A commissioning body is the part of a company that chooses witch film and television programs should be made from scripts that have been sent. Scripts are sent to the company and read, scripts that interest the company will be picked and money will be invested and will be produced. Some example of a commissioning body are corporations such as the BBC, smaller independant production companies such as Tiger Aspect, but also competitions such as the red plant competition can form part of the commissioning process.
A good example of corporate commissioning body is the BBC. The BBC offer aspiring writers the chance to have their script produced by the BBC. Writers can send in there script at specific submission window, for example scripts are being accepted at the moment until the 14th of Febuary 2013. The script is garanteed to be read by a BBC script reader, and they will assess the first 10 pages. Writers whose scripts get past this point will be given feedback, and if this is listened to and the script is improved, then the show may be produced. The writer will not be payed for the script until it is made into a producion, they will then be given a percentage of all profits.
Smaller production companies have a slightly different way of commissioning shows. Usually, to get your script seen by a smaller independent production company you would have to hire an agent, who would then know how to get the right people to see your script (contacts in the company). Tiger Aspect will not read any independent scripts. This is due to legal issues, for example if a script is sent in to the company, and they later produce a similar program the owner of the original script may try to sue the company for plagiarism. So to avoid these issue Tiger Aspect and many other independent production companies will discard any unsolicited scripts.
Competitions are another way of commissioning shows. One very well known screenwriting competition is the Red Planet Prize (named after Red Planet production company. In this competition, entrants enter a sample of a script to begin with, and if it gets through the first round of judging then the full script is submitted. The winner of the competition get the chance to be mentored by Red Planet and also the production company Kudos. Winners of this competition usually shoot to writing success, for example the first winner of the competition, Robert Thorogood, in 2007 went on to write hit BBC 1 drama 'Death in Paradise'. This is clearly a brilliant way to get noticed and increase you chance of getting your script produced.
During the commissioning process there are a number of job roles, including commissioning editors, producers, directors, script editors, agents and writers. All these jobs play a vital role in finally getting an idea turned into a reality.
Producers are always part of the project from development all the way through till completion. Often producers supervise the whole project to make sure that the end result is satisfactory. Sometimes producers are in charge of fun raising and budget, to make sure that what is on the script is possible within the constraints of money. For example if the film is heavily CGI based and the budget is only £30,000 then changes may be need to be made to the script to make sure that it realistically possible to make.
An editing commissioner makes the decision on which films should be made. The commissioner will the receive the scripts and choose which ideas he likes and which should be discarded. Before he gets to see them someone may have already read them, like in the BBC commissioning system. If the commissioner like the idea and wants to make it, a contract is made between the commissioner and the production company. The program/film is then made. The script is sometimes developed according to the commissioners recommendations.
Once the screenplay has been commissioned to be produced the writer still often has to be part of the production process. Often during the production the writer has to do numerous re-writes and drafting. This means that all or parts of the script may have to be changed for certain circumstances. This is usually because parts of the script don't come across properly on screen, or because of budget issues. Also parts of the script that arn't completely vital to the script may be removed, or re-written more briefly. Sometimes when shooting the directer may film the way it specifies in the script, but for some reason or another this may not work, so then again the script has to be changed to suit the shots that are possible. Writers such as Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain (writers of Peep Show) say that they often draft there scripts 20 times or more, often to make them more funny to the audience.
http://www.createhavoc.org/louisclark/Louis_Clark/Writing_for_Television_and_Video/Entries/2010/3/18_Day_of_longboarding.html
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