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BAFTA winner Alan Plater discusses his craft
Renowned screenwriter and Visiting Professor

Alan Plater helps launch the Bournemouth Screen Academy

The distinguished award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Alan Plater, addressed a packed enthusiastic audience of students and staff, following an introduction in which Plater's illustrious film and television career was described, together with the honours he has received from Bournemouth University Media School and the Arts Institute, Bournemouth.

He was introduced to the audience by John Foster, Screenwriter-in-Residence at The Media School.

Visiting Professor in Screenwriting to The Media School, Alan Plater has been in involved in writing for film, television, theatre and radio for nearly fifty years. With almost three hundred assorted credits and six novels to his name, Plater shared his vast knowledge of writing with his audience. Many present were undergraduate and postgraduate screenwriting students.

Expressing pleasure at being at the event, Plater used his lecture to discuss screenplay craft. He screened a number of illustrative clips from several of his productions, including his first television play, 'A Smashing Day', for the BBC. There were also sequences from Channel Four's 'A Very British Coup' and the Hollywood blockbuster, 'Juggernaut'.

Describing the subtext of the scenes, Plater explained how everyday life had frequently inspired his work. The screenplay for 'Juggernaut' was a rush job and rewritten in six days from a version penned by another screenwriter. He told his audience how he would often write parts with particular actors in mind.

Plater suggested that the Screen Academy could "develop the needs of scriptwriting students at the University" and help create the talent of the future.

Concluding his illuminating lecture, Plater opened the floor to a short Q&A session and he was clearly pleased with the keen interest his lecture had produced among Bournemouth University and Art Institute students.

Story by Matthew Hurst
BA (Hons) Communication and Media - 1st Year Student

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