July 6, 2021

Earlier this year, Sean McConville became the winner of the first Stowe Story Labs Irish Film London Fellowship. Sean’s script The Last Moon captured our imaginations and secured him a place on Stowe’s June 2021 Narrative Lab, which took place virtually this year.

As part of Sean’s journey, we asked him to keep a little video diary of the experience, which he delivered for us in 3 parts.

Here, we round up those vids and offer a transcript for readers to refer back to.

Part 1 - before the Lab

Hi I’m Sean McConville and I’m a writer-director based in London and recently I was very fortunate to be awarded a fellowship - the inaugural fellowship, no less - courtesy of Irish Film London, to take part in the Stowe Narrative Lab for my feature length screenplay, The Last Moon. Stowe Narrative Lab takes place in the beautiful state of Vermont over what looks like a very intense four day period from June 5th to June 8th, so I’m going to talk a little bit about the Lab and what my expectations are before the Lab begins.

First I want to say a huge thank you to Gerry Maguire and the rest of the team at Irish Film London for awarding me the Fellowship. I’m very grateful and very honoured and I plan to make the most of the experience and really use it to push and challenge my screenplay, The Last Moon.  

So the Stowe Narrative Lab is a four day intensive programme where screenwriters, filmmakers and creative producers from around the world gather together to focus on story development, pitching, packaging, production, finance and distribution. So there’s a real business approach to the storytelling angle and it's not just a focus on story development, although that is a big part of the lab. Looking at the list of mentors, it's clear they are top industry professionals who bring to the table diverse perspectives, backgrounds and experiences, and one thing they all have in common is a shared passion for telling great stories. There are about 50 participants including myself; writers, filmmakers, producers, or any combination of; most are from the US but I see there’s a writer from Scotland, there’s a writer from Wales, a writer from Ireland and Bristol and myself from Watford originally. The projects are TV and film projects across several different genres. Many of the writers have multiple credits already so they have a really good body of work. There’s a real high level of experience and craft attending the lab. So that

So great for me because I’ll get to have direct access to working industry professionals, many of whom are at the top of their fields. 

Regarding my own expectations for the Lab - well firstly I’ll just qualify that: I have an MA in screenwriting from the London College of Communications and I studied screenwriting at UCLA in Los Angeles for two years, so one might ask “why would I take part in a narrative lab that’s very workshop oriented if I’ve already been to UCLA and had a MA?” and so on, and the reason; my answer - it's always the same: it’s the importance of story development. It's the most important aspect of making a movie. My own script The Last Moon, I believe is at an advanced stage of development; however I also believe it can be developed further, it can be challenged. It can evolve. And so I’m very open to that, and with that in mind, looking at the schedule, what interests me a lot at the moment is the peer-to-peer group sessions, and I’ll explain why.

Typically, when us writers and directors have to present our projects (our pitch) to producers, financiers, agents, managers, sales agents and so on. You have to present your project in the best way possible. You have to be positive, passionate, you have to believe in it, and that’s not always how things are in reality. You might have concerns about the story: worries, and fears, and so on. But you don’t want to show that weakness in a presentation or pitch-like environment.

But with peer-to-peer groups, you can really talk about your concerns, your fears, and put it out on the table to be discussed in a very, very therapy-like session which I’ve always found is really helpful. You always have a breakthrough for your story or characters, you get reassurance for yourself as to why you’re telling this story and you revitalise yourself to continue pushing forwards and that’s really important. So I’m really looking forward to the peer-to-peer group sessions.

That’s it for now. I will record another video blog during the Lab and report how things are going, what the experience is like, and then I’ll do a third video blog on what I learnt overall: any takeaways, tips, advice for anyone thinking about applying to the Lab. Again, a big thank you to Gerry Maguire and the team at Irish Film London for the fellowship and I will report back soon. Thank you. 

Part 2 - During the lab

Hi, this is Sean McConville speaking. I am doing a follow-up video blog to my first video blog about being a participant in the Stowe Narrative Story Lab in Vermont, albeit virtually this year. I was an Irish Film London fellowship award winner which has been amazing to be a part of the Lab on the basis of being a fellowship participant and I talked in the first video about what my expectations were for the Lab and I can say that it’s not over yet. 

This is day 3 of day 4 that’s just happened, but my expectations have been exceeded. I have really enjoyed it, met a lot of people. The organisers and founders of the Lab, David Roccio and David Pope, have been great. David Roccio tends to be the host, the overall host, and David Pope tends to focus more on lectures and he’s done two lectures so far which were absolutely brilliant. He did a lecture on pitching and he did a lecture on subtext, and I’ve been taught a lot of lectures over the years on screenwriting - I have an MA in screenwriting and I studied screenwriting at UCLA - but I can say that those two lectures have been two of the best lectures I’ve been at and they were very, very helpful.

The level of writers at the Lab (I believe there are 50-60 participants) and looking at the participants’ book, it’s really impressive the level of filmmakers and screenwriters that are a part of the Lab. Many of them have representation, they’re competition winners, they already have a body of work so it’s really impressive to be getting feedback and interacting with filmmakers and writers at that level. 

The peer-to-peer group is especially helpful, I find, because you get to get feedback from your fellow writers and you give feedback on their projects as well and that’s really great to be in a session, a round table session, where you’re talking about your story and your characters and you getting feedback on your story and characters from other writers - that’s really great.

The mentor tables is terrifying because you basically have to pitch your story in three minutes and you’re not allowed to do it reading it off the page. You have to do it in a very conversational-like way which is always very difficult but you pitch everyday on the Lab, so I’ll be pitching for the fourth time tomorrow and just from the feedback I got from the mentors, each time my pitch has definitely gotten better because they’ve really pointed out where it wasn’t working and they had suggestions as to how to make it better, so I found that really great, terrifying but great.

The mentors themselves are really successful filmmakers. Casting director Ellen Parks-Winston has cast several Coen brothers movies and Alexander Payne movies, and Paul Miller is a very successful producer. He produced one of my favourite movies actually, Lone Star, and so on. There are several mentors, too many to mention almost, and the way they structure the Lab is that you get the opportunity to be in a round table with several of the mentors so it’s really great to hear them talk and get feedback on your projects.

There’s still one more day to go and I have to pitch my project again, so hopefully that will improve from the notes I got today. I will do another video once the Lab has finished as a sort of overall commentary on how it was but so far, it has been absolutely great and I highly recommend writers to go to the Lab and put your project through that process with great industry professionals. Apart from really challenging your project and pushing it to the next level, it’s a really great opportunity to be a part of a group of professionals that you can subsequently network with and be in communication with to help with your own career as a writer or filmmaker.

That’s it for now, so I will do a third video where I’ll talk more about the last day but overall, if I’ve got any tips or advice for anyone thinking of taking part in the Lab which, I can say that is a great thing to do and I’m very honoured to be a part of it and very grateful to Irish Film London for awarding me the fellowship. Thank you.

Part 3 - After the lab

Hi, this is Sean McConville. I’m doing my third video blog following my recent attendance on the Stowe Narrative Lab that took place in Vermont (June 5th - June 8th), over four very intensive evenings for me but daytime in Vermont. So it took place virtually this year which is a real shame, but it was still fantastic to be a part of the Lab. I was an Irish Film London fellowship award winner so, for me, it was an even better and more rewarding experience. I don’t have anything negative to say about the Lab. I found it really changeling and really enjoyable, and very beneficial to myself and, more in particular, my screenplay, The Last Moon. My attitude was really to challenge the script and get the best out of the Lab, which is primarily focused on story development. However, it’s not just story development. There are lectures on pitching, and presentation, and marketing, and producing, and so on, so it’s coming at the story from all angles, both business and creative.

There are several fellowship awards for the Lab, which I’ll read some of them out for those that want to apply. I highly recommend applying to the Lab. If you can afford it, great, but there are fellowships. So there’s the Irish Film London fellowship, which I was inaugural winner of so next year, someone can apply for that. There is Maven Screen Media fellowship, Screen Skills Ireland fellowship, University of Vermont fellowship, The International Screenwriters Association fellowship, Irish Film London fellowship, Page International Screenwriting Awards fellowship, SAGindie fellowship, and a Final Draft fellowship. And there are others as well so you can go to their website and find out which fellowships there are and which ones are relevant for you to apply to. I really, highly recommend it. It’s really beneficial to put your project through that process, get it to another level, but also to make connections with other writers and filmmakers that you can collaborate with but also all the mentors. Mostly they’re very successful producers, but there are agents and managers and casting directors and so on, all facets of the industry. You know, you’ll obviously be in their networking group and, if appropriate, you can reach out to them with your project.

I guess the main thing for me was that it was intense and exhausting because of the time difference - kind of 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. in the morning for me - and there weren’t any breaks because you have a working lunch. This makes it very, very intense and efficient in a really good way, but again, I think it’s more to do with Zoom than with the structure of the Lab but, you know, really tiring in that respect. As I said, running around film markets, I’m used to that, and film festivals you would think would be more tiring and exhausting but actually, having all these meetings on Zoom (back-to-back meetings, four days in a row, 6-8 hours a day) is really tiring. 

But outside of that, it was an amazing experience. I’m very grateful to Irish Film London for being awarded the fellowship, the Stowe Narrative Lab, David Roccio and David Pope (the organisers) were amazing. Their lectures were fantastic. The way they hosted the Lab was great - very relaxed and pleasant - and I highly recommend everyone look into the Stowe Narrative Labs, look at who the fellowship awarders are, and if relevant, apply for a fellowship. But even if you don’t get a fellowship, and you can afford it, putting yourself and your story or script through the narrative lab of these four very intense days is really, really beneficial and I highly recommend it.

Again, a big thank you to Gerry Maguire and all the team at Irish Film London. I really enjoyed it and am very grateful to have had that experience so, thank you!

Check out more of Sean and Stéphanie’s work at the Frenzy Films website, and check out the Stowe Story Labs website for news of their upcoming programs, information on past and present alumni and fellows, or to apply to future open rounds.