2024 Round up
2024 has been another busy one for Media Career Advice!
We kicked off the year recruiting for the final cohort of the ScreenSkills Production Assistant Training Programme for Unscripted TV*. Trainees undertook 7 days’ worth of training in March 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 then undertook a 3-month paid placement and 6hrs worth of mentoring from an industry professional (PCs, JPMs, PMs, PEs & HOPs). We had a total of 40 trainees undertake the programme, 20 of whom started on the programme from August 2023 and 20 who started in March 2024. Placements were undertaken in key media hubs across the UK - Bath, Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool and London. The trainees got to work on some fantastic productions while helping to address those industry skills gaps. Participants included runners ready to step up to the PA role, those moving from scripted to unscripted TV, ‘transferers’ from industries with transferable skills and those moving from editorial to production roles. The programme finished in September.
As well as finishing the PAUTV training programme, I continued to provide short courses for ScreenSkills focusing on budgeting and scheduling, managing cost managers and post production paperwork and recently introduced two new short courses – ‘Understanding Budgets for Series Producers and Executive Producers’ and ‘Production Paperwork for Editorial Teams’ as part of their ‘Mind Your Business’ strand. 340 people undertook these courses in 2024, with us running a total of 26 bitesize courses within this strand.
We ran multiple iterations of each of our 1, 2 & 3 days courses plus our shorter courses in 2024 which allowed us to train 170 people in the PC, PM and PE/HOP role, plus how to set up overseas filming and understanding kit and how to be a better manager or great formats for unscripted TV. We introduced 4 brand new courses in 2024 with new trainers - Understanding kit for unscripted production teams, Understanding kit for unscripted editorial teams, Developing great formats for unscripted TV and the hugely popular Step up to Production Executive/Head of Production in unscripted TV. These will be running again, along with all of our other courses in early 2025.
We also offered a few free webinars through the year. These included a CV webinar, Setting up Shoots in Saudi Arabia and Setting up Shoots in Southeast Asia, some of these are available to rewatch here. I also got the chance to talk to those interested in the Production Coordinator role as part of the NFTS/BBC Introduction to The Production Coordinator role training. This was across 4 cities – Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester and at an in-person event at BBC Wales. Talking about the production management roles is one of my favourite things to do, as it’s such a rewarding career, so I really enjoyed imparting my knowledge and passion to those interested in the role. I also took part in Tom Dix’s ‘Getting into TV’ podcast where we talked about my career, what a Production Manager does, tips on CVs and interviews, training, keeping going during the down times and the need for more Production Managers. Again, getting to impart what a great career path production management is!
It was the first time I’d worked with NFTS and was asked to run a follow up 1 day course in Cardiff for those undertaking the NFTS/BBC PC training course on what is involved in the PC role in unscripted TV. I’ll also be running some more sessions for them in February and March. We also had a chance to work with another new client, running two sessions on how to get the best out of being a mentor for Directors UK. This was as part of their brilliant Inspire mentoring scheme, which matches more experienced directors with those who would like a mentor to help support them in their career. Anna Wynn Roberts, who was our Mentoring Coordinator on the ScreenSkills PCUTV and PAUTV programmes ran the sessions for the mentors, to provide some useful frameworks and guidance when undertaking the mentoring sessions.
Women in Film & TV asked me to run an in-person CV clinic in Cardiff. This involved me providing career advice and CV reviews to 8 of their members. Similarly, the BFBS Academy (British Forces Broadcasting Service) asked me to run a 4hr CV and cover letter clinic for the trainees on their Production Managers course. This offered tips and examples of how to write an effective CV and cover letter for the TV and Film industry. This was followed up by one to one sessions with the 7 trainees to provide bespoke advice on additional CV improvements. They were really enjoyable days as I love being able to support individuals to get the roles they are aiming for.
Our busy training schedule resulted in us training a total of 564 trainees across 44 courses, which means we’ve exceed over 2,500 trainees since we started in July 2020, which I’m incredibly proud of. We also had 207 participants join our free webinars.
I managed to squeeze in 39 one to ones with those looking to start or transfer into the industry as well as very experienced freelancers looking to refresh their CVs or cover letters or move into different roles within the industry. My newsletter subscription grew to 1,475 individuals and my combined social media is now at 1,353 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!!
I had the chance to attend the ScreenSkills training provider forum in May. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet fellow trainers in person and share our experiences, as well as learn about ScreenSkills’ upcoming opportunities. I’ve talked to trainers over the year, who are all sharing their thoughts and predictions on the state of the industry and how it will impact our training. Generally, we are all seeing attendance on courses reduce, which is across the board from a small one-person training provider to the much larger training providers. Which of course is inline with freelancers having less disposable income to spend on career development due to the reduction in work and companies tightening their budgets due to less commissions reducing their income. It can feel quite lonely running a small training company, so I wanted to set up a private Facebook group where we can all come together to continue these conversations and share tips or ask questions. The link is here is you’d like to join, or forward it onto someone else.
So what’s coming up in 2025? Well a big chunk of it will be taken up with a company hiatus while I go on maternity leave. This will be from the 21st March until September when I’ll return to run our ScreenSkills bitesize courses and then resume some of our short courses and one to ones from October. Please note that these will be spaced out a lot more on my return as I’m trying to reduce the amount of courses/one to ones I’m running so I will have more time to spend with my toddler and new baby. So in practice, some of our regular courses will run again in late 2025, but a few won’t run until early 2026. So if you’ve been thinking about joining our courses, do make sure you join the ones we’ll be running from Jan – March, otherwise it might be quite a long wait for the next ones!
Don’t forget you can find all of the information on our training courses by visiting - https://www.mediacareeradvice.co.uk/training-talks and taking a look at our training calendar, or each individual training course page. Plus you can find out more about what one to one sessions we offer here - https://www.mediacareeradvice.co.uk/one-to-ones
* The Production Assistant Training Programme for Unscripted TV was funded by ScreenSkills' Unscripted TV Skills Fund (with contributions from production companies, broadcasters and SVoDs in the UK).