The Writing of Television Drama: Issues of Creative Collaboration and Authorship in Danish Writers’ Rooms

Abstract

The production of film and television in Denmark has traditionally been marked by film being regarded as potentially artistic medium and television as the more mundane medium. This chapter analyzes aspects related to the screenwriting of series from DR, focusing particularly on the collaborative structure of the development and writing of new series. It analyzes issues of authorship related to moving from a tradition of working with singular writers or writer-directors for mini-series or one-offs to working with team writing or writers' rooms for one-hour drama series. The chapter claims that the recent success of Danish series can partly be explained by the emergence of successful writing processes based on longitudinal collaborations and great institutional trust granted to writers wanting to challenge the existing approaches within mainstream television drama. It briefly discusses the matter of how to think about collective processes in terms of ideas of one vision and authorship.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationA Companion to Nordic Cinema
EditorsMette Hjort, Ursula Lindqvist
Number of pages19
Place of PublicationChichester
PublisherWiley-Blackwell
Publication date8 Apr 2016
Pages491-509
Chapter22
ISBN (Print)978-1-118-47525-6
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-118-47528-7
Publication statusPublished - 8 Apr 2016

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