2023 Round Up
What a busy but exciting year 2023 has been for Media Career Advice! January saw our first two cohorts graduate from the year long Production Co-ordination Training Programme for Unscripted TV* that we ran on behalf of ScreenSkills, followed by our additional cohorts graduating up until May. This was a hugely ambitious and vitally important scheme that we had the opportunity to run. The scheme aimed to address the skills shortages within unscripted TV production and resulted in us training 93 individuals from 7 different cities – Cardiff, Bristol, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds & Belfast. It included Production Assistants/Production Secretaries ready to step up to the PC role, production staff returning to work, those moving from scripted to unscripted TV, ‘transferers’ from industries with transferable skills and those moving from editorial to production roles.
The programme presented a fantastic opportunity to provide industry training in the role of a Production Co-ordinator alongside 6hrs worth of mentoring from an industry professional (PCs, JPMs, PMs, PEs & HOPs) and up to 12 months worth of paid placements. This structure created a really well rounded programme with the training upfront, providing trainees with all of the knowledge needed in the role, getting to put that knowledge and new skills in place during their paid placements and having their mentor to support them in their new role. The trainees got to work on some fantastic productions while helping to address those industry skills gaps. You can find out more about that programme here.
Our first cohort for the Production Assistant Training Programme for Unscripted TV, November 2023
We had the opportunity to continue to address those skills gaps with a follow on programme designed for Production Assistants. We launched the ScreenSkills Production Assistant Training Programme for Unscripted TV* in August, with our first cohort undertaking their training in October/November. Trainees are provided with 7 days worth of training covering everything involved in the Production Assistant role, as well as mental health awareness and a freelancer toolkit and CV clinic to prepare them for the freelance world. They undertake a 3 month paid placement and 6hrs worth of mentoring from an industry professional (PCs, JPMs, PMs, PEs & HOPs). We will have 40 trainees undertake the programme in total, with our first 20 trainees just beginning their placements and our final 20 trainees starting on the programme from March next year. Applications for cohort 2 open from the 2nd January, with placements being undertaken in the key media hubs across the UK - Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester, N.Wales. Find out more about the programme here.
As well as finishing the PCUTV and starting the PAUTV training programmes, I continued to provide short courses for ScreenSkills focusing on budgeting and scheduling and managing cost managers and introduced three new short courses on post production paperwork, the commissioning process for production teams and Budgeting 101 as part of their ‘Mind Your Business’ strand. This saw a huge amount of 649 people undertake these courses in 2023, with us running a total of 47 bitesize courses within this strand.
I ran between 3 - 4 iterations of each of my 1 & 2 days courses in 2023 which allowed me to train 140 people in the PC and PM role, plus how to set up overseas filming and look after post production in a PM role. We also very excitingly were able to offer a brand new course called ‘Become a better manager with coaching and mentoring skills’ which focused on the softer skills that help you become a better manager by incorporating coaching and mentoring skills into your management style. This was with our first external trainer Anna Roberts and we’ll be running the course again in February.
I also had the opportunity to run a few bespoke courses for production companies and organizations including a bespoke post production course focused on all of the production teams role, a bespoke Production Manager course, my Creating a Budget and Schedule for Unscripted TV for Share my Telly Job and an extended version of unscripted budgeting requirements for the TRC/ScreenSkills Series Producer Programme.
Our busy training schedule resulted in us training a staggering 848 trainees which is more than our first and second year of the company combined! That also means we’ve exceed over 2,000 trainees since we started in July 2020, which I’m incredibly proud of.
I managed to squeeze in 16 one to ones into a very busy year which is a great amount, especially considering I was trying to stick to part-time hours throughout 2023 to spend more time with my little girl. My newsletter subscription grew to 913 individuals and my combined social media is now at 1,041 followers. Of course, I couldn’t have done it all without your support. So if you took part in training or a one to one session or kept an eye on my newsletters and social media, I owe you a massive thank you!!
In addition to running the training and one to ones, I’ve been really busy behind the scenes starting to set up new courses with additional trainers in lots of different areas of the TV industry. The first of those new courses are running in January with Matthew Harrisson demystifying kit for those working in production and editorial teams, with more of his courses to follow later in the year. We’ll also be introducing some additional new courses from around April/May and I’m in talks to set up a few shorter sessions on some focused subjects as well. I’m also offering a free CV webinar at the start of January so do come along if you’d like to pick up a few tips on creating/updating your CV.
We’ll of course still be offering our regular short courses with our schedule up until March available to book on the website. Plus the ScreenSkills bitesize courses will be taking place every three months (March, June, Sept & Dec). Don’t forget you can find all of the information on my training courses by visiting - https://www.mediacareeradvice.co.uk/training-talks and taking a look at my training calendar, or each individual training course page.
* These programmes were/are supported by the ScreenSkills Unscripted TV Skills Fund which invests in training for the unscripted workforce thanks to contributions from BBC, Channel 4, Sky, A+E Networks UK, Discovery UK, Channel 5, Netflix, ITV, Amazon, UKTV and S4C matched by production companies.