In the very first episode of High Flyers, Female Pilot Club's Kay Stonham hears how Jess Bray navigated the long and winding road to getting her first sitcom Break Clause commissioned by Channel 4. Jess talks about the triumphs and pitfalls of her early career, giving top  tips on how to build your craft skills in writersrooms, how to run one when you finally make it and how to let go if a script is rejected. She also waxes lyrical about the joys of Rom-Com and tells us why she chose director Alice Sneddon over 'a list of 4000 Bens'.
Warm, funny and full of usable tips, it's essential listening for anyone trying to break through the TV commissioning system. Break Clause is on Channel 4 on October 1st at 10pm.

Chapters
0:00 Settling in and saying hello
0:37 Meet Jess Bray
2:36 What Break Clause is about
3:44 The zeitgeist of the break clause premise
5:44 In defence of the rom-com
9:15 How Break Clause got commissioned: a seven-year road
16:00 Knowing when to let a script go
20:56 Getting into writers' rooms
27:25 How to run a writers' room
35:55 Diverse rooms and the bad old days
35:57 Polishing and punch-up work
38:45 Structuring the blap vs the series
46:35 Choosing a woman director: Alice Snedden
50:25 Casting Lara and Samuel
55:50 Dealing with rejection and backing yourself
64:15 Support women's shows and build sideways

Recorded at ‪@TheDeanStreetPodcastStudio‬, Soho with VeePod, the all-in-one video podcast and content studio system.

#comedy #femalewriter #femalewriting #sitcom #scriptedcomedy #tvcommissioning #femalecomedians

Welcome to Female Pilot Club's High Flyers. In this new series, pilot-clubbers Kay Stonham, Emily Chase & Chelsea Kania talk to women writers who have successfully navigated the commissioning process to land a greenlit TV, radio or film comedy and find out what they did to make their project take off.

Listen and learn as our High Flyers reveal how they soared above the hurdles, not just surviving but thriving as women writers in the notoriously male atmosphere of the British Comedy industry.

Female Pilot Club exists to shine a light on great new TV comedy writing by women through showcases with top flight comedy talent, mentorships with industry heavyweights, screenings events and our podcast.  

We believe in the power of women as consumers supporting each other's work, so please listen, like and subscribe to the podcast, watch us on Youtube, www.youtu.be/MoDG3QwfimI, check out our website  on www.femalepilotclub.co.uk/, or follow us on instagram @femalepilotclub

Up, up and away!