Rewriting Your Script

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” C.S. Lewis

Rewriting Your Script is an opportunity to learn a new creative skill that will also improve your mental wellbeing by providing new tools to facilitate self-reflection leading to self-knowledge and thus to more informed and positive responses to thoughts, feelings and stimuli.

During 10 x 3-hour weekly sessions you will be taught by the programme’s tutor Chris Jury, the basic principles of script writing and guided  to develop a proposal for a short film or short play.

This creative process gives you the emotional distance to safely explore and test some of the often unconscious ideas, assumptions and expectations that can sometimes hinder your ability to find solutions to those most intractable of problems.

“It is possible to change your thinking through changing your behaviour, and to change your behaviour through changing your thinking.”

“I can not thank Chris enough for what he has done. He is committed to the program and genuinely wants to make a difference. In the workshop he was open about his own experiences which enabled him to quickly build a rapport with the participants and gain trust. His extensive knowledge of screenwriting and the industry as well as his witty sense of humour made the lectures so lively and interesting. I dare say that I wasn’t the only one who could hardly wait a whole week for our next session. The biggest breakthrough for me is that the story telling and analysing process helped me understand the myths of my thinking and beliefs. Hence I now can look at issues in my life from a new perspective. This workshop is valuable in so many ways!”

Rewriting Your Script, Service User. 

All of us tell stories about ourselves; about the experiences that have shaped us, the trials and turning points that have tested us. These defining stories we tell about ourselves help make sense of our lives, justify our actions and give our relationships meaning. Yet at times we can be given or create for ourselves life-stories that turn out to be misleading, unhelpful or even self-destructive.

But Rewriting Your Script only uses scriptwriting rather than memoirs, novels or short stories; why?

Because memoirs, novels and short stories are told to us by a ‘reliable narrator’. When the narrator describes the emotions and motives of a character we readers have to believe the narrator because the narrator is the only source of information available to us.

In real life of course we do not have a reliable narrator accurately describing to us the emotions and motivations of ourselves and the people we interact with. On the contrary the ‘narration’ of our lived lives is often highly unreliable because it is created by our own insecure, ego-driven, self and we often unintentionally construct narratives about our lives that are inaccurate, unhelpful and sometimes even self-destructive.

Scripts are much more like real-life because the audience can only make sense of the drama by observing how and what people say and do. Thus reframing our actions and our experience in script form and seeing them through an audiences eyes, can give us new insights into our situation and new ways of thinking about solutions.

“Emotions have meaning. We should try to understand their messages. They are usually trying to get us to do or stop doing something.”

Rewriting Your Script is an adaptable programme that can be of benefit to users in a range of circumstances including those suffering from a generalised lack of mental well-being but also those suffering specific life-problems including disadvantaged groups such as the homeless, the unemployed, military veterans, senior citizens and even those undergoing rapid change in corporate environments.

We are keen to work with a wide range of delivery partners so please contact us if you would like to find out more.

The programme was developed and is delivered by Chris Jury who is an award winning actor writer and director best known for playing Eric Catchpole in over 50 episodes of BBC antique classic, Lovejoy. He has also written and directed on television shows such as The Bill, Holby City, Casualty, Eastenders and Coronation Street. He has lectured on scriptwriting and Film & TV production at the University Of West London, Leeds Metropolitan University and Bath Spa University.

Chris has suffered from severe depression and been in recovery from alcoholism for 30 years. He is a trained mental health first aider. He is currently writing for television and through his company ScreenWrite, he runs affordable training courses for writers of film and television drama.