FIRESIDE CHAT INDUSTRY
the industry. We’ve put it at the heart of our five-year strategy. We can support meaningful change, whether that’s via our initiatives such as our Film Skills Fund Film Forward programme, which supports people from deaf, disabled and neurodiverse backgrounds to gain roles in post-production, or by the free training we offer the broader workforce in unconscious bias, which is one of the modules in our Training Passport. I’m pleased, for example, with our recent Trainee Finder stats. Last year the programme – which runs high-end TV, film and children’s – had 72% out of London, 34% minority ethnic and a 24% disabled cohort, which is excellent and necessarily over indexing to address underrepresented groups. Ultimately, we want more people hired into senior roles where they can influence culture. Hiring practices need
A token person ISN’T ENOUGH TO MAKE systemic change ”
to change with more advertising for roles and less closed recruitment. To do that, organisations need more time. Last-minute commissioning has a direct impact on the diversity of the teams that organisations recruit. Each part of the industry needs to take responsibility for changing what they do so that the industry can change for good. One of the success stories has been the TV industry coming together around TAP (the TV Access Project), which we’re proud to be a part of. It was stimulated by Jack Thorne’s Edinburgh speech, focused on improving access and inclusion for deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people. Work has been undertaken to make sets and offices more accessible and promote greater understanding of hidden disabilities. ScreenSkills hosts the TAP employment resources hub on our website as well as new skills checklists and job profiles for a role called access coordinator. This is a growing job role that is responsible for ensuring productions are accessible. DEF: Technology is changing so quickly, it’s hard to know what the future will look like. How do you think AI and other innovations will change the skills the industry needs, and what does that mean for those building careers? technology will continue to grow and develop at faster and faster speeds; but also that problem solving, teamwork and creative ideation will always be important. Right now, it’s important for each individual to take personal responsibility as much as they can for their own career – start playing around with AI, read everything you have time to (while taking time out to look after yourself) and accept that you can’t LM: What we do know is that change is inevitable and that
control everything. For example, we know social media and relationships with fans are increasingly important, along with transferrable skills – project management, communication, digital skills. So these are muscles everyone can flex. There are amazing free resources available on screenskills.com , so do sign up to our newsletters and socials because there is so much on offer; but also via organisations like Prime Video Pathway, BFI Skills Cluster, RTS, UK Screen Alliance and the NFTS. DEF: If the UK screen industries are going to be a global leader in the next ten years, what must we get right – and what’s standing in the way? LM: First of all, we need to recognise that we are already a world leader. Now we need to stay there and seek to grow. We are world-class in our on-screen, off-screen craft skills, crew, heads of department, production teams, imagination and IP creation. We have incredible people here. There is a reason the UK not only attracts so much inward investment, but also that our original unscripted formats, for example, are world leading. We really are excellent. To grow, we need not only continued investment in our indies, IP creation and infrastructure, but also our workforce. It is great that the government have recognised the central importance of skills and people for growth. We need collectively to support people who have built skills to continue to develop their learning, to support greater diversity and enable more consistent, sustainable careers. The way to do that is to support people to be more flexible, more agile and learn to lead and manage others better. The goal is to avoid boom and bust and instead get to steady long- term growth.
A HELPING HAND ScreenSkills offers development programmes for professionals to build upon their skillsets
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