Salford writers selected for Film Hub North's prestigious Script Lab programme

MSc Games and Extended Realities lecturer Emma Nuttall and MA Creative Writing: Innovation and Experiment graduate Dan Lovatt join eight other creatives for their annual writing programme, which supports emerging filmmakers in the North of England and helps them to develop a short film from an early-stage idea to a completed script in only five months.

Each writer is provided with four sessions from BFI Network Talent Executives and a script mentor to help them develop their idea, as well as a weekly feedback session from their fellow writers.

The writers will then be given the opportunity to visit the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York to pitch their script and hopefully build a team and secure funding to film the short.

Dan recently won two awards for his debut show Toxic gaining additional support by Arts Council England for his play Daily Bread and its work with food banks in Yorkshire.

His first short film Marching On Together (2023) was released in November 2023, and he has two additional plays that are due to be staged later this year.

Dan said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to work with industry leaders to develop my screenwriting craft, and contribute my own stories to the creative ecosystem of the north. I’m loving my experience so far.”

Emma said: “One of the things that has become quite apparent on this particular programme, is that every one of us went in with quite an ambitious story. I've written short stories before, but making a short film is like creating a window or only a small glance into that story. “

Collaborating with incredible partners, such as ITV’s Emmerdale and The National Youth Theatre, Emma’s talent spans across a range of multimedia platforms, including theatre, television and extended reality projects.

Emma said: “It’s been an absolute pleasure being on the programme itself. It was great to get that level of thoughtfulness of our writing. It was a much deeper interrogation of the script, and a much deeper challenge about what your story is going to be about.”

Dan’s project with Film Hub North’s Script Lab will be loosely inspired by The Silver Sisterhood, a religious group of women active in the 1980s in County Donegal, Ireland.

Dan said: “Funding is super competitive but I firmly believe in this idea and the world it exists in, it’s so bizarre and rich with intrigue and is a culturally northern story. I strongly encourage others to look into them as they were a wonderfully strange and fascinating group of women.”

Emma was also recently selected for Screen Yorkshire’s FLEX scheme, the European Creators Lab, and BAFTA Connect. Emma’s short film with Script Lab will hopefully be set in the beautiful backdrop of contemporary Manchester.

Emma said:  “One of the important things to me is setting the city on screen, as we get a lot of stories from Liverpool and Yorkshire. Manchester is often used as a production base and as backdrop to things, but it's not often front and centre or necessary to the character backdrop.”

After Script Lab finishes in November, Dan will be focusing on another short film, Into the Blue Again that will be heading into production in late November. Alongside a couple of play tours in December, Dan has also accepted funding from Arts Council UK for January 2025 that will examine theatre in non-conventional performance spaces.

Dan said: “It’s a super exciting time and I look forward to taking my learnings from the programme forward to making more screen work.”

Emma is also creating a show with Box of Tricks theatre company about two warring sisters and how they will rekindle their relationship that will hopefully be coming to the stage next year.

Emma said: “Obviously I’m hoping that I’ll be able to make this into a short film, but I’m honestly happy to have established this working relationship with the BFI, and I think it's been great to make long standing relationships with these writers.”