Biographie
Charlie studied English (with Russian) at Cambridge University, UK (BA Hons, MA Cantab) where she also edited the award-winning University newspaper, Varsity. She worked initially in book publishing rising to be Publisher at Pan Macmillan UK, and the youngest person to sit on their board of Directors. She set up and ran a joint venture between Pan Mac and UK Broadcaster/film co., Channel 4/FilmFour which became the top media publisher in the UK within a year of its launch (a position it held for the next three years) and celebrated over 10 top 10 bestsellers in its first 18 months of trading as well as a turnover of over £5 million. Charlie published a number of screenplays, including the Oscar-winning American Beauty, and edited her own bestselling book of film quotations. After working with the Commissioning Editors (drama and doco) and the Head of Programming at Ch4 TV, as well as the Head of Development at FilmFour (Sexy Beast, Slumdog Millionaire) and Little Bird (In my Father's Den) Charlie decided to pursue her love of story exclusively in Film and TV. She trained in script development with two of Europe's most prestigious organisations, The Script Factory and ARISTA. She completed a Masters in film at UTS, Sydney (HD) for which she won the Outstanding Student Award and her graduating short film, which she wrote and directed, won the Kodak prize. The only graduate of The Script Factory to then be taken on by them as a teacher, she was also selected as a reader and assessor for Miramax and Working Title, as well as key funding agencies Screen Australia, Film Victoria and Screen NSW. She was also a sought-after script developer, and Script Produced two TV series in development, and script edited over 10 feature films. Charlie then secured the position of Manager of Script Development at Film Victoria, running one of the most extensive feature and TV script funding programs in Australia. During her six years in this position she read, assessed and analysed over 900 feature film and TV projects, writing comprehensive script analysis/notes and taking over 500 script feedback meetings with writers and producers. She also devised and/or ran several Script Initiatives, such as STITCH (the FV/ABC TV comedy workshop) in which three of the six projects went on to be produced (Please Like Me, Twentysomething and Bruce); Catapult: The New Feature Writer's Workshop (producing FF Snowtown, AFI, AWG winner), and the FV Script Lab (mentor with John Sayles, Jocelyn Moorehouse) After Film Vic, Charlie was selected for a Screen Australia work placement with the US production company Circle of Confusion (The Walking Dead, 21 Jump St) to hone her skills as a creative producer/script developer and to learn more about the US marketplace. She worked directly for the Heads of Development and Production, with responsibility for assessing TV and film project submissions, and for doing extensive development work on those selected, including running Writer's Rooms for TV shows and giving notes on Features at various stages. She also became a lecturer and Tutor for the VCA MA in Screenwriting. Student projects she script edited have had a high success rate, with both FF and TV scripts long or short-listed for awards, such as: The prestigious Academy Nicholl Fellowship; Gateway LA(the Aus blacklist), Think Inside the Box TV, and John Hinde Sci-Fi.
