CBBC Q and A 6

Are you also interested in things which might be cross-media or on the internet ...?

Steven: There's a lot of talk at the BBC about multiplatform. And my view is this: What story do you want to tell? How do you want to communicate it to the audience? What's the best way of communicating it?

And the reason that I say this is because I think that people get very hung up with technology and delivery platforms and mechanisms. Now it might be that you've got a fabulous idea that you should only deliver on mobile phone because you want to get to a group of kids who fundamentally don't watch CBBC and that will be perfectly valid. I'm not knocking that at all. But the point I'm trying to make is, identify what it is you're trying to communicate, and then figure out the best way to communicate it.

We've got a series at the moment based on a musical family and we were going to do a sub-plot in the series about the kids who have their own band. But we didn't quite get round to it. We kept saying "Oh we must do a story about them," but it just seemed to sort of get in the way. So then when we came to talk with our colleagues in interactive we said "Why don't you do the story of the kids' band and we'll cover the rest of it?" So I think you can absolutely organically get these things to work together.

But I think more importantly, figure out who you're trying to communicate with and what it is you want to communicate. So I'm very happy for it to be on any platform but I get bored rigid the moment that someone starts telling me about their multiplatform web idea because I've no interest in it.

I went to New York in February for a kids' summit, and we had a pitch. It was a really nice idea but it suffered because they were so caught up on it being some big web idea. And all you wanted them to tell you is who are these people and why do I care about them.

I'm not trying to discourage big ideas. I think big ideas are great. And if there are loads of ways of exploiting it and if it could be this amazing franchise that's also great. But that isn't why it's going to be commissioned. It's going to be commissioned because someone goes wow, fabulous story, amazing characters. That's the heart of it.

Will you accept sitcoms for the competition?

Steven: If someone sent me a sitcom with brilliant characters that were really funny I'd snap it up. It's really hard to find, but it's an incredibly useful format if you get it right.

It is a difficult genre. It is a really interesting genre. It's a genre I really love. I think kids absolutely adore it when you get it right. And when you get it right, you've got rich characters it's about something interesting. And when you get it wrong it's just about a lot of people running round being silly.

Basil Brush is a sitcom, My Parents Are Aliens is a sitcom, Sabrina the Teenage Witch is a sitcom, Hannah Montana is essentially a sitcom. I think what matters is do I like these people? Are they real, is the jeopardy tangible?

How long should a 30 minute screenplay be?

Elly: You wouldn't want to go over about thirty two pages. I would say don't overwrite because if a script editor has to look at sheets and sheets and it's massively over length it just annoys the hell out of them.

Steven: Read it out loud. And make sure if you're doing description it should take the same amount of time to read as it would act out.

When you're submitting a script do you want a page of synopsis with it?

Paul: We just want the scripts. If it's not in the script then it doesn't matter what else you tell us because it's not just about ideas. We're looking for writers and great writing.

Does CBBC require any educational content to be put in scripts?

Steven: Well CBBC doesn't have an educational remit but it does have a duty to sort of educate and inform through entertainment - so it's got to be primarily entertaining first. But ideally you'd like it to help children to find their place in the world, give them a sense of challenging their preconceptions about the world and so on and so forth. So I think it should be inherent in good drama but it's not a specific remit that we have.

If you the winner's series gets commissioned, would you employ them to write more episodes?

Steven: Unquestionably, because that's where the creative force is and that's the person whose world you're going to want to replicate. We picked up a series on ITV a few years ago from a writer who'd done relatively little. And she wrote about a third.

Elly: There have been cases with the BBC over the years where they've had a project that they've liked but didn't think the writer could have quite cracked it on their own so they bring in someone like me. And then I work with the writer so that the voice is still theirs but I just can sort of steer them a bit. Not to take over - it's got to be their voice cos that was the point in the first place.

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