Valletta 2018 is holding a course – Storyworks: A Script Development Programme – designed to develop skills in narrative for the screen, between March 14 and 20. The fee is €200 for writers who participate with their proposed scripts; €150 for producers who collaborate on a writer’s script; and €300 for writer and producer who apply as a pair.

The course, aimed at experienced and emerging screenwriters, producers, directors and editors, will train professionals through project development. The programme will develop feature film or television drama projects, which will ideally be ready to go into production in 2016 or 2017.

Applications are invited from writers with outlines for feature-length projects. Creative collaborators (producers, directors or editors) are also invited to apply; they will work on the writers’ projects with them.

Eight writers and eight creative collaborators will be selected for the programme. Writers must apply with a project to be developed. Creative collaborators will not bring projects to the course but will work on the writers’ projects.

People may apply individually or as teams. Producers, directors and editors who apply as individuals will be teamed with a writer for the purposes of training only (there is no obligation to continue the collaboration once the training is completed).

All writers’ applications will be considered on the merit of the idea and the skills in evidence. Where projects are judged to be of equal or similar standard, preference will be given to projects by an experienced producer and/or director.

All producer, director and editors’ applications will be considered on the basis of previous experience and a letter of intent.

This programme is designed for projects which are ready for intensive development. The aim is to develop the skills of the creative team at this stage and guide each project to its fullest potential. The course will develop ideas to a structured and honed first draft (or strong outline), in order to give them the best chance of attracting finance and ultimately, reaching as wide an audience as possible.

Through exploration of the team’s vision for the finished product, this course aims to develop screenplays into well-realised, focused, and professionally presented scripts.

The course will be based around development meetings involving the writer and the creative collaborator on each team. At each stage, every project will have intensive input from the tutor, through guided discussion with other members of the group. At the end of Week 1, recap sessions will be held for just the team members.

There will be film analyses and lectures which all will attend. Additional sessions will focus on scene-writing for the writer; working with writers and parsing a scene for the director and editorial skills for the producer. The course will be delivered in English. Therefore scripts, all information sent and applications have to be in English.

Participants are required to attend all the training scheduled. Participants are required to be available for training between 8.30am and 10.30pm during the week-long courses, although there will be free time on some days. Participants are required to complete assignments between training sessions that will require four to five hours of input per week.

This is a publicly funded programme and requires full participation. People whose schedules will not allow this are not suitable participants. They are invited to enquire about public lectures or one-on-one training.

Skype sessions will be organised at times that are convenient for both participants and tutors.

Participants are asked to respect each other’s work and right to privacy. For this reason, participants will be asked to sign confidentiality agreements.

David Howard and Mary Kate O’Flanagan deliver training in screenwriting, through project development, to industry professionals worldwide.

Their work is based on developing feature films and television drama, in small groups, over the span of several months. Participants improve their screenwriting skills while each project receives expert guidance.

The goal for each project is funding and production. Producers, directors, editors and other members of the creative team are encouraged to participate in the programmes, in order that every person’s skills in storytelling on the screen are honed.

Howard is an internationally known screenwriter, script doctor/consultant and educator. A tenured full professor, he has taught at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts for 24 years and was the founding director of its Graduate Screenwriting Programme.

He is the author of two definitive books on screenwriting, including Tools of Screenwriting, which is a core text used at top film programmes worldwide and is published in six languages.

He has led screenwriting workshops around the world: from nearly every country in Western Europe to Korea, New Zealand, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Cuba. He has worked as a professional script doctor and story consultant on dozens of produced projects for film, television and other media around the world.

Howard co-wrote The Three Investigators and the Secret of Skeleton Island, which won the 2007 German Film Prize for Best Children’s Film. He co-wrote and co-produced Sea of Dreams, winner of the prestigious Silver Goddess Award in Mexico, where it was shot, starring Sonia Braga, Seymour Cassel, Johnathon Schaech and Angelica Maria.

He wrote the film My Friend Joe, which won the Blue Bear for Best Children’s Film at the Berlin International Film Festival. It also won 12 other festival prizes, including four more best picture awards and an audience prize at Edinburgh.

Among his other produced works are: Humanitas Prize winner Wildflower, which was directed by Diane Keaton and starred Patricia Arquette and Reese Witherspoon; A Sordid Affair; Mayday; Running Mates, starring Diane Keaton and Ed Harris; and the Rugrats television series, which won an Emmy Award.

He created Flitze Firetooth, an animated children’s series, for ZDF network in Germany and co-wrote the feature length animated film Sian Ka’an, which was produced in Puerto Rico and stars the voices of Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina and Placido Domingo.

O’Flanagan is a screenwriter and script consultant. Kicking the Habit, her first feature-length screenplay, developed with funding from The Irish Film Board, won a Media New Talents Award.

She has completed two other feature films, Kingdom Come, which is also supported by the Irish Film Board and is in development with Treasure Films, and A Wing and A Prayer, the true story of the airlift to Biafra, and A Crack In Everything, both also funded by The Irish Film Board. She also wrote Reckless Blood, an original television idea, which won an European Alliance for Television and Culture (EATC) Bursary Award.

She works with writers and producers internationally as a script consultant and teacher of screenwriting. She trained in the Frank Daniel Approach to screenwriting with Howard and Martin Daniel, since which time she has worked alongside them as a colleague, designing and delivering training across Europe and in Africa.

In 2011 she received a bursary to complete further study of the teaching methods at USC under the guidance of Howard.

In the last year, she has been an invited expert on screenwriting events in London, Krakow, Cologne, Valletta, Prague, Cork, Galway, Belfast and Dublin.

Feature film projects should be possible to produce for €1.5 million or less and be in some way culturally specific to Malta.

Television drama projects should be accompanied with an expression of interest from a broadcaster and be in some way culturally specific to Malta.

Scripts that were developed during previous editions of Storyworks are welcome; in this case the developed work must be submitted, and must show significant development from the original submission.

Projects that are likely to cost considerably more than €1.5million or which are set wholly in other cultures are not likely to be successful, regardless of merit.

Applications are to be sent to events@valletta2018.org. For more information, e-mail info@valletta2018.org or call 00356 2124 2018.

Deadline is February 16 at 5pm. Successful applicants will be informed by February 23.