How my Short Film script was made for the BBC

Long Story Short, seven exciting new short dramas from across the UK land on BBC iPlayer and BBC Three from Sunday 1st February. All seven are written by alumni from BBC Writers development groups. The seven scripts were selected from over 130 submitted back in autumn 2024.

Dave Florez was one of the successful writers and describes how his idea went from script to screen!

I came to Long Story Short halfway through the BBC writer development programme Voices, when a call went out to recent Writers’ cohorts, to write a short film for BBC Three. The brief was straightforward: write a satisfying and complete short film, but with a world that could potentially extend beyond that to a series. We had workshops on the basics of strong short-form storytelling – get into the story quickly, introduce the turning point early, and build to one clear ending rather than trying to do too much. One of the tips that really stood out for me was the Three M’s: Act 1 – make it matter. Act 2 – make it messy. Act 3 – make it meaningful. Then we were given a short window to go away and write, and that’s when True Love & Wormholes started to come to life…

It all began with a simple idea: a man runs into a corner shop, grabs the nearest person, and says they have to save the world. It felt like a clean engine for a short, and a natural two-hander. From there, I kept asking questions. Who is this man? Why do they have to save the world? And why should our heroine Maggie want to help? If Craig says he’s from the future, sent to stop an impending climate catastrophe, that might be enough for Maggie to commit. It became an organic way to fold her bigger fears into a very intimate story. But as the script developed, the story became more about the relationship and the doubt at the centre of it: is he telling the truth, or is he unwell – and crucially what does Maggie choose to believe?

When I found out it was going into production, it took a moment to sink in. Suddenly everything became very real. My producers, Kate Cook and Bruce Goodison at Bristol-based Indefinite Films, were incredibly generous collaborators, encouraging me to go deeper with the characters and what was driving them, and together we sharpened the story’s focus. And working closely with director Annabel Vine added another layer – particularly in thinking about what the camera would actually show, and what could be carried by visuals and performance, rather than just dialogue.

Once the script was locked, the focus shifted to production. Being on set is a quick education in what screenwriting really is: not just words, but decisions. Coming from theatre, what this process really brought into focus was how much has to be decided before you ever get to set – there’s no time to discover things in the room, so every scene and every line has to earn its place and serve the story. Watching Anjana Vasan and Corey Mylchreest bring the characters to life was a real pleasure, and a reminder of how much performance adds beyond the page.

The work continued into the edit, where the film found its final shape. And then came letting it out into the world… Seeing True Love & Wormholes premiere at an industry screening at the BFI IMAX in London's Waterloo in October was a total thrill. Writing can be a pretty lonely, desk-bound life, so watching something that went from an idea in my head, to a document on a laptop, to playing on the UK’s largest cinema screen was a truly massive moment.

What the whole process taught me was that films get better through other people bringing their craft to it. A first draft is just a starting point. From casting to costume, locations to performance, music to editing, every department adds texture and meaning that simply wasn’t on the page at the beginning. There’s no such thing as a perfect script or a finished idea, just a point where the collective work has made it as strong as it can be. My main takeaway is that ideas deepen through being worked on. So put the work out there, let it be shaped, and trust that the right team can make an idea really sing.