are in the News

Showrunners provide the backbone to the global scripted industry, but while we regularly see their shows on screens, less is known about what makes these talented individuals tick on a personal level.

TBI’s Showrunner Insight strand seeks to fill this void and this week, in partnership with LA- and London-based drama consultancy MediaXchange, we speak to Emma Frost, the UK-based writer and producer who has been behind BBC/Starz shows The White Queen, The White Princess, and The Spanish Princess.

Tell us how you became a showrunner, writer/producer and why.

I started out as a fine artist but I was frustrated that the lifesize oils I was painting of couples couldn’t move around or speak to each other, so I moved into writing where I could “write portraits” in more dimensions. But writing scripts without also producing them is like giving birth and handing your baby to someone else to raise, so even though we don’t have a showrunner system in the UK, it was inevitable that I’d end up producing too. I think I write to make sense of and process my lived experience. Writing is sort of a by-product of being alive and feeling emotions and negotiating relationships – like a form of waking-dreaming where you make sense of it all.

See full article here.