Three interconnected teams - firefighters, police officers, and 911 dispatchers - face relentless emergenies in Indianapolis, balancing personal struggles with the split-second decisions that determine life or death.

CAST LIST:
Narrator: Julie Sheppard
Ross: Sean Ballantyne
Taylor: Shawn Devlin
Caller: Val Cole

Get to know the writer:

1. What is your screenplay about?

Priority one is a one-hour network procedural in the style of 911 meets
Southland, where we follow three co-equal protagonist from police, fire,
and dispatch all with hearts for pursuing justice, but very different ideas
about what that means. The series follows their high-stakes professional
lives and messy personal lives as they work together to keep the city of
Indianapolis safe one episode at a time.

2. What genres does your screenplay fall under?

Procedural Drama

3. Why should this screenplay be produced

Procedurals are having a resurgence, but the ones that hit hardest are
grounded in reality — not just in action, but in location, economics, and
character. Priority One brings that. It’s not trying to be prestige TV.
It’s a network-ready, franchise-capable series built for longevity. The
show reflects the reality of modern American cities: stretched
responders, escalating
crises, and the human cost behind the call. If there’s ever a time for a
series like this to land — it’s now.

4. How would you describe this script in two words?

Human Resilience

5. What movie have you seen the most times in your life?

A Promise (2013)

6. How long have you been working on this screenplay?

Four months now. It’s in its ninth and final draft.

7. How many stories have you written?

This is my fifth screenplay. I have two in development at any one time.

8. What motivated you to write this screenplay?

I’m active-duty military with three deployments under my belt. I’ve lived
the high-stress, high-stakes environment that Priority One captures — and I
know how people in these roles actually talk, think, and break. The
characters are built from real personalities I’ve worked with, mentored, or
clashed with. I’m not guessing how the job feels — I’ve lived it. This
isn’t a dramatization from the outside looking in. It’s built on real-world
intensity, sarcasm, burnout, and loyalty.

In truth, I watched a show and connected with a character in a way that I
never wanted to. His grief, guilt and his struggles, I at first could only
sympathize and then a year later was able to empathize. He was killed off
this year for realism but I disagreed creatively about how it was done. So
instead of just being angry, I wrote Priority One. I sat back and I
listened to the fans of that show that I watched, and I wrote Priority One
for myself and for them.

9. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?

The difficulty of taking in as much feedback as I possibly could from so
many different people and sitting down and taking those meetings. Then
having to go through all of that feedback at each draft and decide what
amplified the voice of this script and what was going to take it out
applying that information. These were all people who have been doing this a
whole lot longer than I have so it was a matter of absorbing everything
that they told me and then deciding for myself what was going to work and
what was not. What was going to service the script and what was going to
tear it down? Because in truth, we’re all biased and what one person is
telling me might not be what somebody else is telling me. I have to,
ultimately, decide for myself what is going to help the script to move
forward and what isn’t.

10. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?

My day job is working on weapon systems. Ultimately, the other thing that I
enjoy doing is teaching weapons safety, and ensuring that people know how
to safely handle them and properly handle them.

11. What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings on
the initial feedback you received?

I hadn’t seen any specifically female competitions before I ran across this
one, and so that is ultimately what influenced me to submit to the festival.

My initial feelings towards the feedback I received was fairly neutral just
because at that point, I was already two drafts of ahead of what I had
submitted. I was on draft five when I submitted to the festival and by the
time I received feedback back, I revise very quickly, I was already on
draft seven. Now I’m on draft nine, and that is the finished draft.