Radio play idea takes wings

27 August, 2015

A movie project that started life as a radio script has won a major prize for its author.

Robyn Winslow has won a two-week residency at the landmark McCraith House on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria in a partnership between the Australian Writers’ Guild and RMIT University’s Advanced Diploma in Screenwriting.

Robyn says her winning entry Minding Gavin started out as an idea for a radio play, “a funny story about the kind and supportive but also claustrophobic and judgmental nature of life in a small rural community”, and it grew into a movie project with a much broader scope.

The prize also includes project mentoring by industry expert Karin Altmann of ScriptWorks, something Robyn says she is particularly excited about.

“Opportunities like this one are incredibly important to an early career writer like me,” she says. “I have no doubt that the residency and script advice will help me advance both this script and my writing career.”

Robyn entered the AWG Pathways scheme through a 2013 Think Inside the Box entry for a screenplay titled Quiver, which has been optioned by Buon Giorno Productions. She has been living in France translating and writing but is due home soon to take up the residency at McCraith House, known locally as The Butterfly House.

AWG Executive Director Jacqueline Elaine says the residency demonstrates the invaluable support bodies such as RMIT can provide to developing performance writers.

“We are especially happy to see the relationship is a two-way one, with RMIT supporting Victorian writers and the writers themselves able to feed back some of their expertise to RMIT’s Advanced Diploma of Screenwriting,” Ms Elaine says.