Shane Brennan & AWG announce SCRIPTED INC.

15 April, 2016

One of Australia’s most successful international screenwriters has announced that he will pump a million dollars of his own money into a joint venture with the Australian Writers’ Guild that will kick-start a new era for the country’s screen industry.Shane Brennan made the announcement at the National Screenwriters’ Conference on Phillip Island in Victoria. He said the not-for-profit initiative Scripted Inc. will recognise and reward the central role of the writer.“This initiative is aimed at catching up with the rest of the world, which understands that critical and financial success springs from the writer’s vision, not the producer’s ability to fill out a funding submission,” said Brennan.The unprecedented generosity demonstrates Brennan’s belief in the quality and potential of Australian screenwriters and screenwriting, and will act as a catalyst to trigger matched funding, forge partnerships and dramatically increase the amount of money available for writer and script-focussed development.Brennan told delegates he believed the Australian screen industry had reached a watershed moment in its history.“We can make a choice to continue on the current course or we can choose to seize the day, work together and change the way we fund, develop, produce and market screen content in this country,” Brennan said. “Today I throw out a challenge to our industry - not just to the writers among us - but to the funding bodies, the producers and the broadcasters. We need to fix this system.”Brennan has been dubbed “the hardest working man in Hollywood”, having executive produced more than 300 episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS, as well as being showrunner on both series for two years. He currently has five television series in development in the US and hopes to make at least one of them in Australia.But while he wants to shift the focus of projects from producer to creative, he says he’s looking forward to working with Australian producers – especially small to medium companies – to get the best results for everyone.AWG executive director Jacqueline Elaine says Scripted Inc. will bring quality Australian stories and the creative vision and talent of their writers, to the industry and the world: “It’s a joint venture of aligned interests, with an international commercial focus - business models that both discover new talent and invest in success.”Scripted Inc. will be officially launched in July this year.