For those of you who haven’t heard, unfortunately the 4Talent Networks team won’t be around in 2009.

What’s 4Talent ‘Networks’, you may cry? Well, we’re the bods who run 4Talent magazine, the 4Talent Awards and the splendid 4Talent editorial hubs in London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Belfast. Not to mention much of the on-the-ground activity you may have taken part in over the years - like Pilot, Raw Cuts, Radio HaHa and the Mobile Game Pitch.

Sad news indeed of course, but fear not: under the management of Jo Taylor and her team channel4.com/4talent will continue as your access point to all C4’s new talent commissioning strands - like 3 Minute Wonder, First Cut, Comedy Lab and Coming Up - not to mention work-related-learning schemes like Generation Next and the Work Experience Scheme.

Channel 4’s regional presence will continue through 4iP, a joint-funded initiative to encourage innovative public-service projects online.

And the outgoing team behind 4Talent Networks are busy hatching various plans to carry on the legacy with an innovative new resource, packed with insider knowledge and opportunities to get all you fiercely creative people with proven talent firmly on the radar of clients, employers and commissioners.

We’ll be knocking on your doors early in 2009. In the meantime we wish you all very Merry Christmas.

Words: Frankie Ward
Photography: Katja Ogrin

His dauntingly dark Stanislavky EP is a huge U-Turn for former kids’ television presenter Iain Woods.

Recorded as a final project at art school, Iain Woods’ debut record is a sample-infused, soulfully performed and wonderfully produced piece of work, and yet Iain himself is effortlessly charming, despite having endured a couple of train journeys and a photo-shoot before making his way to be interviewed.

Four months after graduating, Iain discovered that he was nominated for the 4Talent Music Award whilst on work experience at London-based label Transgressive Records.

“I was saying to a guy that I’d been play-listed at BBC 6 Music, but didn’t find out until two months later. I asked him, ‘Could you give me some advice on how to stay on top of things?’ And as I said it I scrolled down the 4Talent website, saw ‘Iain Woods’ in the shortlist and thought, this is exactly what I mean!”

According to his MySpace page, Iain’s music blends grime and gospel – not exactly the genres that leap to mind when browsing his material. “I don’t really take the genre thing that seriously,” he shrugs. “It’s more to do with a sombre setting, than really syncopated Dizzee Rascal style grime beats.”

He once wrote that his work comprises pop songs about amphetamines and anal sex. So which tracks are about what? “It’s all a big web to be worked out by the listener, and not to be explained by me,” is his enigmatic reply.

“It would be really difficult and undermining to say that this song is about this, and this song is about that,” he goes on. “Some are written in ten minutes, others over a couple of months. They’re more about just general moods and feelings,” he reflects. So will enlightenment come with repeated listens?

“A lot of the people I listen to have really random lyrics, like PJ Harvey and Beth Gibbons,” he responds. They’ll often pointedly say something that’s completely nonsensical, and I really like that.”

This feels like a good time to raise the topic of his track 1994. On his blog, Iain writes in fragmented note form about the various happenings in that particular year – such as the death of Kurt Cobain, and Nelson Mandela becoming President of South Africa. “I’ve just got this thing about years, I’ve always found them really interesting,” he explains – this particular year having the significance of being the year his uncle was murdered.

“I’m quite a storyteller, but I don’t think you’d be able to tell what it’s about just by listening,” he reflects. “It’s about something generally dark: that was my first memory of something really, really serious.”

During the interview Iain says he’s not working on new material, but calls me later to apologise. “I don’t know why I said that; I’ve nearly finished a new EP,” he tells me. “I think I got carried away. You were my first interviewer.”

www.myspace.com/iainwoods

Words: Chris Baraniuk
Photography: Ben Collins

Delusions of immortality, a shoestring budget and a lonely robot helped nab the Directing Award for this duo, aged 29 and 30.

“Humanity’s delusions of immortality and a robot’s loneliness,” is how Timo and Robert sum up their retro black-and-white sci-fi feature, The Big Forever. The narrative follows our lonesome bot as he visits a vast library of human memories following the race’s extinction. The robot is there in order to hear what their last messages to the universe were, and the effect the experience has on him, and the audience, is profound.

After The Big Forever was nominated for a Scottish Bafta, the duo got in touch with composer Clint Mansell [Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, Pi] and asked him to have a look at their film. “He liked it so much,” they report, “that he wrote and scored an entire new soundtrack for the film. That was a very exciting moment for us.”

The visuals in the piece are a combination of live-action recording, Photoshop compositing and sprinkles of CGI, and the pair managed to put the whole lot together for an impressive £200 while finishing their degrees. In order to pull off such feats they’ve developed a strong work ethic, and when asked if working together so closely can ever become a problem, Timo insists their system is foolproof.

“For us, it’s a very good way to work. Any problems that could arise in production with two directors can easily be managed in pre-production, and so long as both of us know the answers to the questions, then everything runs smoothly. Directing can be a lonely place, so it’s nice to have company. It’s very easy for us to tune into what the other person is thinking, and a huge part of the enjoyment for us comes from finding that common ground.”

And there’s no sign of the partnership coming to an end anytime soon, as Timo and Robert already have plenty of other projects on the assembly line, including music videos, animations and another short film that looks set to continue their fascination with the dilemmas of human behaviour.

“It’s an homage to the sci-fi films of the ‘50s and ‘60s,” they explain, “but set around a bullied 11-year-old on a contemporary working-class estate. It’s like This Is England meets The Day Of The Triffids.”

Working closely together with creative zeal, they seem determined to express their natural enthusiasm for telling stories. “For me,” reflects Timo, “telling stories is about wanting to communicate something, which is inherent in all of us. I decided that film was my medium, and I wanted to tell stories from behind the lens.”

“My Dad always thought I would become a storyteller – or a political spin-doctor,” smiles Robert. “When I was younger I was always getting myself into trouble, so I would have to tell stories to get out of it. I got pretty good at it.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Words: Catherine Bray
Photography: Kate Beatty

Having won a British Soap Award for her portrayal of Hannah in Hollyoaks, 19-year-old actress Emma Rigby explains why it’s time to bow out of soap and look to new acting challenges.

Too many interviews with actresses start with a description of their flawless skin and doll-like stature. But meeting Emma Rigby in a greasy spoon cafe in Birmingham, the contrast between the petite, impossibly glamorous girl and her workaday surroundings is difficult to ignore.

With her bright blonde hair swept up in a striking Sixties beehive, lethal heels and a gleaming white smile, I can’t help but think I’m probably about to interview someone who sets a lot of stock by their appearance. In fact, Emma is interested in being known for more than the way she looks.

“Nowadays there’s so much focus on the way you look, and the idea that you have to be a certain way to succeed. We should be concentrating on people that do great things, rather than people who are hailed as a celebrity because they have a lot of money to spend on clothes and are a size zero. I try to stay out of all that, because I want to act, not be in every single magazine. It’s fine if that’s what you want, but I don’t. I don’t read those types of magazine because I don’t have any interest in seeing those types of shots of people I don’t know.”

She also eschews the Heat magazine culture of candid interviews which many soap actresses find to their cost, then seem to give license to paparazzi to stalk their targets 24/7. “I work with some people who have fantastic success with the lads’ mags, they do gorgeous photos and it’s fun for them, but it’s not for me. For me, the money to be made is not worth it. I’d rather wait and try to find a good role I’d like to do.”

It seems Emma is intent on being known for the skills that bagged her this 4Talent award, announcing that she’s leaving Hollyoaks after three-and-a-half years because she doesn’t want to be pigeonholed.

“Hollyoaks has been a brilliant learning curve, but I’d like to move on and try something completely different. It’s so difficult, but it’s just about going to the auditions and putting the work in.”

Will it be tricky to find more serious work though, given the attitude much of the industry has towards soap actresses? “There is still this stigma attached to Hollyoaks. When it started it was known as a place without many serious actors; a place that wasn’t focussed on the acting as such. I can imagine there’s still that old reputation: ‘Oh it’s only Hollyoaks.’ But if you go into an audition and you’re right for the part, hopefully casting directors will see beyond that.”

It may help that Emma’s most famous storyline, and the one that scooped her a British Soap Award, was a serious story applauded for its sensitive handling of a potentially explosive issue. Emma’s character Hannah suffered from anorexia, triggered by a dieting pact she made with a close friend, who eventually dies of the disease. She was a huge success in the role, but reveals that her casting on Hollyoaks was a case of second time lucky, having unsuccessfully attempted once already: “I’d been for an audition the year before. I walked in and they took one look at me and said, ‘I don’t know why you’ve come, you look far too young,’ so I went away without even auditioning. But I came back the next year.”

If Emma’s hoping to moving away from soaps, what are the types of film and work that in an ideal world, she would like to be part of? “Well, I really love Jodie Foster, Hilary Swank, and Cate Blanchett; people like that. They’re the kind of people I look up to – they keep themselves to themselves a bit, they’re not constantly in the tabloids.”

“Veronica Guerin starring Cate Blanchett is a really hard role, but she was fantastic in it. I love serious drama, crime, thrillers.” Sounds she’d be quite a serious cinema date. “Oh, you’d never want to sit down and watch a film with me, because I’ll always pick a really depressing film.”

channel4.com/hollyoaks

Words: Catherine Bray
Photography: Neil Parker

‘Thai brides’ are a sensitive issue: even more so when your father’s marrying a Thai woman 33 years his junior. Lorne Kramer, himself 25 decided to document this surprise partnership with touching results.

Mee And My Dad, the film that secured Lorne his 4Talent Award, is about as personal as it gets. But it also captures a truly international story. It’s a film about his family, specifically his father and his new wife: a Thai woman named Mee, of about Lorne’s age.

Having access to a story so sensitive and compelling is in many ways the documentary-maker’s dream. But when it’s this close to home, that must bring its own set of complications?

“It was hard in many ways,” Lorne admits. “Having your Dad tell you on camera that he feels like he’s ‘done with the role of being a Dad’ and just wants to be your mate was emotionally quite distressing. At the same time, being there with a camera gave me the power to ask questions I would never have been able to ask him if I wasn’t making a film.”

The original idea was to make a film about relations between Thailand and the West, but his tutor at UWE in Bristol helped him realise what the film really ought to be about. “He said, ‘What’s your USP? And I realised that my Dad and his relationship was the real story.”

Pioneering doc-makers like Broomfield and Theroux have successfully made themselves part of the story, but could turning the magnifying glass on your own father be seen as making career capital out of private issues?

“You have to be prepared to be challenged and criticized,” Lorne admits. “I’ve tried to be completely open about myself in the film, and hopefully people will see I’m trying to tell an honest story and react well.”

“Mee was upset with how she was portrayed, though,” he confesses. “I like her a lot, but she can be very difficult. She’s intelligent, but also manipulative, and we weren’t going to make a film that just showed everything in their relationship as positive.”

When we speak, Lorne is at Sheffield Doc/Fest, frantically handing out the thousands of business cards he’s at printed ahead of a screening of his film. From 1,500 submissions, just 140 are being shown, he tells me proudly – he’s nervous, but with justifiably high hopes.

“There are 1300 delegates here, and 150 buyers, so hopefully we might find someone who wants to distribute it, or even turn it into a different kind of film,” he asserts. “It’s 27 minutes long at the moment, but we shot 36 hours of footage, so it could be re-cut into a feature-length film.” More fool the buyers who pass over this early gem from a film-maker destined to go far.

Words: Etan Smallman
Photography: Anastasia Taylor-Lind

From the slums of Sao Paulo to the bright lights of London, a commitment to documenting untold stories has reaped rewards for 26-year-old Maria.

Awards can be a bit like buses. You tire away for years, honing your craft, creating masterpieces and yearning for a bit of recognition – and then three come along at once.

At least, that’s what happened to Maria Eduarda Andrade, a London-based Brazilian film-maker, who can add her 4Talent gong to a Royal Television Society Award, and the scholarship to study Screen Documentary at Goldsmiths that brought her to Britain in the first place.

The 26-year-old hails from a town called Recife in North East Brazil. “A city by the sea,” she tells me wistfully: “28 degrees in the winter; nice and warm.” It’s a world away from the setting of the work she describes as her “baby” – her touching directorial debut, Just Like Mom.

By chance, Maria heard of a Brazilian woman, Ana, imprisoned in Britain for trying to smuggle drugs into the country. She visited her in her Lincoln jail, but after the Prison Service refused permission to film, she decided that the only way to tell this desperate woman’s story would be to go to Brazil herself to meet her mother and two daughters.

In the process she would become the bearer of the worst of news, as her family knew nothing of Ana’s plight. The result is a stirring and heart-rending portrayal of three generations of single mothers and their struggle through poverty and destitution.

“It was a difficult situation,” Maria explains. “They come from a very poor background, but the characters were really, really amazing. It has a lot to do with the way I relate to my subjects: I have to be really in love with them.”

It’s clear that a burning sense of what’s fair powers Maria’s work. “What really drives me is injustice,” she confirms. “And of course I’m not happy with poverty; I come from a country with huge social inequality.”

It can’t be a coincidence that the time Maria came face to face with this social inequality – in the poorest parts of Sao Paulo – was also the moment that she decided to pursue her love of film-making.

“Before coming to London I was in Sao Paulo, where we curated film festivals with free entrance in very poor areas,” she recalls. “We made some documentaries to be used in schools, and that’s where I really decided that I wanted to do documentary film.”

It’s the “intense human experience” of documenting real life that is still the draw for Maria: “I want to keep making films that make you laugh and cry about real people,” she concludes simply. “And I think that real life is really more interesting than any fiction you can create.”

The judges have spent many hours deliberating over the shortlists, but we can now announce the 20 winners of the 4Talent Awards 2008.  The competition has been really strong, congratulations to all those involved.

Short Documentary
Maria Andrade

Long Documentary
Lorne Kramer

Dramatic Writing
Ali Muriel

Dramatic Performance
Emma Rigby

Directing
Robert Glassford & Timo Langer

Comedy Writing
Rose Heiney

Comedy Performance
Greg McHugh

Presenting
Ben Chancellor

On-Air Radio
Veena V

Off-Air Radio
Andy Ward

Music
Iain Woods

Production Music
Richard Mead

Music Video
James Knott & James Curran

Innovation
Phil Mundy

Multi-platform
Dan Hon & Adrian Hon

Animation
Karen Penman & Liam Brazier

Journalism
Natalie Whelan

Photography
Hal Sear

Multi-talented
Oliver Lansley

Wildcard
Johanna Basford

The winners will be presented at the awards ceremony on 4th December at Channel 4.  You can read all about them in 4Talent magazine, due out at the end of November.

It’s taken us 2 solid weeks, but we can now proudly announce the shortlists for the 4Talent Awards 2008 - 5 in each of the 20 categories.

We’ve quite simply been blown away by the quality across the board, and it’s been a real struggle getting down to that fortunate 100, who will be sent off to our illustrious judging panels over the next few weeks to select our final 20.

So here they are: massive congratulations if you’re amongst them, and please, don’t be disheartened if you’re not - stay across future opportunities with 4Talent and there’s always next year! Winners will be notified by 31 October.

Short Documentary
Pinny Grylls, 29, London
David O’Hara, 25, Scunthorpe
Poppie Skold, 26, London
Maria Andrade, 26, London
Laura Martin-Robinson, 28, London

Long Documentary
Fred Burns, 24, Sussex
Katja Roberts, 29 & Magnus Dennison, Newcastle
Tom Evans, 28, Oxford
Lorne Kramer, 25, Bristol
Stuart Kershaw, 28, Liverpool

Dramatic Writing
Ali Muriel, 28, London
Cosmo Wallace, 29, Glasgow
Carla Grauls, 29, London
Tim Price, 28, London
Stella Papamichael, 30, London

Dramatic Performance
Sarah Kempton, 22, London
Elizabeth Rainbow, 28, London
Emma Rigby, 19, Liverpool
Sagar Radia, 22, Middlesex
Helen Clapp, 25, London

Directing
Tom Marshall, 22, Middlesbrough
Adam Randall, 28, London
Dominic Leclerc, 29, Bradford
Robert Glassford, 29 & Timo Langer, West Lothian
Rob Sorrenti, 28, London

Comedy Writing
Felicity Carpenter, 27, London
Chris Grady, 29, Glasgow
Rose Heiney, 24, London
Christopher Wallace, 29, & Philip Hodgson,Tyne & Wear
Daniel Flay, 24 & Alastair Craig, Huntingdon

Comedy Performance
Anna Whelan, 23 & David Tynan, Wigan / Sheffield
Greg McHugh, 28, Glasgow
Vikki Stone, 25, London
Napoleon Ryan, 30, Kent
Eddie Kadi, 25, London

Presenting
Carly Lindon-Forrester, 23, Liverpool
Laura Marks, 22, Glasgow
Amelia Gildea, 23, Wiltshire
Ben Chancellor, 30, London
James Sherwood, 25, Kent

On-Air Radio
Alex Baker, 25, Birmingham
Adam Edworthy, 22, Coventry
Alex James Atkinson, 27, Manchester
Veena Virahsammy, 21, Barking
Steve Folland, 29, Hertfordshire

Off-Air Radio
Andy Ward, 23, Sussex
Simon Buschenfeld, 30, Bristol
Philip Dyer, 29, London
Matt Horne, 26 & Colin Greaves, Gateshead
Ann Scantlebury, 23, London

Music
Toby Trueman, 26 - The Icarus, Edinburgh
Oliver Harrison, 21 - Fossil Club, Bristol
Camille Davila, 29, Cambridgeshire
Louis Standard, 19 - Pinstripe, Avon
Iain Woods, 22, Brighton

Production Music
Ella Spira, 20, London
Blair Mowat, 22, Edinburgh
Chris Hanson, 26, London
Richard Mead, 29, Maidstone
Richard Bradley, 28, Sheffield

Music Video
Ian Smith, 26, Oxford
James Cook, 22, Durham
James Knott & James Curran, 26, Derby
Steven Quinn, 27, Belfast
James Willis, 23, Humberside

Innovation
Becki Burrows, 27, London
Jack Lenox, 21, Surrey
Kay Vasey, 29 & Jonny Emmanuel, London
Mike Young, 23, Hertfordshire
Phil Mundy, 27, Huddersfield

Multi-platform
Chi-chi Ekweozor, 29, Manchester
Dan Hon, 29, London
Steve Ellis, 26, Birmingham
Mike Cunsolo, 28, Sheffield
Claire-Frances Lennon, 25, Glasgow

Animation
Ian Wharton, 23 & Edward Shires, Preston
Mark Nute, 29, Gateshead
Jessica Cope, 24, North Yorkshire
Karen Penman, 28 & Liam Brazier, Essex
Cassiano Prado, 30, London

Journalism
Rob Sharp, 28, London
Hassan Ghani, 23, Slough
Natalie Whelan, 22, London
Lauren Carter, 23, Hertfordshire
Lee Coan, 29, Hertfordshire

Photography
Lucinda Chua, 23, Nottingham
Ellie Harvey, 22, London
Hal Sear, 24, Watford
Eleanor Hardwick, 15, Reading
Loubie-Lou photography, 30, Leicester

Multi-talented
Rob Madin, 22, Chesterfield
Oliver Lansley, 27, Surrey
James Roberts, 23, London
Allyn Lawson, 22, Warwickshire
Jamie Stone, 23, Edinburgh

Wildcard
Chris O’Shea, 27, London
Johanna Basford, 25, Dundee
David Procter, 25, London
Amy Winters, 24 & Kseniya Zagorodnyuk, London
Tanya Richam-Odoi, 27, Leeds

Petra Stefankova is a London-based Slovakian illustrator and art director at Animacia.co.uk, 4Talent award winner 2007 and fellow at Royal Society of Arts working within animation, advertising and publishing. Her work has been featured in the Luerzer’s Archive 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide, Images 31: The Best of British Illustration and Expose 6 World’s Finest New Digital Art.

www.yetanotherface.com

Across 20 categories the 4Talent Awards tip exciting individuals with the potential to make a difference, as judged both by commissioners and the producers who supply them.

All the info on how to apply for the 4Talent Awards is here.

We now have over half of the 40 (yes, 40) judges on side:

Kate Vogel, Editor, 3 Minute Wonder (C4)
Sarah Mulvey, Commissioning Editor, Documentaries (C4)
Robert Wulff-Cochrane, Senior Development Editor, Drama (C4)
Caroline Leddy, Commissioning Editor, Comedy (C4)
Victoria Pile, Writer, Green Wing, Smack the Pony
Shane Allen, Commissioning Editor, Comedy (C4)
Ben Caudell, Creative Director @ Zeppotron
Liza Marshall, Head of Drama (C4)
Charlie Pattinson, Exec Producer @ Company (Shameless)
Cath Lovesey, Editor, Music (C4)
Lana Webb, Head of Music @ Remedy
Debbie David, Commissioning Editor, T4 (C4)
Richard Cook, Exec Producer @ Eyeworks (T4, Popworld)
Matt Locke, Commissioning Editor, Education (C4)
James Kirkham, Manager Director @ Holler
Dorothy Byrne, Head of News & Current Affairs (C4)
Alice Tonge, Art Director, 4Creative (C4)
Ewen Spencer, Freelance photographer (shot for Skins)
Ruth Fielding, Managing Director @ Lupus Films
Adam Gee, Commissioning Editor, New Media Factual (C4)
James Estill, Senior Producer, 4Talent (C4)

Further updates on the way soon.

Words: Miles Johnson
Photography: John Stewardson

In a small central London room a fiery debate has just erupted. “I just think it’s not that simple,” says Lucy Kirkwood, 24. “Female friendships are more complicated than that.” The rest of the group sit up from their coffees, awaiting a reply from the middle-aged man chairing the meeting. “Lucy,” he says with a hint of frustration, “for me, female relationships are about power; are about control. That’s what all the girls we’ve talked with have said.” There’s a pause. Everyone sits back to think again, and takes a swig of coffee.

Click to enlarge/shrink. Left/right arrows cycle through images.

On first appearances it could be a particularly engaged university tutorial. Ten or so people are stuffed onto sofas, most of them in their teens and early twenties, and each has been passionately arguing their position for several hours. But there are a couple of mature students sat among the youngsters, one of whom looks suspiciously like the comedian Robin Ince.

There’s also a kid in the corner sipping from a juice carton who, from a different angle, could be the spitting image of Posh Kenneth from Skins. Just as everyone is about to leave a cheery announcement comes from the chair that settles any lingering confusion: “Congratulations on the Bafta nomination, guys!”

If you haven’t seen or let alone heard of Skins yet, you’re presumably a resident of a particularly out-of-touch old peoples’ home, or had your cable connection accidentally switched to North Korean state television. In two seasons, the show’s chronicling of the trials and tribulations of a group of sixth-form students from Bristol has gone from a semi-cult hit adored by its target under-25 audience to one of Channel 4’s triumphs of the last five years.

Whereas most depictions of British teens fall somewhere between gun-toting hoodies and bleach-blonde proto-WAGs, the creators of Skins pride themselves on having crafted a show about young people that doesn’t shirk controversy or paint an overly rosy picture. Indeed with awards, high ratings and a new season in the pipeline it seems things could not be going better.

“It’s not usually that heated,” says 23-year-old Skins co-creator Jamie Brittain an hour after the writers meeting, seemingly more relaxed now away from the creative coalface. “This time round was a little more intense than normal; we’re obviously all excited about making the new series.”

It would be hard not to be excited in his position. Not only does Jamie have to sort his laundry for an award ceremony later that night, but his phone has been ringing constantly with mysterious calls from Japanese numbers. “The explanation for that is a bit strange really. When we were filming one of the online bits I accidentally left my phone number in one of the scenes after the edit. Now I am getting constant calls from Japan from people there who watched it.”

Being ‘big in Japan’ is a measure of success in any field, unless you’re Spinal Tap. But it’s not only the show’s ‘conventional’ success of good ratings and awards that have seen television industry types get their pantaloons in a twist. Targeting a teen audience notoriously difficult to pin down, the show’s arsenal of blogs, social networking profiles and podcasts – a development now referred to a ‘360-degree marketing’ by those in the know – has had executives across the land weeping with envy.

If, for example, you felt the need to get closer to the show’s young Asian character Anwar, you could check up his MySpace page. There you would not only discover his penchant for Lethal Bizzle, but would also have access to a web-exclusive video diary with the character discussing his girl problems. Head to Posh Kenneth’s page and the fan can enjoy a loving Wordsworthian ode to Jal interspersed with his signature brand of street patois.

If even then your appetite for all things Skins was still not sated, you could plug into Bebo video updates, or switch to iTunes and download the podcast presented by Daniel Kaluuya, the actor who plays Posh Kenneth who is also a writer on the show. Including phone-in questions from audience members and interviews with the cast, the Skinscast, as it’s been termed, was at one point the most downloaded podcast on the whole iTunes playlist.

Alongside the overall quality of the programme itself, it seems clear that the multiplatform ingenuity of Skins has enabled it to reach and hold onto a loyal audience in ways previous shows could only dream of. It is, in its own way, the defining televisual project of the British YouTube generation. But at a point in television where television executives and producers are increasingly heralding the possibilities brought by new media platforms, do the writers of the show ever feel their creation is being distorted by the marketing men?

“There is obviously a gulf between what the show says and how Skins is marketed,” says Lucy Kirkwood, one of the writers on the show. “But I think there’s something quite fun about the marketing. I really like this season’s advertising campaign. It captures the spirit of the show and is quite dark.” Ben Schiffer, another writer, agrees. “I think it would be really churlish of us to complain about the marketing – it brought us an audience, and that’s great.”

Shiffer however sees the significant noise made about Skins’ various multiplatform tentacles more as a generational issue than something specific to the show. “Whenever I mention Skins to people, it’s always the people who work in the media who are interested in the multiplatform stuff. They are always the people who are like ‘Skins, oh yes, it’s the big multiplatform thing and you guys have done this, this and this.’ They are the people that seem to find it so new and interesting. But for the audience I think it somehow feels natural to them. They don’t find it particularly remarkable and that’s why I think it’s successful. We’re communicating with them on a really natural level, which isn’t new or strange for them.”

Daniel Kaluuya also sees the success of the podcast he presents and the Skins blogs, Bebo and MySpace presences as being more a natural progression to suit an audience that has grown up with the Internet, rather than a novel marketing ploy. “The important thing to realise is that all the online stuff helps the fans get more into the characters. We just take the characters seriously. On the podcast, it’s not like we just say, ‘Oh, these are make-believe characters, this is a make-believe land and these things aren’t really happening. It’s a TV show that quite a few people really care about and we always take it seriously, whether it’s online or not.”

Ben agrees: “That’s why Skins is perceived to be such a success – we’re the only show to have really captured that audience. Advertisers are desperate to hit the audience that we’ve captured. And we work because we don’t condescend to them.”

In a suitably 21st century take on the creative process, the writers also recognise the possibilities media like blogs allow them for character development. While pre-Internet shows relied on scripts in the traditional manner, creating MySpace pages for the characters placed a new developmental tool into the hands of the writers.

“If you looked at Chris’ MySpace page last year, he actually became much more fleshed out because of it,” says Lucy. “You see that he likes Adam and the Ants and can find out much more about his character than would be normally possible. Skins is about a group of friends, and the whole appeal in the first series was about meeting a group of people you would have wanted to be friends with if you knew them. When you first make friends you sort of do what a MySpace page does by saying, do you like this or that, what are your top five bands? It’s like an electronic friendship. It allows you to show a side of the characters that might seem forced if it was in the show.”

Each of the writers contributes to the online features by writing blogs and video snippets for the characters, a side to the show that allows a young pool of talent to cut their teeth away from the glare of terrestrial television before graduating to penning hour-long scripts. But the writers are also quick to emphasise that they don’t see the online material being in any way less important than the show proper.

“All the online material comes from the same place as the show, so we all try and aspire to the same level,” says Shiffer. “No one ever goes, ‘Oh it’s just for the Internet so we’ll just bang it out. We’re trying to broaden out the universe of the show, rather than just providing lame ancillary storylines because we heard it was a good marketing tool.”

But are they ever worried about the potential for the online content and podcast to become gimmicky and distracting from the more serious side of the show? “The audience doesn’t view it that way,” says Shiffer. “I don’t think our audience makes any qualitative difference between watching something on MySpace and watching something on telly. It’s not worse or immediately lower-status because you watched it on the internet; it’s just the same thing.”

Jamie agrees: “The podcast did very well, so it obviously reached a lot of people who didn’t view it as a gimmick,” he points out. “All the material is well read, well commented on and discussed. It seems to do well in getting people talking about the show and contributing to it through competitions, which can only be a good thing.”

While they are rightly confident that the multi-platform approach has helped rather than hindered Skins’ aim of portraying British teenage life in a realistic but entertaining way, the first series’ pre-air marketing campaign (featuring a bunch of handsome actors looking elegantly wasted) gave some the wrong first impression. The Guardian’s TV critic Charlie Brooker for one said that the first episode had him “harrumphing like a four hundred-year-old man.”

Since, though, Brooker and many others have repented – and now recognise the greater levels of depth the writers have strived to instil into the characterisation of storylines. The series is now well-known for featuring delicate issues in its plotlines, such as anorexia, drug consumption and racial tension.

“The first ever episode did have its faults, but I think we’ve since shown we can deal with complicated issues and entertain young people,” says Jamie. Another writer on the show, Atiha Sen Gupta, agrees. “I think that’s the Skins philosophy really: taking a character that could be a stereotype, but doing it well. In series one, we had an anorexic girl but we subverted it. That gives the show its strength.”

There’s also been the odd critical voice attacking the show for glamorising drug consumption and casual sex, an argument the writers feel is unjustified. “People are going to take drugs and throw big parties whether there was Skins or not,” says Sen Gupta. This is also a point Daniel Kaluuya feels particularly strongly about. “I think it was Eminem who said something about people not being able to handle looking in the mirror and not liking what they see. Skins isn’t trying to glorify drugs; people just take them. People do drugs and have sex, so if we’re trying to write something realistic why can’t we put them in the show?”

Puritans aside, it seems more of the British television-watching public are beginning to awaken to the fact that Skins is not merely a fancy exercise in new media or empty pandering to a ‘youth demographic’, but is actually a show that could stand the test of time. On that matter Jamie, for whom the show’s characters were once merely vague ideas inside his head, is philosophical.

“I think it would be arrogant of us to assume we impact upon peoples lives in any major way, but it’s clear that this show means a lot to the people who watch it. We aren’t sure how long it will go on for, but we are defiantly going to do another series after the next. It means a lot to us, and we just want to keep it running for as long as feels right.” And with a talented and passionate gang of writers, an innovative approach to new media – and of course all those calls from Japan – Skins could probably continue for as long as they wish.

The 4Talent Awards 2008 are now open: across 20 categories, get your work judged by Channel 4 commissioners and the producers who supply them.

Categories are short doc, long doc, dramatic writing, dramatic performance, directing, comedy writing, comedy performance, presenting, on-air radio, off-air radio, music, music for production, music video, innovation, multi-platform, animation, journalism, photography, multi-talented and the mysterious wildcard award.

channel4.com/4talentawards