RTS Jobs Guide 2018

I’ve always loved acting, I just caught the bug.

It’s become an old saying now, but if you can make a living doing what you love, then you’ll never have to work a day in your life. That has certainly been what it’s felt like for me. The hardest thing to deal with is what happens when you're not able to work, and you either have to take another job or just be frustrated and wait. There’s all sorts of disappointments waiting for you, and I think the measure of professionalism in our career is how you handle disappointments, not how you handle success.

“I was not a conventional presence,” says the documentary maker, who is now entering his 24th year in television with over 50 films under his belt.

His opportunity came in 1994, when he joined Michael Moore’s series TV Nation. “I went into the interview with Michael saying ‘I’ll do anything’ and I genuinely meant it: writing researching or doing anything.”

That is his first tip for tomorrow’s Therouxs: focus on making good TV.

Now's a great time to get into writing for TV. There have never been more opportunities for scripted programming. To stand out from the crowd, an idea should seem original and distinctive.

While the breadth of programming has increased, the traditional formats have remained dominant. Your writing should fit the standard models for a mini-series, a serial or an episodic series; 30 minutes for comedy, 60 minutes for drama.