The Development Room: How Ideas Evolve, Survive and Sometimes Get Made (with Emma Millions & Paul Jackson)

Creative Media Practice Research Insights – Podcast Episode 8 What really happens to creative ideas once they leave the spark stage? How do they change, strengthen, stall, or — occasionally — make it onto a screen? In this episode, we enter the development room with two guests whose careers span the full lifecycle of ideas in the screen industries: Emma Millions is a development producer, screenwriter and tutor whose portfolio career includes shaping hundreds of pitch decks and developing projects across scripted and unscripted television. She has worked with a wide range of formats, coached emerging writers, and specialises in identifying potential in early-stage ideas. Paul Jackson is one of the UK’s most influential television producers and executives. His career includes major BBC and ITV leadership roles, producing iconic comedy and entertainment series such as The Young Ones, Red Dwarf, The Two Ronnies, and later commissioning large-scale entertainment formats including Britain’s Got Talent. His experience spans the UK, USA and Australia, giving him a unique global view of how ideas survive industry systems. Together, Emma and Paul offer a rare, candid conversation about how ideas actually move through development: how practitioners pitch and refine them, how producers assess their potential, and why decision-making processes so often feel opaque. We explore “development hell,” creative resilience, collaboration, and the structural conditions that influence whether an idea thrives. For researchers, practitioners and anyone interested in the hidden labour of idea development, this episode sheds light on a crucial but often under-discussed dimension of creative media practice. If you’re exploring creativity, pitching, production development, or the dynamics of the screen industries, this conversation will be especially valuable.

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