Registration open
The Story-to-Screen Lab
The route by which a story that is not being told reaches a screen: broken properly, developed properly, then shot by a working unit to broadcast and feature standards.
An idea taken seriously, made to the standard the industry buys.
Most good ideas die between the thought and the first draft. The rest die because nobody worked out what it would take to make them. The Lab gets work past both points.
You come in with a subject, a concept, an outline or a script. You leave with it developed, costed, shot, cut and screened. Each stage below has its own page.
Futures in Film CIC holds the Lab's method and its equipment. Screen Sisters runs it for women of faith and commissions the work that comes out of it. One Lab, one standard, two routes in. Registration is open. The first round is published with its theme, its panel and its closing date together.
The pathway
Nine stages, in order. The structure belongs to the programme and does not change from cohort to cohort.
03 · Pitch and selection
A panel of writers, producers, directors and community representatives.
The full structure
Every project moves through these in sequence.
Community outreach and story discovery — we find stories with communities, not about them.
Writers room — an open working session. Bring an idea or bring nothing.
Story development — script, treatment, deck and feasibility, with a producer and a mentor attached.
Pitch and selection — to a panel of writers, producers, directors and community representatives.
Commission — support in kind, not a cheque.
Pre-production — script lock, schedule, casting, locations, permissions, crew, risk assessment.
Production — a supported shoot with crew, technical support and production oversight.
Post-production and delivery — edit, sound, colour, titles and delivery assets.
Screening and impact — shown to an audience, then the conversation afterwards.
A writers room in session — people arguing about a story, nobody performing.
To be shot at 3 Mills.
Where the Lab runs
The Story-to-Screen Lab is a joint programme with Futures in Film CIC, and it is co-run across 3 Mills Studios and Pinewood Studios.
Sessions run online as well, and in other spaces we can reach, so that taking part does not depend on living near one building. Writers, filmmakers and community organisations work together across all of them.
Who it is for
Anyone who holds a story worth the screen, whether or not they ever intend to make it themselves.
Writers, journalists, filmmakers, directors, producers and researchers. Community organisations with something their people need told. And women who have never made anything, do not want a career in film, and cannot let a subject go. You do not have to become a filmmaker to bring a story here. You pitch subject matter, concepts and film ideas, and how close you stay to it afterwards is settled with you.
Screen Sisters looks first to stories from faith communities and from backgrounds this industry has under-served, told by people who know them from the inside. Women of faith — Jewish, Christian and Muslim — and those who share our values. No agent, credit or degree is required. Terms are agreed with each person, in writing, before work starts.