Ben Lewin is an Australian writer and director. Despite contracting Polio at the age of 6, he's had a long and distinguished career in both TV and film. His TV credits include Rafferty's Rules and his best known films include Paperback Romance (1994) and The Sessions (2012), which starred John Hawkes and Helen Hunt, receiving an eye-watering number of award nominations.

Australian Screenwriters Podcast

76: Ben Lewin Pt 1 (The Sessions)

Libby Butler (Neighbours and Erinsbrough High) and newcomer lewis Mulholland chat about their web series "Loving Captivity", which they wrote, funded and produced whilst living through the Melbourne lockdowns.  We chat about their writing process, how rom-coms influenced them and how they're doing during the second Melbourne lockdown. You can watch the series for free via Youtube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngzJdWk1eGo or Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/lovingcaptivity/  

75: Libby Butler & Lewis Mulholland (Loving Captivity)

Caden is an early-career Indigenous screenwriter, director, and producer from Cairns in Far North Queensland, Australia. He proudly got his start writing for The Epoch Times Australia during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. In his current lifetime his family is from the Bagarrmugu and Kuku Yalanji clans from Far North Queensland, with Scottish, French and Irish heritage as well. In 2020, Caden produced, wrote, and directed a half-hour documentary in association with Australian public broadcaster NITV. I bumped into Caden at Content London last year and was lucky to get to know this talented emerging screenwriter with an incredible story to tell.  

74: Caden Pearson (Emerging star writer and director)

Roger Simpson is a giant of Australian drama and shouldn't need an introduction!  If you've watched Aussie drama, you've seen one of his shows. In this ep he chats about the resurrection of a very popular series of tele films, that first from 1994 to 2002, Halifax FP.  Breaking with tradition though, Halifax is now an 8-part series. Roger goes talks about the development of the series, his long and incredible career and imparts some TV wisdom.

73: Roger Simpson (Halifax: Retribution)

As Commissioning Editor for Drama in England and Scotland, Elizabeth Kilgarriff commissioned projects like Bodyguard, Poldark and Luther to name just a few of her hits.  But now she's branched out and heads up her own production company, Firebird Pictures. I spoke to her during Content London about why she left the BBC, her process in developing and staffing new shows, opportunities for Australian writers and much more.

72: Content London - Elizabeth Kilgarriff (Firebird Pictures)

This episode is another story of Aussie writer made good overseas.     I first met Micharne whilst working on Celebrity Apprentice a few years ago and now she's on the writing staff of Law & Order: SVU, the longest running US live-action series on television.  How cool is that?!   We talk about how she made it on to the show, why we shouldn't be too anxious when work gets in the way of writing and we get to hear some great insights into the writers room of SVU.

71: Micharne Cloughley (Law & Order: SVU)

This is the third in my series of interviews from the recent Content London Drama Summit. Carly Heaton is Executive in charge of Drama Production at Australia's cable TV broadcaster, Foxtel.  In this quick episode, we talk about what sorts of shows Foxtel are looking for, the benefits of Content London and how to pitch to them, among a few more. 

70: Content London 2019 - Carly Heaton (Foxtel Executive in Charge of Drama Production)

This is the second interview in a series from the recent Content London Drama Summit.  I got to chat to experienced producer Stuart Menzies outside by Regents Canal, to talk about Content London and various other issues pertaining to the industry. Stuart is currently working as a freelance producer after many years as CEO at December Media and a decade at the ABC as Head of Documentaries, Controller of ABC 2 and finally Head of Content and Creative Development.

69: Content London 2019 - Stuart Menzies (The Cry)

Phillippa Collie Cousins is a BAFTA Award winning director of The Deadness of Dad starring Rhys Ifans, she's currently the Drama Commissioner for UKTV, Britain's largest multichannel broadcaster. In the first of a series of interviews recorded recently at C21 Media's Content London Drama Summit, I sat down with Phillippa to discuss UKTV's upcoming drama slate, what they look for in projects and many more questions.

68: Content London 2019 - Phillippa Collie Cousins (UKTV)

This episode I talk to Libby Butler, the Script Producer of the new Neighbours spinoff, Erinsborough High. Libby was in-house at Neighbours for many years before going freelance and working on other shows including the new ABC serial, The Heights.  But she was enticed back to the Neighbours family to run this new 5-part show.  It's got a slightly darker look and tone to it's older sibling and is well worth checking out on network 10's catchup service, 10play...  https://10play.com.au/erinsborough-high

67: Libby Butler (Erinsborough High)

Joshua Tyler co-wrote hit Australian film Top End Wedding with the star of the movie Miranda Tapsell.  We talk about how the film and his collaboration with Miranda came about, all aspects of the film and we delve into the rest of his career as well.    It's a really fun, heart-warming romcom.  If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend you buy and/or rent Top End Wedding via... iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/movie/top-end-wedding/id1470201628 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsurYwBsUHE Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/movies/details?id=GsurYwBsUHE      

65: Joshua Tyler (Top End Wedding)

Monica is an emerging writer, having written for Sisters and Tonightly with Tom Ballard.  Her latest effort on TV is ep 5 of Network 10's My Life is Murder "Another Bloody Podcast", which you can see tomorrow night (Wed 21 Aug) at 8:40pm. Monica is also finishing off a move she wrote and directed called "Ellie and Abbie", so keep an eye out for that in theatres in the near future.

66: Monica Zanetti (My Life Is Murder)

Nina Oyama is a stand-up comedian who's also written for Tonightly, The Chaser's Election Desk and sitcom in ABC Iview's Fresh Blood Pilot Season initiative; a show she created with her friend Angus Thompson and also acted in ABC's Utopia.   You can check out The Angus Project here: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/fresh-blood-the-angus-project We talk about her time at Tonightly, caring for Angus (who has cerebral palsy) and lots more. 

64: Nina Oyama (Tonightly)

Tim Lee is an accomplished screenwriter who has written for Rescue Special Ops, Serangoon Road, Doctor Doctor and Mystery Road.  His path into screenwriting took many twists and turns however, resulting in a story of perseverance that has led to Awgie, AACTA and even NSW Premier's Literary Award nominations for his writing. 

63: Tim Lee (Mystery Road)

Following on from my podcasts with Stephen Vagg in Eps 49 and 50, finally we talk about his own career.  It's a great chat, talking about his time as Script Producer of Neighbours, his writing and living in LA.

62: Stephen Vagg

Each episode I sit down with some of Australia's best screenwriters to to discuss the industry, their craft, their career and even the nuts and bolts of their writing process.

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Australian Screenwriters Podcast

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