Simon Shaw Scriptwriter

Script Portfolio

Most recent character-driven shorts, features and TV samples for producers seeking grounded, lived-in stories.

Explore concise loglines across film and television projects, highlighting range, tone and grounded, northern-inflected realism.

A stack of labelled script folders and film canisters arranged on a low, paint‑scuffed shelf in a small Brighton flat, each folder a different muted colour with visible but unreadable markings suggesting shorts, features, TV and radio projects. A portable audio recorder and a pair of closed, fabric‑padded headphones sit on top of one folder, their cables loosely coiled. Through a rain‑dotted window behind, the outlines of Brighton terraced houses and a distant grey sea are softly blurred. Late afternoon natural light mixes with a single warm desk lamp, creating a cinematic, social‑realist mood in photographic realism, shot from a three‑quarter angle with medium depth of field.

Selected Loglines and Story Worlds

A corkboard in a modest London bedsit, densely covered with colour‑coded index cards, thumb‑tacked pages and a printed map of the UK’s northern towns, all without legible text yet clearly structured into story beats for a drama series. Strands of red and blue thread subtly link certain cards, hinting at character arcs. Below the board, a narrow desk holds a closed laptop, a mug ring on a coaster, and a small stack of well‑used notebooks. Warm tungsten light from a shaded desk lamp casts dramatic side lighting, creating deep, thoughtful shadows. Photographic realism with a slightly elevated angle and rule‑of‑thirds composition, evoking intense planning and character‑driven storytelling.
A cluttered coffee table in a Brighton living room, covered with printed short stories, a draft novel manuscript bound with bulldog clips, and a dog‑eared paperback displaying only an abstract cover without text. Sticky notes and coloured highlighters are scattered among the pages, with one notebook open to a hand‑drawn diagram of intersecting character arcs, illegible but clearly structured. Soft, golden hour sunlight enters through a bay window, catching dust motes in the air and highlighting the grain of the wooden table and the slightly frayed edges of the paper. Photographic realism, overhead three‑quarter angle, evoking a warm, reflective, literary atmosphere that complements script and prose work.
A compact home‑recording corner in a London flat, dedicated to radio plays and voice work, without any people present. A large, suspended studio microphone with a metal pop filter hangs in front of an empty, fabric‑covered chair. Acoustic foam panels line the walls in mismatched shapes, and a script stand holds a sheaf of pages with blurred, unreadable text. A small mixing console and headphones rest on a simple plywood desk, lit by a single warm gooseneck lamp that casts tight, dramatic pools of light and deep shadows. Photographic realism, shot at eye level with a medium depth of field, capturing a focused, professional yet homemade atmosphere.

“Jeremy Corbyn” Hates His Mother

Short film

  • Stuck in the middle of a cruel rental housing crisis, a delusional would-be hero’s bungled act of kindness for an abused single mother disenchanted with her lot spirals into comical violence, death, and an improbable housing windfall that forces them both to confront their pride, guilt, and the fear of repeating the past.

Divide And Conquer

TV series

  • With her life out of control, Sarah, a debt-ridden student/part-time bartender with a troubled past, is recruited by a charismatic anarchist – until escalating acts of political sabotage, of “punching up”, force her to choose between empowerment and her morals, and decide whether she’s been liberated… or groomed.

Kill The Old

Short film (in post-production)

  • Dragged away from a drink and drug-fuelled weekend of self-imposed isolation, thirty-something underachiever Jon stumbles into a farcical chain of disasters before ending up black-eyed on the sofa with his friend Maddie, swapping bleak home truths about their generation. They agree to move in together, a decision a brief flash-forward reveals to have solved nothing whatsoever.

Fatality On The Line

Short film

  • Broke filmmaker Sean misses his train to his own short film screening, spending the day in a farcical loop of cancellations and missed connections. By the time he gives up and turns back, his film has bombed, his crew want paying, and his partner has left him over a secretly re-mortgaged flat. A chance platform encounter with a BBC industry insider, however, leaves him stranded at Gatwick with something he didn’t have at the start of the day: a reason to keep going.

Rot

Feature film (long-listed for the BBC Writers Open Call 2024)

  • After killing his abusive father and their violent landlord to protect his young sister Mary, fifteen-year-old Mikey flees with her across the country to a barely-known aunt in the north, doing whatever it takes to get them there. Years later, escaping prison when the vengeful landlord tracks Mary down, Mikey, still surviving on instinct, fights one final brutal battle on her behalf before disappearing into homelessness – watching from the margins as the life he sacrificed everything for quietly unfolds without him.