Film students to pitch TV-series

Current Film and Media students are just steps away from achieving what most of their classmates dream of: developing their own network television show. ‘Runners’ – the show’s name – may be up and running itself very soon, and creator, Daniel Birch, spoke to the University Post about his collaboration with several University of Copenhagen students and describes his methods of success.

“Quite a few students have been and still are involved in this project. ‘Runners’ revolves around four young talents in the media industry, and this spirit transcends the entire project, so our team consists solely of young, skilled people struggling to climb the steep ladder of film and TV. This has helped us reach even greater authenticity in our product – about young people, for young people, by young people,” he says.

“When we set out to gather a production team, we first looked to those in our close network, and we ended up adding director Charlotte Brodthagen and producers Ida Bom and Maria Bjerre-Nielsen to the team, all of which are Film and Media students,” he says.

DKK 10,000 donated

Birch may have been spoiled for choice in regards to staff as a new Film and Media student. He compliments the students participating in the mostly self-funded project, and thanks those who donated money to the project.

“I’d say that perhaps 10-12 students have been more or less involved in the project in various positions throughout the production process. We were assisted by some of the brightest Film and Media students, and many of them are now interns in television, radio and film production,” he says.

“We came up with the idea of using the crowdfunding website booomerang.dk to fund our project. We actually managed to exceed our goal and ended up being almost 140 per cent funded – we raised about DKK 10,000 for the project,” he says.

Options remain open

Birch’s own experience as a runner in media organizations serve as the greatest inspiration for the script and concepts for the show. From this he knew exactly where to go to get his idea produced.

“No two days are alike as a runner, and it’s really an adventure, so I thought to myself, ‘There is too much potential here to ignore. I would want to watch a series like this.’ What we’ve done with the crowdfunding is produce a high quality dummy (a demo of the essential idea and concept) for pitching,” he says.

“DR3 [Danish public service broadcaster, ed.] is an interesting option to consider in the whole pitch-equation, and it is definitely within our immediate scope. However, a lot of exciting things are happening in the world of streaming at the moment, and we are extremely open to every kind of format,” he says.

Like ‘Runners’ on Facebook to stay updated with the progress of the series.

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