse
Project detail

Babyland

Kyiv, 2020. Natasha has created Babyland, a luxury hotel where fertile women give birth for infertile couples. When a tragic event from Natasha’s past comes back to haunt her, Babyland’s future is ...
Project detail

CONVICTIONS

Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia, 1951. Jo’s life collapses when her devoutly communist husband is unjustly imprisoned by his own party. What happens when she refuses to give up on him, while he ...
Project detail

Life Unexpected

ELENA and MIA, both in their mid-thirties, have been best friends since university. They are now both journalists at a local TV station but lead very different personal lives: Elena is married and ...
MIDPOINT participants: Tonia MishialiStelana Kliris
Project detail

Paradise

Twelve years ago PETER’s wife, ALICE, was murdered in a Greek island. He was accused for the murder, expelled to Britain and convicted. Now, twelve years later, he returns to the island in an ...
MIDPOINT participants: Lambis CharalampidisPanos Iosifelis
Project detail

Playgirl

SASHA, a 20-year-old Serbian streetwise girl, decides to go to Berlin and get her missing father back to her family in Belgrade. Meanwhile, MARLENE, a mid-30 romantic sociopath is living a Berlin ...
MIDPOINT participants: Marijana VerhoefMichaela Pnacekova
Project detail

The Border

Unable to shake a terrifying delusion that slowly destroys the life of his son and already destroyed the life of his wife, depressed father ZOLTÁN VÁNDOR (33) unwillingly agrees to become a test ...
MIDPOINT participants: Cyril TyszJudit Banhazi
Project detail

The Hitchhiker

A paraglider regularly hitchhikes after her landings. One time, she was raped and her life took a U-turn. She tries to call up her faded memories of that traumatic evening, and find the rapist.
MIDPOINT participants: Marcell Patkai
Project detail

Willows

THE WILLOWS are immortal beings who look just like regular people but spend their days indulging in mind numbing decadence. They prey off of human suffering, sucking in people’s souls, all while ...
Project detail

Participants

Development Executive Participants

Tutors

Head of Studies

Gabor Krigler
Hungary  
Gabor’s career began in the writing staff of a daily serial at Grundy UFA in 1999. He became Creative Executive at the Budapest office of HBO Europe in 2010, responsible for all creative aspects of ...
Complete bio

Group Leaders

Gabor Krigler
Hungary  
Gabor’s career began in the writing staff of a daily serial at Grundy UFA in 1999. He became Creative Executive at the ...
Complete bio
Sullivan Le Postec
France  
Sullivan Le Postec has had a lifelong passion for TV series. He started out as a TV critic and journalist before ...
Complete bio
Maggie Murphy
United States  
Maggie Murphy is an independent Executive Producer. She worked 8 years for Shaftesbury U.S. and founded the company’s ...
Complete bio

Development Executive Tutor

Steve Matthews
United Kingdom  
Steve was Consulting Producer on all three series of Neil Jordan’s series The Borgias for Showtime Networks, and produced four series of RTE’s award winning Dublin gangster series Love/Hate. He was ...
Complete bio

Director Tutor

Rumle Hammerich
Denmark  
Complete bio

Producer Tutor

Nebojsa Taraba
Croatia  
Complete bio

Pitching Tutor

Michaela Sabo
Slovakia  
Complete bio

Financing Tutor Television Series

Marike Muselaers
Netherlands  
Complete bio

Financing Tutor Web Series

Kirsten Loose
Germany  
Complete bio

Guest Tutors

Luke Eve
Australia  
Complete bio
Benjamin Harris
Germany  
Complete bio
Hagai Levi
 
Complete bio

Methodology

Project Methodology

MIDPOINT TV Launch is defined as an “idea-to-market” program, spanning over 9 months, that focuses on the development of the 6 broadcast and 3 web / digital series participating projects.

The projects go through thorough and effective development process, and are built from the “bottom-up”: from a very early development stage, the creative teams are led to defining their series concept and theme and outlining their pilot scripts at Workshop 1, to completing their pilots and creating their season arc and season outlines, as well as pitching documents and a financing strategy at Workshop 2, to marketing and pitching their project and expanding their network at Workshop 3. The projects will be showcased and pitched within the CineLink Drama market at the Sarajevo FF.

Each project is accepted with a creative team of writer/s and producer/s.

The participants are divided into 3 groups per 3 projects, to ensure that all projects receive a significant amount of the core tutor’s attention and guidance, but they will also have the option of receiving cultural exchange and feedback from their fellow participants: Groups A & B for traditional / broadcast series projects and C for digital / web series projects.

Development Executive Methodology

The entire development process is used as a platform to train the attending development executive participants, who will be trained for their future role of broadcasters on real, existing series projects, acquiring skills needed for developing a diverse range of projects.

The development executives will be training by both their own tutor, who will supervise their entire learning process and will be present at all workshops, but will be exposed and working with a number of other TV Launch's tutors (mainly the group’s core tutors), to understand the different approaches and strategies that can be used while developing scripted television series. They will be assigned to groups and will work closely with the projects in their group, following all sessions during the program.

By doing this, the development executive participants will learn how to read and give notes to a project, and most importantly, how to give constructive feedback to the creative teams to push them forward in their development. They will witness the different stages of development of the projects up to the final pitching event.

Lectures

  • Lectures
    Lectures
    Masterclass with Hagai Levi
    Hagai Levi
    August 22, 2019 | Hotel Europe, Atrium

    Golden Globe winner and critically acclaimed creator Hagai Levi (Bi Tipul, In Treatment, The Affair) will share his experience with creating successful, world-wide traveling television series. Hagai will talk about the brand new series for HBO which opened just a few days ago, Our Boys.

    What's Out There for Short Content
    Sullivan Le Postec, Kirsten Loose, Michaela Sabo
    August 21, 2019 | Hotel Europe, Atrium

    The new digital era brought many new trends in storytelling, web series being one of the most significant, bringing whole new perspectives and styles. Both major and independent content providers are exploring new ways to deliver original programmes specific to the digital audiences. Web series are without any doubt an attractive audiovisual field that allures many talented creative minds.

    But what are the main differences between the web series and other forms of storytelling and what to keep in mind while creating your own web series? What is the current web series market situation? Which platforms can you use? What are the financing and selling opportunities?

    Make Your Pitch Custom-Made
    Michaela Sabo
    April 15, 2019 | Mestanska beseda / Primator Salon

    Whenever you do something from the bottom of your heart all the great energy you put in reflects in a form of an excellent result. There are no general rules that define a great pitch. The only rule is to know your story well and be able to have your heart present while pitching it. During her lecture, Michaela Sabo will guide the audience to find their strengths and weaknesses and make an advantage of both of them, to create a custom made pitch. And last but not least, Michaela will give useful tips on how to overcome jitters, how to stay focused, how to find the core elements of the story and how to transfer it to the pitch audience.

    Finding the Right Partners - A Guide to Financing and Distribution for Web Series
    Kirsten Loose
    April 15, 2019 | Mestanska beseda / Primator Salon

    Web series offer great opportunities for storytelling. But how to bring those projects to life? This lecture will give an overview on financing and distribution models for web series, look at potential partners, platforms and networking opportunities and get you into the mindset for defining the potential of your project, identifying target audiences and developing a strategy to find the right partners.

    Start Up & Enter the TV Market
    Marike Muselaers
    April 14, 2019 | Mestanska beseda / Primator Salon

    Startup might be a TV series, but every TV series is a startup as well! Marike Muselaers uses the format of a business plan to discuss the process of entering the TV market and how to navigate the current landscape in this age of plenty. She will give examples of different ways to finance/package a TV series with international partners and discuss various TV business models. She will talk about how to stay true to your concept when pitching to a variety of players, what to expect from possible coproducers, sales agents, broadcasters, platforms and financing partners, and last but not least: why it is so important to know both your audience and your industry.

    FORGING SERIES - The Life In Episodes
    Nebojsa Taraba
    April 12, 2019 | Mestanska beseda / Primator Salon

    Production of the TV series is a marathon process, and you can easily lost your breath on this long journey. This lecture will try to put a light on the most important moments in pre-production, production and post production in order to establish proper ratio of time you have to spend in each of this "episodes" of the process so you can achieve satisfying result. Time is the key factor in TV series production, and the first step of every project should be, literally, turning script into time, and then turning time into numbers in the final budget breakdown. In order to find out how this "alchemy" of turning words in picture works, this lecture will try to explain importance of the script breakdown as the most important and central point of the making of TV series and to give an answer on the most important question: Who is producer's best friend? Director or 1st AD?

    So You've Written a Great Pilot...
    Steve Matthews
    April 11, 2019 | Mestanska beseda / Primator Salon

    Steve Matthews, an experienced expert, now the Executive Producer of Drama Development at HBO Europe, will discuss the process from pitching your project through series development, production and beyond. What to expect, the stages in the process, the pitfalls to watch out for, and learning to love notes.

    SHARED VISION - Working in the Creative Triangle
    Rumle Hammerich
    April 11, 2019 | Mestanska beseda / Primator Salon

    Director, producer and writer Rumle Hammerich will talk about the importance of finding the theme, the core and the philosophy of the show and how this "shared vision" is the common platform for the writer, the producer and the director. The script and the money are almost two-dimensional or digital, but a TV series will eventually happened in the third and fourth dimension and this is the director’s focus: transforming the script into four dimensions. Rumle Hammerich will talk about the director’s role and responsibility in a TV series production. Trust is the major element in the creative triangle. One vision is death.

    Web Series - An Exercise in Narrative Efficiency
    Sullivan Le Postec
    November 15, 2018 | Hotel Salamandra / K1

    The episodic length of web series has tended to grown in recent years. Still, most web episodes fall between 5 and 20+ minutes. Their core audience watches them mostly on phone and computer screens, sometimes on the go.

    For those reasons, web series need to catch the attention of the audience quickly – there are always millions more YouTube video waiting to be seen. Web series must deliver as much emotions, drama, comedy and thrills than TV episodes two or three times longer. They require an intense narrative efficiency : the shorter the set-up, the longer the engaging pay-off can be!

    Writing a Great Pilot
    Gabor Krigler
    November 14, 2018 | Hotel Salamandra / K1

    A pilot episode needs to serve many different needs. First and foremost it has to be a great story itself but also must set up a long, ongoing narrative. We will be looking at the various elements necessary to introduce in a pilot to hook the audience and make them want more of your stories.

    Pilots - The Alpha and the Omega
    Maggie Murphy
    November 13, 2018 | Hotel Salamandra / K1

    Ms. Murphy will discuss the highlights of the most powerful and critical parts of your script… The beginning and the end. In this market of television where there are hundreds of shows to watch - how can you break out of the clutter. It is critical to hook the audience in the first 10 or 15 pages. This is the heart of your show… the make it or break it. Maggie will screen an assortment of iconic pilot openings and analyze why they keep the audience mesmerized. There will also be discussion on the ending of your pilot and how it must also be equally strong to bring the audience back for more.  

    The Highs and Lows of Creating a Web Series
    Luke Eve
    November 13, 2018 | Hotel Salamandra / K1

    Using his two award winning webseries Low Life and High Life, Luke Eve will talk about financing, production and distribution models. His two webseries were created in two different countries using very different models but both went on the achieve a strong audience following and high critical acclaim.

    In 2014 Luke created, produced and directed the online series, Low Life: A Black Comedy About Depression. It went on to win over 20 major festival awards and was sold to Amazon Prime and CanalPlay. In 2017 he completed directing and producing the follow up series, High Life which was Executive Produced by Stephen Fry. The series won over 30 major awards including Best Digital Original at C21 Content London and was also nominated for an Australian AACTA Award. It took out the Web Series World Cup for 2017 for being the most awarded and successful web series on the festival circuit. The series sold to BBC3 in the UK, Channel 9 in Australia, CanalPlay in Europe and Fullscreen in the USA.

    The DNA of Television Series
    Benjamin Harris
    November 12, 2018 | Hotel Salamandra / K1

    How do anthology, continuing and mini series work? And why should we care? Examining the formal structures and common story elements that compose the “DNA” of a series, we will look for the ‘engine’ that powers the storytelling in each series format. We will review clips from current shows to look for new trends in series writing. The goal of this seminar is to help you find the series format that’s right for your show.