Duncan takes us through how he made it happen. Any good advice article according to this article I read on how to write a successful advice article starts with some background on who is writing it so⦠Hello, my name is Duncan Cowles. Some of my films have done alright eg. Taking Stock and sent me around the world to film festivals and won me a bunch of awards. When BBC Scotland was gearing up to launch back in , I was told they were looking for ideas and filmmakers.
So I looked up the commissioning briefs and got in touch with some ideas and links to my previous work. Of course what followed was months of meetings and development work, refining a pitch, a minute pilot, then some more development work before I was actually commissioned.
However, proactively taking that first step is basically my first bit of advice to anyone. The original idea for Scary Adult Things was born out of my own feelings of insecurity around still living at home with my parents in my late 20s.
On social media, and in one case literally outside my bedroom window, I saw people from my school year buying houses, having kids and enjoying the no doubt countless benefits of having their own personalised number plates. I thought that if I maybe turned my insecurity into a documentary mini-quest of sorts, where I went around and spoke to other millennials who still live at home with their parents, I could maybe if nothing else make myself feel a bit better about it.
Feedback on the initial idea was really positive. I was encouraged to think about the concept as more of a series of me investigating different topics, and not just about folk living at home.
