Rachel Knightley talks to BAFTA-winning writer, director and producer Dan Berlinka
BAFTA-winning writer, director and producer joins Dr Rachel Knightley on the Writers’ Gym. Dan co-created and co-wrote “The A List” for Kindle Entertainment/Lionsgate/CBBC, for which he also directed six episodes, including both season finales. After series one it was picked up and recommissioned by Netflix worldwide, with Dan as an EP over the series. Award-winning online mystery drama “Dixi” ran for four series on CBBC and won a Bafta in 2014. Dan’s 10 x 30’ original children's comedy series “Lagging” debuted on CBBC in 2021 and ran for two more series, the third airing at the end of 2023. Dan was head writer for “Itch”, an adaptation of the Simon Mayo novel he developed for Komixx, now broadcasting on ABC Me, and which has been acquired by CBBC. Dan also developed “Rhyme Time Town”, an animation series for Dreamworks/Netflix which is now streaming on Netflix. Original projects are in development with Carnival, Caligari Films, I-gen and King Bert. Dan also wrote “Inspector Sunshine”, a family movie produced by Perplexia Pictures/Great Point Media. His TV credits include episodes of “Thunderbirds are go” (ITV), “Casualty” (BBC) – for which he recently also directed an episode he wrote, “Get Even” (CBBC / Netflix), BBC iPlayer, “Shaun the Sheep” (Aardman/CBBC), “Hollyoaks” (Lime/C4), amongst many others.
Find out more about Dan:
Dan’s website
https://danberlinka.com/
Dan’s IMBb page
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3752043/
Join the Writers’ Gym for more writing and creative confidence workouts at www.writersgym.com or sign up to our mailing list at drrachelknightley.substack.com
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Writers’ Gym Workout:
“It’s important to have some boundaries around you. I don't think writers necessarily do their best work when they have absolute complete freedom. It's about having the right tension between your desire to write your vision. but a little bit of pushback, little bit of limitation.” Dan Berlinka
Warm-up:
Set yourself a random even number between 2 and 6.
Now write a dialogue between two characters, that lasts no longer than that number of lines.
See what you can show yourself/the reader about who they are and what they want, just with what they say.
“I work basically a nine to five day… I would say that writing is structured a lot like a day of test cricket: nothing really starts until 11. I've realized that I can't really productively write more than about five or six hours a day.”
Think On The Page:
What are your most creative hours of the day?
How many hours are too many?
What’s one step you can take to set yourself (for example) less high word-counts, more often?
Or let yourself write less complete passages, knowing your can edit more later?
“Not waiting for inspiration to strike [is vital]: I used to be very bad at allowing myself the time, sometimes I’d try and force it. So that's the thing: being aware that just going for a walk could actually also count as working. I do my morning exercises… I don't deliberately try and think about the thing I'm working on but on it sometimes it will just pop into my head and a problem will get solved that way.” Dan Berlina
Think On the Page:
What, for you, are the activities that aren’t technically writing but create mental space for writing?
Where is one more place you could give yourself time and space this week?
Ireland