A great opportunity to discover how to plan a career as a screenwriter through a Q&A session with two seasoned industry practitioners with almost 50 years of experience between them. Craig Lawson (We Are Poets) and Dean Cavanagh (Irvine Welsh’s Crime, Creation Stories) will discuss their own careers and give pointers and advice to anyone looking for a sustainable career as a screenwriter.
Craig Lawson
he/him
Craig Lawson is an independent producer with over twenty years' experience of working across the media and entertainment industries. He co-founded Tilt Content Ltd with Dean Cavanagh in 2017 after negotiating the sale of their feature screenplay 'Let There Be Rock' to Temple Hill Entertainment (First Man, The Twilight Saga, Maze Runner franchise) and Gold Circle Films (Pitch Perfect franchise, My Big Fat Greek Wedding). The company has built a significant slate of creative properties that are in various stages of financed development. Craig is passionate about removing the class barriers that prevent people from non-traditional backgrounds succeeding in the moving image industries. Frustrated by his own experiences, Craig founded Access Moving Image in 2003 with the goal of incubating creative talent and finding new, local voices for film and television. AMI has supported the development and production of countless short films culminating in the successful, multiple award-winning feature documentary 'We Are Poets'. He continues to devote a portion of his time to producing and delivering educational/training projects aimed at developing the skillset of the next generation of moving image creatives for national clients such as the BFI, Into Film, the British Council and regional bodies across the UK.
Dean Cavanagh
he/him
Dean Cavanagh is a screenwriter with over twenty years of experience. He is perhaps most well-known for his frequent collaborations with Irvine Welsh. They have had various original screenplays produced: Wedding Belles (C4), Good Arrows (ITV Wales) and Dose (BBC Wales) and have twice been BAFTA nominated for their screenplays. After working on projects with HBO, Universal, Paramount, Canal Plus and Warner Brothers, Dean co-founded Tilt Content Ltd in 2017 with Craig Lawson. Dean has a number of projects in various stages of financed development and is currently working with Buccaneer Media, ITVX, Britbox, Gold Circle Films, Temple Hill Entertainment, Sky, Constantin Film, Lionsgate, Fulwell 73, Sony Pictures Television (US) and North One Productions (UK). Creation Stories, a feature biopic about Creation Records frontman Alan McGee co-written with Irvine Welsh, is available to watch exclusively on Sky Cinema. The first season of Irvine Welsh’s Crime, a six-part adaptation of Irvine’s novel of the same name co-created by Dean, is available to stream on Britbox with Season 2 arriving in the first quarter of 2023. Dean is also an in-demand ‘script doctor’ working on US and UK projects.
