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David Thomas - tax for freelancers, a helpful guide

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David Thomas - tax for freelancers, a helpful guide

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"‘Making Tax Digital for Income Tax’ (MTD for IT) is a big change for sole traders and landlords.

In this section I’ve tried to include the information most useful for sole traders working in the creative industries."

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Making Tax Digital - a guide for Sole Traders - David Thomas Media Ltd

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Our special guide to Making Tax Digital for income tax for sole traders and landlords. Includes frequently asked questions.

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David Thomas Media - freelancer business resources

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David Thomas Media - freelancer business resources

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Loads of great free templates and previous course materials to help you navigate your business as a screen industry freelancer, now available to download in an easy space

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Follow this account for short courses in London

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Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you’re into with the people who get you.

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How Young Sherlock Created Secret Passageways for Oxford | Collider BTS

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15 minute videos taking you through design elements of films & TV shows.

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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The PAF is designed to share UK resources & support the film+tv accounting profession

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The PAF is designed to share resources & support the film+tv accounting profession The PAF is designed to share resources & support the film+tv accounting profession Become a PAFer. It's free 😊 Email us to join About us The Production Accounting Forum was born in June

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Film and TV Drama - conversations with leading industry figures

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Film and TV Drama - conversations with leading industry figures

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New UK based event for those working in scene and set creation- new UK based event for those working in scene and set creation

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Set & Scene - Celebrating The Art Of Scenography

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A one-day show celebrating stagecraft, scenic design & visual storytelling. Join professionals, celebrate crafts & explore the future of scenic design.

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Free tools, templates, and guidance for screen businesses. Everything we’ve created or linked to has been rigorously checked to ensure it’s useful, up-to-date, and legally compliant.

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Look after the people whose work you depend on and gain the competitive edge you’re looking for.

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Training in post production in Wales and the South West

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How to be a RUNNER! Essential Skills Training - FULLY BOOKED, MORE TO COME IN THE NEW YEAR - Gorilla Group

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Cardiff based full service post production house specialising in broadcast media and film

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The Set Design Channel covers the making of Film and Television in the UK with a focus on Set Design, Art Department/Graphic Design and Props.

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Set Designer Shows How to Set Design (Using Sketchup)

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NEW: Production Management on Location, offers an insider look at life on location in TV production. Packed with real stories and practical insights, it’s a must-read for anyone in the industry.

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NEW: Production Management on Location, offers an insider look at life on location in TV production. Packed with real stories and practical insights, it’s a must-read for anyone in the industry.

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Production Management on Location: A Guide to Making Wildlife, Extreme Travel and Adventure TV

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Production Management on Location is your essential companion for mastering the complexities of international documentary production. Written by an experienced production manager who has spent years on location, this book offers a rare, hands-on look at the realities of producing unscripted documentaries in diverse global settings.
From adrenaline-fueled adventures to projects featuring celebrity presenters, this guide demystifies the process of prepping, producing, and managing on-location shoo

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Archive television podcast in which Andy Priestner and Martin Holmes explore a new UK drama every episode, offering informal critique, insights and trivia.

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Podcast · An A to Z of UK Television Drama · Archive television podcast in which Andy Priestner and Martin Holmes explore a new UK drama every episode, offering informal critique, insights and trivia. Join them every fortnight for televisual-based larks.

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Bectu guide to dealing with sexual harassment at work

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Bectu guide to dealing with sexual harassment at work

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Sexual Harassment Support Service for union members, is staffed by a specially trained team.

Resources on this link

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According to UK law, sexual harassment is unwanted conduct or behaviour related to sex, or of a sexual nature, which has the purpose or effect of:

violating the other's dignity, or

creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment.

The legal definition also encompasses less favourable treatment because of rejection (or submission) of unwanted conduct of a sexual nature or related to gender reassignment or sex.

The law can apply to one-off incidents, or to patterns of behaviour. We must not underestimate the cumulative effect a pattern of 'low-level', even unintentional, sexual harassment can have on the victim. At its worst, sexual harassment destroys careers, and damages mental health.

Bectu's Sexual Harassment Support Service

If you're a Bectu member and you think you have experienced sexual harassment, we're here for you.

Our Sexual Harassment Support Service is staffed by a specially trained team who are here to listen to you and guide you through any formal process, should you wish. If you just want to report a case of sexual harassment and remain anonymous, that is fine, too.
Fill in our contact form and our specially trained team will be in touch.
Download our guide

Download Bectu's workplace guide to dealing with sexual harassment
Further resources and support for tackling sexual harassment
You can find more resources, training and tools for reps to help tackle, prevent and respond to workplace sexual harassment on the TUC website.

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According to UK law, sexual harassment is unwanted conduct or behaviour related to sex, or of a sexual nature, which...

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The British Entertainment History Project | Preserving the nation’s unique cultural legacy of Film, TV, Theatre and Radio industries through oral history. - Preserving British Film, Broadcast and Theatre Oral Histories. Licensable archive

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The British Entertainment History Project

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The British Entertainment History Project

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The British Entertainment History Project | Preserving the nation’s unique cultural legacy of Film, TV, Theatre and Radio industries through oral history. - Preserving British Film, Broadcast and Theatre Oral Histories

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The British Entertainment History Project (BEHP) - The History Project is the UK’s leading independent organisation preserving the oral history of professionals from British Film, Television, Radio and Theatre.

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The ScreenSkills Podcast goes behind the camera to explore the UK screen industry with the help of those within it. We’ll hear from those working in film, TV and animation as we unpick the stories that matter to them. In each episode, we’ll touch on different themes and hear how they impact the workforce.

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Podcast that takes listeners behind the scenes of the TV industry, interviewing professionals in various roles to gain insights into their work. Host Ashley Golder speaks with the likes of Steadicam operators, Production Managers, Directors, Lighting Technicians, and more, covering all aspects of the TV world.

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Listen to TV Makers on Spotify. TV Makers is a podcast that takes listeners behind the scenes of the TV industry, interviewing professionals in various roles to gain insights into their work. Host Ashley Golder speaks with the likes of Steadicam operators, Production Managers, Directors, Lighting Technicians, and more, covering all aspects of the TV world.

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Waterloo Road to re-launch their successful Production Development Scheme

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Waterloo Road to re-launch their successful Production Development Scheme

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Applications are now open for a new cohort of trainees…

Following the huge success of three previous Production Development Trainee Schemes, Wall to Wall Media and Rope Ladder Fiction in association with Screen Manchester and HOME are on the search for applications from anyone keen to join the next 6 month paid programme, which will commence in April 2024.

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Thank you to everyone who has applied for the Waterloo Road Trainee Scheme. We have received hundreds of applications, so thank you to all who have taken the time to apply. The Skills Day Invitations have now been sent out and so if you have not received an invitation you are unfortunately unsuccessful this time round. Due to the number of Applications received we cannot offer any individual feedback. Thank you for all the interest and please follow our Screen Manchester social media channels for more upcoming opportunities.
Following the huge success of three previous Production Development Trainee Schemes, Wall to Wall Media and Rope Ladder Fiction in association with Screen Manchester and HOME are on the search for applications from anyone keen to join the next 6 month paid programme, which will commence in April 2024.

The aim of the initiative is to provide on-the-job training in junior roles for the next generation of talent for the scripted drama sector. By offering hands-on experience designed to build skills by directly working on this Manchester-based prime-time production.

Assistant Director trainee Oli says:

"My time at Waterloo Road has been an enlightening, exciting and dream fulfilling experience into not only the AD department but into the lifestyle of a TV freelancer."

Props trainee Anne adds:
"In the last five months I have gained a variety of skills and networks that will hopefully help further my career in the props department. It is such a great idea to help people gain direct experience of the TV Industry."
Rope Ladder Fiction's founder Cameron Roach says:
"We're thrilled to be announcing a third cohort of our trainee scheme, in partnership with Screen Manchester. The previous cohort of trainees have all gone on to secure freelance work within the sector, and it's brilliant to see their individual careers flourish. The BBC's continued investment in Waterloo Road, here in Greater Manchester, is genuinely ensuring that a sustainable pipeline of emerging screen talent is secure."
"By providing ongoing training opportunities and mentoring through our structured programme, we're supporting people from all walks of life to pursue their passion in this fast-moving and ever-changing industry. We know just how important this is in creating a more inclusive industry, bringing fresh perspectives and talent to the table! We want to provide an entry point for new and emerging talent with diverse experiences and backgrounds into the television landscape, knowing how this brings continued relevance, creativity, and vibrancy to all we do"

So, if you think you might like to apply to be one of the scheme's next cohort, applications are now open to find 8 individuals who live in the Manchester area.

The trainee roles are available in the departments of:

The Waterloo Road Production Development Scheme is made possible with the support and assistance of HOME Manchester and Screen Manchester, who have recently formed part of the BFI and National Lottery funded Screen Alliance North.

The Application process for this placement will be conducted in several stages:

Stage one: Application Form

Please fill out the online Application Form. Applicants will then be selected to progress to the next stage.

Stage Two: Skills Training Day

Applicants will be selected to attend a Skills Training Day held-in-person on Thursday 14th March 2024. Here you will be introduced to how the production industry works with specifically designed workshops held by Industry Professionals. The Waterloo Road Production Crew will also be in attendance, and you will have the opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with Crew members from the relevant placement departments.

After the event participants will then be selected to go onto the interview stage.

Stage Three: Interviews

Interviews will take place on the 25th, 26th and 27th of March 2024 with the relevant departmental Crew.

To apply for this opportunity candidates will need to be:

18 years of age and over.

Available for a full 6-month engagement from April 2024.

Available for a full Skills Day on 14th March 2024, at Space Studios Manchester: A purpose built facility consisting of 6 stages covering 85,000 sq ft. Home to award winning TV, film and commercial productions.

Available to work an 11-hour day, this is a full-time placement.

Production will be based in To apply you must live in the Manchester area.

This opportunity will be a PAID placement should you gain a position.

Deadline for application is 5.00pm on Friday 23rd February 2024.

We welcome and positively encourage applications from all backgrounds, communities and industries.

For any assistance with your application please do contact [email protected] .

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Waterloo Road to re-launch their successful Production Development Scheme - Screen Manchester

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Thank you to everyone who has applied for the Waterloo Road Trainee Scheme. We have received hundreds of applications, so thank you to all who have taken the time to apply. The Skills Day Invitations have now been sent out and so if you have not received an invitation you are unfortunately unsuccessful this time [...]

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Netflix employees talking about work and life at Netflix, hosted by Netflix Senior Software Engineer Lyle Troxell.

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Peter Fincham and Jon Plowman hear the inside story of the biggest TV comedies in Britain.

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BBC Sounds - What’s Funny About ... - Available Episodes

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Listen to the latest episodes of What’s Funny About ... on BBC Sounds

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The series pulls back the curtain on television, movies, journalism and more with Richard Osman and Marina Hyde.

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Listen to The Rest Is Entertainment on Spotify. The Rest Is Entertainment pulls back the curtain on television, movies, journalism and more with Richard Osman and Marina Hyde using their years of knowledge, enviable contact book and wit to bring you what's hot, and what's not in the world of entertainment.

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Whirleybird Productions presents a deep dive into the business backbone of the cinematic world. We engage in insightful conversations with accomplished filmmakers, seasoned entertainment lawyers, and pivotal industry insiders.

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Join our mission to enrich the film community with indispensable insights by supporting The Film Finance and Distribution Podcast. Your monthly membership fee is integral to keeping our platform alive and our episodes flowing , ensuring we continue illuminating the intricacies of the film industry for passionate professionals like you. If you resonate with our commitment to empowering filmmakers, we invite you to contribute to our journey.

As a token of appreciation for your belief in us, members will receive exclusive access to premium content . Dive into specially curated episodes that stand as a testament to quality and depth, available only to our esteemed subscribers. Your support not only sustains our present operations but also fortifies our future endeavours. Together, let's cultivate a well-informed film community, eager to learn, evolve, and excel!

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Join our mission to enrich the film community with indispensable insights by supporting The Film Finance and Distribution Podcast. Your monthly membership fee is integral to keeping our platform alive and our episodes flowing , ensuring we continue illuminating the intricacies of the film industry for passionate professionals like you.

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Host Kimberly Godbolt, a TV Director turned talent company co-founder of Talented People asks successful commissioners, producers & filmmakers to open up about their own moments of imposter syndrome, fear and failure to help us better understand and handle the ups and downs of our own creative career rollercoaster.

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A podcast & community for creative imposters to overshare, be inspirationally insecure & truly belong.
*Find us on Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts or yo…

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Tips for Runners and first timers to film & TV sets

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Tips for Runners and first timers to film & TV sets

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Fets (@merryfets) on TikTok | 3.4M Likes. 101.5K Followers. I work in film and tv 🇹🇷🇵🇸 Use code FETIN10 for 10% off CallTime Ready ✨.Watch the latest video from Fets (@merryfets).

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Get Into Film - Working in the Film Industry playlist

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Get Into Film - Working in the Film Industry playlist

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Working in the film industry - Have you ever wondered how?

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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A weekly podcast speaking to a diverse range of industry professionals from across the media industry who share their stories on both their education pathways and how they have navigated their careers, as well as tips and advice for entering the industry.

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Sarah McGettigan, Head of TV, Pinewood Studios

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Listen to this episode from Media Careers Podcast on Spotify. Sarah McGettigan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-mcgettigan-93738bb/ This shows contains discussions on: Pinewood Studios: https://pinewoodgroup.com OB: Outside Broadcasts | OB Truck Molinare: https://molinare.co.uk The Farm Post is now Streamland Media: https://www.streamlandmedia.com Bournemouth University: https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk Hat Trick Productions: https://www.hattrick.co.uk Nickelodeon: https://www.nick.co.uk Talkback: https://talkbackproductions.tv Avalon: https://avalonuk.com BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk ITV: https://www.itv.com Always ask the question - does anyone need help?

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Justin Crosby talks to a wide range of  practitioners about the UK TV industry to help you make sense of it.

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TellyCast started as a podcast in April 2019, right at the beginning of lockdown one. Armed with a wifi signal, laptop, cheap microphone and a contact book of the movers and shakers in the international global TV industry, Justin Crosby set about creating a weekly podcast TV news show from his bedroom. Now one of the world's biggest TV industry podcasts with a worldwide community of listeners, TellyCast has expanded into an events, insights and soon an e-learning business with a series of exclusive masterclasses with the TV industry's brightest minds designed to help businesses grow. Our mission is to help you make sense of the global TV industry.

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TellyCast started as a podcast in April 2019, right at the beginning of lockdown one. Armed with a wifi signal, laptop, cheap microphone and a contact book of the movers and shakers in the international global TV industry, Justin Crosby set about creating a weekly podcast TV news show from his bedroom.

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Aims of the Guild include the maintenance and improvement of the status of vision mixers, the advancement of their skills, and the preservation of professional standards in television production.

Main meetings are organised from time to time at various venues, such as studio centres and the premises of equipment manufacturers. In addition to being the chance to catch up on the latest industry developments, meetings are also very much a social occasion.

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To become a Member of the Guild, all you need to do is fill out a quick form. We'll need your contact details and a little bit of information about your work history. The subscription fee is £30 annually.

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VisionMixers.tv - Vision Mixers Directory

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To become a Member of the Guild, all you need to do is fill out a quick form. We'll need your contact details and a little bit of information about your work history. The subscription fee is £30 annually.

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An Information Site for Film and Television Set Designers - US based

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The Challenge
My professor, Carl, looked at the scene list for my senior thesis film and furrowed his eyebrows. When I told him it was going to be an hour-long black & white film, set in the 1940's in Eastern Europe, with dialogue in three different languages, he looked at me as if he wasn't sure if I was being serious.

I assured him that I wasn't kidding, and I knew that he was thinking it would probably be another overly-ambitious senior film that would never be finished.

He poked his finger at the page.

"So how do you plan on doing this scene?", he said. "The fire-bombed city scene."

Now this was the pre-computer, pre-digital, in-camera-effects-only period of filmmaking. Green-screen and blue-screen work was serious money. The only option other than in-camera effects was optical printing, and he knew I couldn't afford that on a student film budget.

"A miniature", I said. "A really big miniature".

"Uh huh", he said, with a look that told me he thought I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing.

It took about three weeks to truck all the materials to the farm pond where I planned on filming the scene. When everything was finally at the site, we had accumulated over 200 discarded wood pallets, over 24 sheets of plywood of various types and random pieces of drywall and corrugated metal. Since all the materials were donated, I estimated that the final cost of the miniature was $150 based on the cost gas for the vehicles and fire accelerant, i.e. kerosine.

I'd staked out my camera position and estimated that I need a miniature that was about 130′ long to fill the frame from edge to edge when I was shooting with a medium length lens. I planned on a miniature scale of somewhere between 1:10 and 1:12.

My father and I would drag the plywood sheets close enough to the small house on the property to string an extension cord to jigsaw-out the +250 rough rectangle openings in the wood to simulate the windows of the buildings. Once they were staked in place, we stacked the hundreds of pallets behind the wall, just far enough away to keep the flames from setting the plywood on fire before I could finish filming.

When we were done stacking the pallets, we moved to the other side of the pond to look at the finished model.

It was really, really ugly.

There was no detail. No even a coat of paint on the raw wood. But I new that it would look good on film because I had three things going for me: a night shot, shallow depth of field, and black & white reversal film.
The Shoot
The night of the shoot I was nervous. Black & white reversal film is unforgiving. Instead of creating a negative, you're creating a positive image. It's like slide film for a cinema camera. Exposure-wise, you have about one f-stop of leeway as far as over or under exposure. You have about a 5 to 7 stop range from pure black to blown-out white. Beautiful contrast, no margin for error. Modern digital cameras, by comparison, will give you up to 15 stops of latitude. I had to re-shoot the opening sequence of the film twice because of a mislabeled ND filter that resulted in over-exposed footage.

This scene was a one-shot deal. There would be no reshoots. The five-person crew was in position.

I'd tried to do some test shots a few weeks before using a bonfire and my lighting plan, but the bonfire was not a good simulation for what would end up being 15-foot tall flames in the miniature.

I used the headlights of a car for the key light on the actress Liana. A fog machine, run by my cousin Greg, was positioned next to the car to give some depth to the background as well as to diffuse the illumination from the headlights. The Assistant Director, Jan, helped the actress into position in the water.

A pumper truck from the local fire department was positioned next to the pond. They showed up hoping to just see a good show, but were prepared for an interesting fire training exercise on the chance that the flames got out of hand.

The Technical Info
If your eyes glaze over reading technical data, you can skip this section and go to the next. I'll try to keep this paragraph brief, but there are people who like to know this info.

I shot the scene using a Bolex H-16, a 16mm film camera that is spring driven. You have to hand wind the drive mechanism with a crank. It has a three-lens turret with 16mm/f1.8, 25mm/f1.4, and 75mm/f1.9 lenses. The 16 had too wide of an angle of view, so I decided to use the 25mm for the wide shots and the 75mm for the close-ups.

The H-16 did not have an external magazine, meaning that I was confined to a 100 foot roll of film. There would be no time to reload once the fire was started. This would give me 2 1/2 minutes of shooting time. I figured that the prime "flame activity" once the fire was started would last from three to five minutes before the flames would have consumed the majority of the wood and the flames would start to lose their visual impact.

I planned to wait until the flames had reached a peak and then start shooting, getting the wide shots with the 25mm out of the way first, and then switching to the 75mm lens for the close-ups when the fire would still give me great reflections in the water but not have the intensity that it did in the wider shots.

The 25mm, focused at 16 feet away, and with an f-stop setting of about 2.8, would give me a depth of field of about 20 feet total. The Kodak Tri-X 7266 film stock had an ASA of 200, so I had to shoot almost at full aperture to have enough light on the actress. I spot metered several times from her face to the fire after it started before I was sure about my exposure. The f-stop spread convinced me that the front of the miniature would be solid black and out of focus, devoid of detail.

The Fire Is Lit
The pallets had been soaked with 5 gallons of kerosine a few hours earlier in the hope that the fire would spread evenly when lit but not explode the way I thought they would if we had used gasoline.

When I gave the word to start the fire, it spread pretty quickly, but without a sudden burst of flame. Within a minute the flames were high above the top of the miniature and yelled for the soundman to start recording. I had rehearsed with Liana as to the sequence that we would follow and it went smoothly, without any stopping for head or tail slates.

The 100 foot roll ran through the camera quickly and when I heard the tail end run through the gate I knew I had better have gotten the scene. The flames were already far below the top of the facade.

Four weeks of work would translate into a minute of the finished film. The shooting schedule would continue for the next 8 months before we would be finished.

In Part 2, I'll discuss what went right, what went wrong, and what I would do differently.

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The Challenge My professor, Carl, looked at the scene list for my senior thesis film and furrowed his eyebrows. When I told him it was going to be an hour-long black & white film, set in the 1940's in Eastern Europe, with dialogue in three different languages, he looked at me as if he wasn't sure if I was being serious.

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Film Fixer, the locations facilitator, describes what is at a Unit Base

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Regular visitors to Clapham Common will be used to the sight of rows of caravans and trucks on the fairground site. This is one of South London's most popular 'unit bases' where large scale film productions park their 'facility vehicles'.

When a film unit goes on location, they have to bring a lot of kit. Crews on feature films and High end TV dramas can often number over 200, all of whom expect a slap up breakfast freshly cooked when they arrive on set at 6am ready to begin filming at 7. Productions break for an hour for lunch, then finish at around 7pm, taking an hour or two to pack up. Its a very long working day.

Hair and make-up takes place at the unit base, the lead actors each have their trailers, so they can learn their lines and rehearse their lines in relative peace and quiet. Extras, or "supporting artists" as they are now known have to sit on the dining bus. Covid security means that crew need to get to and from the set using their cars, making the footprint of a production that much larger.

Lambeth Film Office acknowledges that the sight of a unit base is not very attractive, and adds nothing to the tranquility of the common. But, if the UK is going to continue to be a world leader in film production, more and more unit bases will be needed, to feed and water all the workers. After all, if an army marches on its stomach, the same can surely be said about film crews.

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Regular visitors to Clapham Common will be used to the sight of rows of caravans and trucks on the fairground site. This is one of South London's most popular 'unit bases' where large scale film productions park their 'facility vehicles'. When a film unit goes on location, they have to bring a lot of kit.

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The Production Guild of Great Britain brings you a new series of interviews by film critic, presenter and new film producer Jason Solomons as he talks to inspirational producers of film and TV to find out the many ways to do this most mysterious of jobs

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Job Alerts, resources and support for Art Department, Set Decoration and Props crew working in the UK film and TV industry.

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Filmbase - for Freelance members of the UK Film and TV industry

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Filmbase.uk has job alerts, crew directories and industry information for freelance members of the UK Film and TV industry

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Suzy Lamplugh Trust - Safety at Work (essential for freelancers)

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Suzy Lamplugh Trust - Safety at Work (essential for freelancers)

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Suzy Lamplugh went missing at the age of 25 whilst at work as an estate agent. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust offers personal safety training and advice to others, to help people be and feel safe.  Particularly relevant for freelancers invited to unknown / non professional addresses for IV/work.

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DISCLAIMER: The Suzy Lamplugh Trust would like to clarify that general personal safety advice provided on our web pages is in no way intended to suggest that taking such actions will eliminate incidents of aggression and violence. The guidance merely helps readers better understand how to assess and mitigate risks to their personal safety. The information listed may therefore be used as the preliminary steps one can take to either conduct risk planning, where it is possible in specific contexts, or alert others if they feel unsafe. This advice is also embedded in the wider advocacy work we do to address the root causes of violence and aggression across society.

Lone Working
If you are a lone worker, it is important that both you and your employer give particular consideration for your safety.
Customer-facing roles

Some form of emergency alarm system should be in place which will enable you to summon assistance if necessary.  Is it tested? Do people know how to respond?

Make sure that any cash is kept out of sight.

Working from home

Try not to advertise that you work from home to prospective clients.

Consider setting up a buddy system with someone so they know your plans for the day.

Think about asking your 'buddy' to call you 10 minutes into any meeting with a new client to check that you are ok and feel comfortable with them. Have a predetermined code word ready in case you want to summon help.

If clients have to come to your house, use rooms that do not disclose personal information about you.

Lone working out and about
To remain safe while out canvassing and campaigning, remember:

Give some thought before you arrive as to what exit strategies you could use if you felt uncomfortable or threatened.

Give the client an idea of how long the meeting will take and try to adhere to this.

Risk assessments should be carried out by your employer to identify any risks related to the people, environment or tasks involved in your job.

You also need to be able to make quick risk assessments yourself, which can help you decide how safe a situation is and what action you should take to avoid danger.

Canvassing and Campaigning

Plan

Ensure you have a 'buddy' and they know the estimated time and route of your round. Ensure they have your contact number and that you contact them when you have finished or if your plan/route changes.

Have a procedure in place for your buddy to activate if you cannot be contacted, including contacting your next of kin and taking other steps to locate you such as contacting your organiser.

If available, consider carrying a lone worker device which can be activated if you need to call for external assistance covertly.

Always have a charged phone with your organiser/buddy's number and the numbers of at least two other canvassers in your area.

Avoid carrying valuable items such as laptops.

Plan your canvassing route. Google Street View is particularly useful for identifying landmarks in an unknown area.

Act to avoid risk and danger

Always c anvass in pairs or groups. This may mean working opposite colleagues in a street but always in sight and sound of each other.

Never assume it won't happen to you
Remember ReLATE

Never enter a stranger's house, even when invited. Always remain on the doorstep and out of arm's reach. Ensure you have a clear exit.

If someone is aggressive or confrontational do not engage; politely end the conversation and leave that address. Report this to colleagues so they avoid same situation.

Have a list of excuses prepared to help you leave any situation quickly.

Beware of dogs even when they appear friendly. Dogs are territorial by nature and if they feel they need to protect their family, they can become unpredictable.

Trust your instincts. Do not knock on a door or enter a garden or driveway that you feel uncomfortable about.

What to do if you feel unsafe?
General Election Advice Card

the environment if you feel at risk, informing your campaign manager or buddy that you are changing your plan.

If someone will not let you leave, or is threatening aggression, set off your   next to their head to disorientate them, drop it to the floor and get away from the aggressor.

someone what has happened as soon as you can.

; in this situation always call the police, and let someone know what's happening.

Click the link below for a downloadable card offering some personal safety tips to keep yourself, your staff and volunteers safe while campaigning and canvassing during the general election.

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DISCLAIMER: The Suzy Lamplugh Trust would like to clarify that general personal safety advice provided on our web pages is in no way intended to suggest that taking such actions will eliminate incidents of aggression and violence. The guidance merely helps readers better understand how to assess and mitigate risks to their personal safety.

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Edith talks to Directors, Actors, Writers, Producer and Composers about their relationship with music, both personally and professionally

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358 episodes in, and the man who kicked it all off for Soundtracking returns for a third time. Jon Favreau was the very first guest Edith recorded for the podcast - for which we're forever grateful - and here he is again to discuss The Mandalorian, the brilliant show he created for Disney +.

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In a series of fascinating conversations, we speak to Designers, Supervisors, Assistants, past Apprentices and others to hear about their experiences of our industry and the craft of costume itself.

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Behind the Seams Podcast - Angels Costumes

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Find out what it's like to work with us, view our current vacancies and apply for a role at Angels Costumes.

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British Film Commission - Studios/Stage space map

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British Film Commission - Studios/Stage space map

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The UK boasts a network of studio space, including purpose-built and converted sound stages, which together with temporary build space, are capable of accommodating feature film and television productions of any scale and genre.

This studio and stage space map highlights stage space designed to accommodate major feature film and high-end television projects across the UK, conveniently located in and around key production hubs, with excellent access to established crew bases and supporting infrastructure.

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Studios and Stage Space - British Film Commission

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The UK boasts a network of studio space, including purpose-built and converted sound stages, which together with temporary build space, are capable of accommodating feature film and television productions of any scale and genre.

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https://productionisbroken.co.uk/
Production is Broken launched a survey in September 2022, as an attempt to take the temperature of Production Management colleagues who were becoming desperate for action to be taken.
The Report was released in February 2023 and encouraged production companies and Broadcasters to challenge existing disrespect for the Production Management dept.

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UK Muslim Film works to change perspectives. We champion underrepresented talent and voices, both onscreen and behind the camera. Through film and television, we challenge misconceptions by ensuring authentic portrayals of Muslims on screen.

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The Set Design Channel covers the making of Film and Television in the UK with a focus on Set Design, Art Department/Graphic Design and Props.

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The Set Design Channel covers the making of Film and Television in the UK with a focus on Set Design, Art Department/Graphic Design and Props. We will be visiting suppliers of the industry and talking to them to find out about their stories, how things are changing and how things work in the indust…

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BWIPP is an emerging network for Black and Black Mixed heritage women working or looking to work in post production.

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Black Women In Post Production

Shaping the future of our industry by connecting Black female talent to opportunity

Looking for work?

Access our Jobs Board and
join our Talent Directory for FREE!

Looking for diverse talent?

Tap into the BWIPP network and diversify your workforce.

Online Platform

BWIPP operates online to maximise equal access and opportunity across the UK because your location shouldn't hinder your success.

Talent Directory & Jobs Board

Production companies, recruiters and employers who are seeking diverse talent and crew can tap into the BWIPP network.

Events & Programmes

We support our community through content and connections including networking events, workshops, webinars and training.

Member testimonials

Karen A

Video Producer

"It's so empowering to be part of a network that encourages and supports Black women - BWIPP provides a safe space in a digital community where I can connect with other like-minded women in the same industry, support those rising up the ranks and learn from those a few years ahead of me."

Ray D.W

2nd Assistant Editor
"With a network like this and multiple Black women being hired for various jobs - not just to fill a quota, we will own the room. I know we will have each other's back, feel connected and no longer feel like the only Black person in the room."

We use cookies to make it easier for you to use our website. By clicking "Accept", you consent to the use of cookies and to the collection of your personal information as described in our privacy policy.

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Shaping the future of our industry by connecting Black female talent to opportunity Looking for work? Access our Jobs Board and join our Talent Directory for FREE! Looking for diverse talent? Tap into the BWIPP network and diversify your workforce. BWIPP operates online to maximise equal access and opportunity across the UK because your location shouldn't hinder your success.

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https://www.instagram.com/makeupdeptmemes/

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https://www.instagram.com/assistantdirectorhuns/

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Annual industry careers fair with seminars, cv clinic, AMA and more

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The Careers Fair 2023 will take place on Tuesday 7 February 2023 at the Business Design Centre, London.

Get all the latest tips, tricks and practical advice to help you land that all important first job in TV, learn about the different jobs and schemes out there and network with the most influential creatives in the business!

Take part in the CV Clinic & Career Advice area where you can get your CV tweaked by industry professionals. Within this area we will have tables dedicated to CV tips and advice and a number of Career Advice tables for those who just need some general advice. This area will be an all-day advice hub where attendees will have the chance to network with industry professionals of different levels, find out who they are, what their job entails and how they got their start.

We will also have several informative sessions running throughout the day delivered by the best in the industry.

Programme 2023

Sessions
10:15am - House of the Dragon Masterclass
Join this all female panel of big hitters as they talk about creating one of the biggest shows in the world and how they got there.
11:15am - Your Career in Technical and Operational Environments
IMG Studios' Lead Engineers and Media Services Managers discuss their careers, what drives them and how they think our industry can support you as you start your own careers.
12:15pm - Get ready for your TV job
The essential tools to equip you for a job behind the camera, including job roles & career paths, where to find work, how to apply for jobs, booking onto a job, standard admin tasks, resources hub.
1:15pm - Behind the Mask - how to launch a global phenomenon, from commission to clues to costumes 2:15pm - What is Television REALLY like? Reports from the first six months
Bandicoot, the award winning production company behind ITV's hit shows, The Masked Singer & The Masked Dancer, let us in on the secrets of how this quirky Korean TV format has so firmly lodged itself in the hearts and minds of the British public.
3:15pm - National Film and Television School - Why would you work in a TV studio?
Wondered what TV is really like? Want to ask some questions to people who are 'just' there. Our panel all have less than a year working in television and they will share their tips, insights and dispel some of the myths, rumours and outright lies you might have heard.

Have you always wondered what it would be like to work in a TV studio? How to use TV studio cameras, sound and vision mixing equipment? In this session, Cameras, Sound and Vision Mixing Course Leader, Andy Hope; will present his top reasons to work in a TV studio. There will also be a chance to hear about the Diploma courses and to ask any questions. The National Film and Television School's unique 12-month course, run in partnership with Sky, aims to prepare students for a successful future in multi-camera studio production. Students specialise in one of the three core disciplines of multi-camera studio operations: Cameras, Sound or Vision Mixing.

Exhibitors

All3Media

Banijay Group

BBC Early Careers

BBC Studios Productions, Production Management

DV Talent

Edinburgh Television Festival

ENVY

Evolutions Post Production

Fremantle

Grierson DocLab

IMG Studios

Initial

ITN

ITV

Journalists Charity

Loving Your Work

Mama Youth Project

NBCUniversal

NFTS

Nottingham Trent University

Picture Shop

ProductionBase

Remarkable TV

RTS Bursaries

RTS Membership

Sara Putt Associates

ScreenSkills

Searchlight

Shine TV

Sidney Street

Studio Lambert

Think Bigger

Trevanna London ltd

TriForce Creative Network

Twenty Twenty

Viacom Studios

Wall to Wall

YMU Group

About the sponsors

First established in 1971, the National Film and Television School (NFTS) has evolved to become a leading global institution, developing some of Britain and the world's top creative talent. In 2018, the NFTS was awarded both the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema and the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education.

The NFTS runs more than 30 MA, Diploma and Certificate courses - as well as numerous short courses - across a range of film, television and games disciplines. As one of the leading film schools in the world, the NFTS operates like a major studio, with state-of-the-art production facilities that are essential for creating outstanding content.

Supported by key industry partnerships, students benefit from world class tuition and an outstanding programme of Masterclasses.

At IMG Production & Studios we use content and technology to power the world's passion for sport, working with global clients including The Premier League, The R&A, FIFA, Warner Bros. Discovery, DP World Tour and Amazon Prime. We've built Europe's best-connected broadcast centre at Stockley Park, London, distributing 35,000 hours of content globally and creating some of the world's best sporting content from our four broadcast studios, fifty edit suites and multitude of radio, podcast, dubbing and VFX facilities. From live coverage to archive, social to branded content, we give the audience a front row seat to the best sport in the world.

IMG Studios & Productions is part of Endeavor, a global entertainment, sports and content company, home to the world's most dynamic and engaging storytellers, brands, live events and experiences. The company is comprised of industry leaders including entertainment agency WME; sports, fashion, events and media company IMG; and premier mixed martial arts organization UFC. The Endeavor network specializes in talent representation; marketing and licensing; content development, distribution and sales; event management; and a number of direct-to-consumer offerings.

Booking information

Tickets for non members are £15 and free for RTS Members but must be booked in advance.
Please input your Membership Number when booking. Please email membership@rts.org.uk if you need help finding your Membership Number.
Tickets are non-refundable

For group bookings over 10 please email Jemima Debenham.

Accessibility

The Business Design Centre is completely wheelchair accessible with ramp access into the building and passenger lift to all floors.

The venue is also fitted with a designated hearing loop system.

Watch the sessions from last year's virtual RTS Futures Careers Fair:

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The RTS Careers Fair is making a comeback in person so don't miss your chance to be a part of this HUGE event. We are once again teaming up with exhibitors all over UK, giving you the chance to network with them and other attendees!

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TV & Film Freelancer Hub: from the Film & TV Charity

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TV & Film Freelancer Hub: from the Film & TV Charity

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Wellbeing support through digital tools; videos, information, and advice, tailored specifically for people working in the film, TV, and cinema industry

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Life as a Freelancer can give you freedom and flexibility. However, for many Freelancers in the industry, a lack of consistent support can lead to uncertainty and increased pressure. As more than 50% of the film and TV workforce is made up of Freelancers, we've created this hub so you can easily access a fantastic range of self-help tools and resources. They are all designed to help you take care of your most important business asset - YOU!

Here you'll find wellbeing support through digital tools; videos, information, and advice, tailored specifically for people working in the film, TV, and cinema industry. We developed these tools following our research in 2021 that identified a lack of accessible support as a key contributor to poor mental health and wellbeing for many working behind the scenes. As an industry, we know how crucial it is to make long-term changes that will enable and encourage respect and better support for freelancers.

Identifying the triggers and factors negatively impacting your well-being is an essential first step to looking after your mental health and wellbeing. Once you've done that, you can begin proactively addressing those triggers, spot the signs of poor mental health, work out how to manage them and, crucially, get the support you might need.

Although this Hub has been created with freelancers in mind, it is also a useful resource for anyone working behind the scenes who want to start looking after their wellbeing to support their careers.

Freelancer 'Wellbeing Check-In' quiz

Start your wellbeing journey by taking our 1-Minute 'Wellbeing Check-In' quiz.

You will get tailored tips and advice for managing common industry stressors as well as ways you can boost your wellbeing at work.

This quiz was developed with business psychologists and encourages you to assess whether you are experiencing any 'risk factors' that could be affecting your wellbeing. These are a combination of general lifestyle factors impacting physical and mental health and stressors specific to the film and TV industry.

Once you have completed the quiz and received your tailored support, we encourage you to set specific 'wellbeing goals', such as improving your physical health or learning to manage difficult conversations, all to improve your wellbeing.

Remember, you can come back and complete the quiz at any time in the future to check on how you're getting on.

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Life as a Freelancer can give you freedom and flexibility. However, for many Freelancers in the industry, a lack of consistent support can lead to uncertainty and increased pressure. As more than 50% of the film and TV workforce is made up of Freelancers, we've created this hub so you can easily access a fantastic range of self-help tools and resources.

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Deaf & Disabled People in TV (DDPTV) is a disabled-led organisation made up of people who work in the industry. Our focus is on elevating off-screen Deaf, Disabled and Neurodiverse talent within the TV industry.

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Deaf & Disabled People in TV is an online forum for Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people to network, receive peer to peer support and view prospective jobs with access information. The group is only open to Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people that work in the media industry.

If you are a DDPTV Member or a Deaf, Disabled and / or Neurodivergent media professional and would like to join our online community please click the button below - please make sure you answer the membership questions to gain access.

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Deaf & Disabled People in TV is an online forum for Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people to network, receive peer to peer support and view prospective jobs with access information. The group is only open to Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people that work in the media industry.

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Deaf & Disabled People in TV (DDPTV) is a disabled-led organisation made up of people who work in the industry. Our focus is on elevating off-screen Deaf, Disabled and Neurodiverse talent within the TV industry.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Deaf & Disabled People in TV is an online forum for Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people to network, receive peer to peer support and view prospective jobs with access information. The group is only open to Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people that work in the media industry.

If you are a DDPTV Member or a Deaf, Disabled and / or Neurodivergent media professional and would like to join our online community please click the button below - please make sure you answer the membership questions to gain access.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Deaf & Disabled People in TV is an online forum for Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people to network, receive peer to peer support and view prospective jobs with access information. The group is only open to Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people that work in the media industry.

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celebrating comedy written by women

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"The Female Pilot Club was founded to amplify women’s voices and give women writers the chance to prove their jokes and characters in the room, with the undeniable sound of laughter.

​

Since 2019, we have staged sold-out read-throughs of comedy pilot scripts to audiences of writers, producers and comedy lovers. The writers range from first-timers to Emmy award winners.

We aim to help get great female-written comedy on the telly where it belongs. "

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Comedy Pilot Scripts | Female Pilot Club

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Female Pilot Club. Original comedy pilot scripts from women writers, performed live in front of an audience.In association with comedy 50:50

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FREE Directory of TV & Film professionals happy to be contacted by new entrants for questions, work experience requests and more

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report from the live event - loads of takeaway tips included!

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Making television can be a precarious occupation. Jobs are hard to land and rarely last longer than six months. Production staff are constantly looking for new positions and are often out of work. The creative rewards, though, can be immense for freelancers working in such a vibrant industry.

The latest RTS Futures event, "How to survive as a freelancer", assembled an expert group of talent managers and production staff to offer tips on networking, writing CVs, successful interviews and managing money.

Even the best-prepared freelancer will have to deal with rejection during their TV careers, particularly in the early years.

"At entry level, for every job we advertise, we get 40 to 50 applicants," warned RDF Head of Entertainment Development Neale Simpson, who introduced and co-produced the event.

Those who succeed, he added, "have grasped the idea that it's not about what we can do for you, but what you can do for us.

"We don't care about how passionate you are about television - we care about how much easier you can make our jobs - that's the reality."

Competition for jobs may be tough, but there are opportunities to get in, and on, in television. BBC Talent Executive Caroline Carter said that, in her area of factual programming, freelancers make up half the workforce. "Most of the hot talent is freelance," she revealed.

"The people who freelance are earning more, they're being promoted more quickly, they have a range of opportunities at different companies and they can choose the projects they work on. The in-house staff are trapped - they can only work on the commissions we're getting," added Carter.

Having landed their first jobs in the industry, there's no let up for the freelancer - keeping the work coming can be gruelling.

Production Manager Jude Winstanley argued that freelancers need good communication skills to win regular employment.

"You have to work hard to maintain relationships after you've finished a job," she said. "As a freelancer, because you're always moving around, you have to add [employers] to your social-media groups and make the effort to stay in touch."

"Attitude, personality and character are important," added Winstanley, who is also Director of The Unit List, a website that advertises broadcast-TV vacancies. "TV is a people industry and, if you can't get on with people, it becomes very difficult.

"If you just turn up, do the jobs you're told to do and go home, nobody will be particularly interested in working with you. You're not giving anything."

Once they have begun to forge a career, argued Wall To Wall Factual Series and Executive Producer Kathryn Taylor, freelancers have to show discretion in voicing their opinions because news travels fast in the industry. "People are unaware of how small television is - don't go into a job and start slagging people off," she said.

"The freelance pool has a high turnover and everyone moves around. If you specialise, say, in history or drama, you're going to be coming up against the same people over and over again.

"Always be positive and respectful with the people you are working with, because you will meet them again," added Taylor, whose credits include Who Do You Think You Are?

The experts stressed that young freelancers should experiment before specialising. "Once you start going down the factual-entertainment alley, it's hard to switch to history or current affairs," said Carter. "At the beginning of your career, as a runner or researcher, take the opportunity to test the genres out for which ones appeal to you.

"Once you've worked on one or two shows, you will start to work out what your strengths are," argued Dawn Beresford, Creative Executive at the independent production company, CPL.

Not all production jobs, however, require genre-specific skills. "What we do as production managers and co-ordinators is pretty much the same for each job," explained Winstanley. "Even if I don't know anything about sport, I know we still need a schedule and need to know how to manage a budget."

After an initial, six-month, in-house job as a runner, Taylor has freelanced for her entire 15-year TV career. "You can constantly update and broaden your skills by moving from programme to programme," she said.

"If you're bored in a job, the chances are that it's only going to last another few months before you can move on and try something new.

"The massive advantage, for me, is that I'm always getting new experiences, whether that's in content or the production environment."

"People are unaware of how small television is - don't go into a job and start slagging people off"

Taylor's advice for would-be producers is not to specialise. "I never bothered," she said. "At series producer level, you tend to get hired more for your project-management skills than your expertise with content."

Gaps between jobs can quickly drain bank accounts. They are a recurring problem for less experienced workers.

"The earlier in your career you are, the shorter your contracts will be and the more lulls you will get," said Taylor. "If you are an assistant producer you might get hired for 10 to 12 weeks at a time. So, to pay your rent, you will need five hires in a year."

The more senior a job, however, the longer a contract is likely to last. "As a series producer, if you get on a big series, your contracts will be nine or 10 months, perhaps up to two years. Returnable formats are great," she added.

If workless periods become more frequent, it may be time for freelancers to reassess their approach.

"If you're a researcher or an assistant producer and you're not getting re-hires within two to three months, that might be a signal that you need to do things differently," suggested Taylor. "You might need to look at what you're not offering or whether you're targeting the wrong people. Sometimes, it takes a while to find your niche."

The best freelancers are able to cement their reputation and make themselves indispensable to programme-makers

"You need to be meticulously organised, professional, stay in contact with all your production managers and producers and make an a good impression," said Beresford. "As they move on to their next production, if you have proved yourself, they will take you with them. If they can't take you, they will recommend you to other people."

It can involve a lot of effort and heartache, but, over time, the best freelancers are able to cement their reputation and make themselves indispensable to programme-makers.

"We've got freelancers who are like gold dust - we get them back time and time again," said RDF's Simpson.
The RTS Futures event 'How to survive as a freelancer' was held on 29 October at the Hallam Conference Centre in central London. The producers were Neale Simpson, Carrie Britton and Susie Worster. The facts of freelance life
Outside the main broadcasters and larger indies, working in TV is a freelance occupation: people are hired to make a programme and released when it's finished.

'The majority of this industry is freelance - it's not going to change. You go from contract to contract, do your production and look for your next job,' explained CPL Creative Executive Dawn Beresford. 'Few production companies can afford to employ staff researchers or assistant producers, because they don't know how many commissions they will win,' she added.

Employment is precarious, but there are compensations, not least the pay, which has been rising in recent years. In fact, freelance rates are often higher than those paid by broadcasters.

'The BBC doesn't pay as well as many of the indies do. And we struggle, because we are not allowed, with our rate card, to offer as much as them - and then we lose top talent,' revealed BBC Talent Executive Caroline Carter.

Even at entry level, few runners and researchers seem to be ruthlessly exploited. 'There's much more awareness now, certainly at the proper independent production companies, about the minimum wage and the London living wage,' said Production Manager Jude Winstanley. 'There's more investment in young talent - I am seeing more paid internship schemes than ever before, although there's still not loads of them.'

Competition for these schemes is tough. 'You've got to be quite exceptional to get a year's internship. But if you do, companies will place you in different departments and on different productions, which gives you experience and access to contacts,' she added.

Beresford argued that entry-level jobs have to be paid, if TV is to become more diverse. 'It's of paramount importance - not just in terms of race and ethnicity, but also in terms of social class and background,' she argued.

She also stressed the role of work experience in increasing diversity: 'If you can get youngsters in at 16 and give them a week or two in television production, it shows them that this world is open to them, that it isn't a closed middle-class, Oxbridge world.'
Tips from industry veterans
Get your foot in the door 'It's a long game. Your first job in telly is unlikely to be in the genre or the kind of TV you want to make for ever. You need to make the most of any opportunity to get in and not be too choosy,' said Series Producer Martin Conway.

'If you can get on a six-month apprenticeship or intern scheme, it's your opportunity to make an amazing impression and get your foot in the door,' added CPL Creative Executive Dawn Beresford.

Gain technical skills 'Increasingly, being able to self-shoot is crucial,' said the BBC's Caroline Carter . 'In factual and documentary, and even entertainment now, editorial staff need to have technical skills,' added Production Manager Jude Winstanley.

Do your homework 'If it's a long-running series you are after, make sure you've watched a few episodes. YouTube is there so you can watch clips of every single show - there is no excuse.

'See if you can find out who is going to be heading up the creative or development team of the company that you're hoping to work for, and do your homework on them,' said freelance Executive Producer Kathryn Taylor.

When you're looking for work 'Don't take a scatter-gun approach and try to talk to everyone. Focus on what you want to achieve,' said Conway.

'Target those employers whose output you enjoy - there is no point in trying to deliver on a job if you're not interested in the programme you're making,' added Taylor.

Take any help on offer 'There are lots of free or cheap events. Go along to anything that any of the broadcasters hold, because they will always have senior staff there from production and commissioning,' said Beresford.

'There are lots of people who are only too happy to mentor people. You have to approach them politely, watch their work before you approach them and be really professional,' said Carter.

Social media is a professional tool 'From my experience, talent managers use social-media platforms to look for people with specific experience, such as whether they can speak French or drive an HGV,' said Winstanley.

Take the initiative 'You need to be organised. Update your CV and get in contact with talent managers two months before a contract ends to line up a new job,' said Beresford.

And if work is thin on the ground 'Don't be afraid during a lull in work - it doesn't mean your career is over,' said Taylor.

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Making television can be a precarious occupation. Jobs are hard to land and rarely last longer than six months. Production staff are constantly looking for new positions and are often out of work. The creative rewards, though, can be immense for freelancers working in such a vibrant industry.

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BTS Morning Live and The One Show shared studio space time-lapse 

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BTS Morning Live and The One Show shared studio space time-lapse 

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For 15 months during 2020 and 2022, the ratings winning, BBC1 breakfast show, 'Morning Live' shared the same tiny studio space as the early evening format 'The One Show'. Watch how the space was transformed twice a day

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BBC One - Morning Live, Morning Live & The One Show Set Timelapse

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Morning Live & The One Show Set Timelapse

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A weekly podcast interviewing women behind-the-scenes and below-the-line of the British film industry.

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I spoke to Adelaide Waldrop a certified Intimacy Director with Intimacy for Stage and Screen (ISS), where she trained with Lizzy Talbot and Yarit Dor (she began training in this work in 2017 with various practitioners in the UK and US). She also serves as the Secretary of the Intimacy Coordinators's Branch of BECTU and teaches Intimacy for Performance at LAMDA.

Speaking of which, Adelaide graduated from LAMDA's MA in Directing programme in 2017. She has directed productions in the UK and America and is the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of devised theatre company Maude.

Her credits as an intimacy co-ordinator include the upcoming Netflix erotic thriller DAMAGE and upcoming ITV queer period drama THE CONFESSIONS OF FRANNIE LANGTON. Past credits include Jack Rooke's TV series BIG BOYS, Charlotte Wells' directorial debut AFTERSUN, BBC drama THEN BARBARA MET ALAN written by Jack Thorne and Genevieve Barr. She is currently working on the HBO/Channel 4 series GET MILLIE BLACK by Marlon James.

We talk about drama school, how directing a production of Spring Awakening at 19 provided a first taste of co-ordinating intimacy, how establishing the necessity of having an intimacy co-ordinator on certain sets was at times difficult, choreographing non-sexual intimacy such as the father-daughter relationship between Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio in upcoming MUBI release and Cannes darling AFTERSUN, the kind of persona Adelaide embodies in order to do her job well, how she holds space for actors to admit discomfort and pushing the industry forward to be more representative and inclusive in its depictions of sex.

The fact that there are still actors who denounce the need for safe-guarding and choreography when it comes to sex scenes or any scene of an intimate nature, I think underscores the need for these kinds of conversations and I am beyond thankful to Adelaide for having this one with me.

My guest this week is Reetu Kabra, a London-based publicist with over 15 years' experience working in house for renowned media and entertainment companies including the BBC and BBC Studios, UKTV, Discovery Networks and Penguin Random House.

During her time at BBC Worldwide she handled global publicity for the internationally acclaimed Doctor Who and Sherlock as well as other major BBC dramas including War & Peace, Luther and Wolf Hall.In 2017, she managed the Cannes Film Festival publicity campaign for Jane Campion's Top of the Lake: China Girl.

Shortly thereafter Reetu founded her own company: RKPR, where she manages personal publicity for a number of actors and writers, as well as consulting for clients including Amazon Prime, Netflix and Apple TV+ among others. She recently worked as a unit publicist for The Essex Serpent starring Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston (AppleTV+/See-Saw Films) and the adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (Netflix).

We discuss many things, including how Reetu wound up working in the entertainment industry, where you begin with creating a publicity campaign and defining your audience, what exactly unit publicity is, what goes into creating behind-the-scenes featurettes such as this one for The Essex Serpent and what sets RKPR apart.

Reetu was an incredibly intelligent and incisive guest and for me, this conversation served as a reminder that there really is a strategy behind publicity and how shows or even people get promoted, it's not just about putting a trailer up on YouTube and hoping for the best. There is real creativity and specificity and ambition when it comes to finding an audience for a film or TV series.

My guest this week is Aoife McArdle, a filmmaker from Northern Ireland who you may know from her recent stint as a co-director and producer on Apple TV's Emmy-nominated series Severance.

Severance depicts a world in which people can choose to surgically divide their work and personal lives, so neither selves have any idea who they are outside of those realms. It stars Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro and Christopher Walken and it recently secured 14 Emmy Award nominations, including the first Outstanding Drama Series for Apple TV. It's truly an exceptional show, so inventive and cohesive and the storytelling is just chef's kiss. The final episode, which I won't spoil, is on another level.

And so I was thrilled to speak to Aoife on the basis of that alone, but then I discovered her extensive background in directing music videos for artists like Bloc Party, Jon Hopkins, James Vincent McMorrow, Anna Calvi and U2. Her direction is consistently gorgeous and her eye for visuals outstanding.

In 2017 Aoife directed her first feature Kissing Candice, about a 17-year-old girl who desperately wants to escape her small seaside town and finds solace in her imagination. More recently she directed a short film starring Cillian Murphy called All This Unreal Time, an immersive sort-of performance piece written by Max Porter - a preternaturally gifted writer - that explores themes of repentance, masculinity and environmentalism. Description of any sort won't do it justice, so I urge you to click the link in the show notes and give it a watch.

We talk about how Aoife discovered filmmaking was a career and how she began to pave her way into it, her creative process when directing music videos, the learning curve that was her directorial debut, adapting to the environments you're shooting in and working with what's available, and of course, her experience on Severance, working with a very talented ensemble cast and in tandem with Ben Stiller and what she's working on now...

I've got a Friday treat for you in the form of this bonus minisode with documentary filmmaker and producer Sara Dosa, whose latest project FIRE OF LOVE is in UK cinemas today.
Find showtimes near you!
This explosive and intimate and eccentric documentary tells the story of Katia and Maurice Krafft, French volcanologists who were also a married couple. For two decades they roamed the planet, chasing eruptions and documenting their discoveries and in doing so, left behind a legacy that enhanced our knowledge of the natural world. Sara and the filmmaking team have crafted a lyrical and curious celebration of the intrepid scientists' spirit of adventure, drawing from the Kraffts' spectacular archive and imbuing their story with a freshness and ferocity that sizzles on the screen.

Sara has also directed an Emmy-nominated episode of the Netflix music docuseries REMASTERED about Johnny Cash's 1970 concert for Richard Nixon; and premiered her third feature as a director THE SEER & THE UNSEEN at the 2019 San Francisco International Film Festival.

As a documentary producer, she recently produced the Peabody and Emmy nominated SURVIVORS about Ebola in Sierra Leone (2018 IDFA / POV); co-produced AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER (2017 Sundance / Paramount) and THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY (2019 Sundance / Netflix); and, produced Peabody award-winning AUDRIE & DAISY (2016 Sundance / Netflix Originals).

We talk about how she got her start in filmmaking, alongside studying anthropology and how her interest in human behaviour continues to inform her practice, as well as what led to her to directing FIRE OF LOVE, how she came to involve Miranda July and why Agnes Varda was a key inspiration.

My guest this week is Make-up and Hair Designer Claire Anne Williams.

Claire left a career as a legal secretary to train at the Delamar Academy before being accepted onto a ScreenSkills traineeship where she worked on big-budget productions such as Solo: A Star Wars Story and Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil.

After working on shorts, commercials and music promos, Claire received her first head of department credit working on Neil Maskell's Klokkenluider and recently worked as Make-Up and Hair Crowd Supervisor on The Kitchen, co-written and produced by Daniel Kaluuya.

In 2021 Claire was recognised as a ScreenDaily Star of Tomorrow and she is represented by Lucy Price at Loop Talent.

We talk about quitting a satisfying career to pursue her dreams, the hardships of being a trainee later in life, the benefits of having an agent, how she creates a sanctuary for actors, as well as going into the craft of creating things like sweat and wounds and keeping spray tan consistent across weeks of shooting.

Claire was a really fun interviewee and it was great to expand my own understanding of how myriad make-up designing can be. It's not just about eyeliner and lipstick.

This episode 114 of Best Girl Grip.

I am thrilled to say that my guest this week is Jessica Kiang.

Jessica is an International Critic for Variety, covering all the major European and Asian festivals. She also writes for Sight & Sound, BBC Culture, The New York Times and The Playlist, where she also spent five years as Features Editor. She also regularly features on the Film Comment podcast, which if you like film and discussion and why would you be here otherwise, I highly recommend.

Jessica mentions some of the pieces of writing of which she is proudest in the interview, including her New York Times review of Christopher Nolan's Tenet and her essay for the Criterion release of David Cronenberg's Crash, which I urge to you to check out but there are very few and perhaps none of her reviews where I haven't marvelled at her perceptiveness and agility. There is a line towards the end of her Sight & Sound review of The Worst Person in the World where I actually stopped and clapped when I read it.

Which is all to say this was rather a joyous occasion, to be able to sit down with Jessica and probe her writing process and how she configures her reviews and what she keeps in mind she writing them.

We talk about how she transitioned from a career in advertising to writing about film full-time, her tips for aspiring film critics, managing relationships with editors and other writers the she looks to for inspiration.

I was really honoured to have Jessica as a guest and I don't think our conversation disappoints.

This episode 113 of Best Girl Grip.

This week my guest is Sheena Patel, an assistant director for Film and TV. Her credits as a 1st AD include Casualty and Dominic Savage's upcoming series I Am Ruth. She has also 3rd Assistant Directed on feature films such as Boxing Day and Pirates, as well as series like I Hate Suzie and Apple Tree House, and she is represented by Sara Putt Associates.

Sheena is also an author and a co-founding member of the poetry collective 4 Brown Girls Who Write and part of the reason I invited her on for this season is that she has just published her debut novel, I'm A Fan, of which many people are. It's getting rave reviews and Sheena was listed in The Observer's 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2022. I'm A Fan is published by Rough Trade Books and uses the voice of a single speaker to explore an unfaithful relationship and the power struggle within that, as well as how this connects with the wider world and our cultural obsession with status. Desiree Akhavan has called it hilarious, heartbreaking and sickening and you can get a copy via the Rough Trade website.

When I was preparing to talk to Sheena I figured that the conversation would be divided into two parts, but of course when someone's passions co-exist in the way they do with Sheena, some overlap is to be expected and we sort of oscillate between the two and find some surprising comparisons between being an assistant director and being a writer or performer.

We talk about perseverance and how Sheena came to the television industry relatively late, how she establishes a sense of authority, collaboration and harmony on the floor and bluffing your way through imposter syndrome, as well as how and when she wrote her novel, what the process of finishing it and releasing it has been like and why she just wrote wherever her brain went.

It was a really fun and also chill chat. I think Sheena really embodies that sense of harmony and calm that maybe she presents when she's AD'ing and yeah I came away from it thinking what a lovely way to have spent an hour of my Saturday morning. I think we're lucky to have someone like Sheena in our film and TV industry and likewise, lucky to have her as a powerful and critical voice in and of our culture, so I feel very privileged to have had her on the podcast.

This is episode 112 of Best Girl Grip.

To kick off season six, I'm sharing a live edition that I recorded recently at Sundance London - an offshoot of the Sundance Film Festival that takes place every January in Utah - with the legend that is Tabitha Jackson, the outgoing Director of the Sundance Film Festival.

Tabitha was announced as the new Festival Director in January 2020,meaning that her first two festivals had to deal with the ramifications of Covid-19, as well as a reckoning around racial justice.

Her appointment came off the back of seven years as the Director of the Institute's Documentary Film Program. Tabitha has over 20 years experience in the documentary and non-fiction field, having served as Commissioning Editor of Arts at Channel 4, as well as the Editor of More4 where she ran the day-to-day operations for the UK's sixth largest digital channel including running the two key areas of original programming True Stories and More 4 Arts.

Of her commitment to the continuation of Sundance's values, Tabitha has said "By fiercely holding space for independent perspectives and media created outside the mainstream market, we as a community can spark new narratives, protect bold critiques of power, and deepen our understanding of what is possible. It has never been more essential."

Our conversation kicked off the 4-day industry programme and it was a really special moment, not just to share a stage with someone who I have greatly admired for a while now and who brings such grace and courage and clarity to her work, but to do something like this in association with Sundance London. Sundance is a festival I have LOVED for well over a decade. I have long combed their programme and made lists of all things I want to watch when they get a UK release and so it was a real privilege to get an insight into the ambitions and considerations behind that festival and that organisation via Tabitha. As ever, I hope you get something from this chat.

This is episode 111 of Best Girl Grip.

I lied and said that last week was the last episode for a while and then I got a very exciting email about interviewing this week's guest and here we are.

That is guest is New York based cinematographer Ashley Connor, someone whose work I have been a big fan of for quite some time. She has lensed some of my favourite independent films, including Tramps, First Match and The Miseducation of Cameron Post, and is a regular collaborator with Josephine Decker, having shot Butter on the Latch, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely and Madeline's Madeline.

Ashley has also shot music videos for Angel Olsen, Beach House and MGMT, plus worked on TV shows like Broad City, Ramy and High Maintenance, so I think it's safe to say that Ashley is probably the coolest DP working today, and certainly someone whose work I am just always in awe of.

She came on the podcast to talk about her career thus far, but also shooting a new movie called True Things, directed by Harry Wootliff, who was on the podcast many, many episodes ago talking about her directorial debut Only You. True Things is her second feature and stars Ruth Wilson as a dissatisfied woman who gets into a passionate and slightly toxic relationship with Tom Burke and must sort of find her way back to herself. I think it's a fearless and visceral and feverish piece of cinema about female sexuality and desire, and I think Harry is fast becoming one of our most exciting filmmakers in the UK and I think Ashley's cinematography - which has always been very muscular and balletic and dynamic - is a perfect match for depicting this tempestuous relationship.

We also talk about how Ashley got her start in indie films, as well as the work she did to support herself, how she has developed this movement and emotion-based cinematography practice, shooting sex scenes and finding a new language for the depiction of women's pleasure, working with and responding to actors, and why cinematography is often like being another actor in the room, working with Lena Dunham on her latest film, Sharp Stick, as well as power structures on film sets and how Ashley prioritises radical vulnerability to change that dynamic.

It was a really special conversation. I think Ashley is a very talented artist and filmmaker and proved also to be a very genuine and compassionate person and just someone I think we're very lucky to have making movies and putting women's feelings and desires at the forefront of cinema.

True Things is out in UK cinemas now. If you go to www.truethings.film you can find showings near you and I highly recommend that you do.

This is episode 110 of Best Girl Grip.

I am very excited to introduce this week's guest, as she is both a friend of the podcast and a someone I consider to be a friend full stop.

And that person is Katie Sinclair.

Katie is an independent producer and development executive, currently working at Blueprint Pictures, whose credits include Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, In Bruges, The Last Letter From Your Lover, The Riot Club and Emma, where she sources and develops projects for the production company's slate. She has worked in production and development for BBC Film, BBC Studios, Disney and Lionsgate.

As producer, Katie recently completed The Last Days (wri/dir. Dipo Baruwa-Etti) which was filmed during the pandemic and was funded by BFI NETWORK and BBC Drama commissioning, while her previous short film Signs (wri/dir Yero Timi-Biu) won the Youth Jury Prize at the Academy Award-qualifying Encounters Film Festival. She produces under the banner Tannahill Productions and is committed to developing and championing new talent.

We talk about how she pursued a career in development, what she learnt from working at BBC Film, our shared love of the Anna Paquin film Fly Away Home, why relationships are the key to pretty much everything, how she has built her confidence in her taste and opinion, the difference between working in development for a production company as opposed to a public funder, the art of giving feedback and why the key is asking questions rather than supplying solutions and her producing ethic and storytelling sensibilities and why it comes down to empathy and care.

Enjoy!

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I spoke to Adelaide Waldrop a certified Intimacy Director with Intimacy for Stage and Screen (ISS), where she trained with Lizzy Talbot and Yarit Dor (she began training in this work in 2017 with various practitioners in the UK and US).

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"Peer to peer support group for carers with film and TV connections. Being a carer is hard enough, being a carer working in film and TV brings it’s own set of unique challenges. We get them. "

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Thanks for checking out Film & TV Carer's Club. We're a peer to peer support group for carers with film and TV connections. Being a carer is hard enough, being a carer working in film and TV brings...

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“Bridgerton” hair and makeup designer Erika Ökvist reveals how she gets the cast Regency ready.

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“Bridgerton” hair and makeup designer Erika Ökvist reveals how she gets the cast Regency ready.

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To look their Regency best, the cast of start their day on set, often before dawn, for hours of primping and prep, with the largest part of their time dedicated to hair and makeup from a team of artists led by Erika Ökvist. For Anthony and Edwina's wedding ceremony, the hair and makeup department was nearly tripled in size to accommodate the large number of actors in the scene. In this video, Ökvist gives us an insider's perspective on the important role hair and makeup play in bringing this pivotal scene to life. For such a dramatic moment, Ökvist had to make sure that Edwina's hair was designed in such a way so that it could hold the weight of her veil and tiara and that her makeup could withstand her tears - all while the stunned audience gathered in the church (including Queen Charlotte) witness everything. Bridgerton cast members Charithra Chandran, Claudia Jessie, Adjoa Andoh, and Luke Newton describe how the brilliant work of the hair and makeup team helps them fully transform into their characters.

Bridgerton is available to stream now on .
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‘Bridgerton’ Making a Scene Video Series: Hair & Makeup

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“Bridgerton” hair and makeup designer Erika Ökvist reveals how she gets the cast Regency ready.

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Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV

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Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV

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Journalists Pandora Sykes and Sirin Kale explore how reality TV shapes our lives and the ethical questions raised by the format, featuring iconic shows and stars.

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Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV

Journalists Pandora Sykes and Sirin Kale explore how reality TV shapes our lives and the ethical questions raised by the format, featuring iconic shows and stars.
Show more

The dumbest genre in entertainment, or the one that tells us the most about ourselves? Since its conception, reality TV has divided its viewers.

Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV is a 10-part audio documentary written and presented by journalists Pandora Sykes and Sirin Kale. They've been fans of reality TV since they first watched Big Brother as pre-teens and they've spent a fair amount of time defending reality tv when people are snobby about it, or dismiss its importance in our wider culture. But they’ve also been troubled by what they've seen in the genre: the exploitation; the lack of aftercare; the impacts of sudden fame.

Using interviews with the creators, producers and stars of some of the most iconic reality shows of the last two decades, and leading cultural critics of today, Unreal explores how reality TV has shaped entertainment, fashion, beauty, celebrity and even politics - and some of the ethical issues raised by the format.

Producer: Hannah Hufford
Executive Producer: Pandora Sykes
Executive Editor: James Cook
Content Producer: Hannah Robins
Technical Producer: Giles Aspen
Show less

Available now

Supporting Content

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BBC Radio 4 - Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV

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The dumbest genre in entertainment, or the one that tells us the most about ourselves?

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Tom Dix explains where to find the info you need, what all the numbers and lingo mean

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How To Read A Call Sheet | Being a Runner

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Facebook: Northern Freelance TV Production staff

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Facebook: Northern Freelance TV Production staff

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A group for TV Production staff up in the north of England. Somewhere for looking for people and sharing jobs. Please feel free to post industry work experience on this page as well as paid jobs too....

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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Jobs in production at Disney including VFX at ILM

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Jobs in production at Disney including VFX at ILM

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direct-to-consumer and international jobs at DISNEY

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Be part of the story. Search for available direct-to-consumer and international jobs at DISNEY here.

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Training real squirrels for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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Training real squirrels for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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Making of the Attack of the Squirrels in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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Writers James Cary and Dave Cohen breakdown the elements of writing sitcoms

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Writers James Cary and Dave Cohen breakdown the elements of writing sitcoms

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A podcast series for those interested in the mechanics of situation comedy. James Cary and Dave Cohen discuss the art of sitcom writing for TV and Radio.
Download episode

Published: 14th April 2022

Length: 38 mins

Size: 51.9mb

Dave and James talk to Hat Trick boss Jimmy Mulville about his decades of phenomenal comedy success, developing new writing talent and why you should never send him a substandard script.

Previous episodes

Contact Us

Email questions to sitcomgeeks@gmail.com

Biographies

James Cary is a comedy writer for BBC TV and Radio. His latest series is Bluestone 42 for BBC Three, which he co-created and wrote with Richard Hurst. He met Richard working on Series 1 & 2 of BBC's award-winning sitcom, Miranda. James has also written episodes of My Hero and My Family for BBC One. His radio credits include three series of Hut 33, four series of Think the Unthinkable, and sketch show, Concrete Cow. He has also written four series of Another Case Of Milton Jones with, er, Milton Jones for BBC Radio 4. sitcomgeek.blogspot.co.uk @sitcomgeek

Dave Cohen, a Perrier nominee in a previous century, was a founder member of the Comedy Store Players. In recent years he has become more known as a comedy writer, having written for Have I Got News For You and Not Going Out, and as a comic songwriter, co-creating the Radio 4 hit 15 Minute Musical and writing loads of songs for the hit BBC Childrens' Show Horrible Histories and ITV's Newzoids. His book How to be Averagely Successful at Comedy was published in 2013. davecohen.org.uk @cohendave

Theme music: Jane Watkins

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james cary dave cohen sitcom geeks british comedy tv radio

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Sitcom Geeks - Podcasts - British Comedy Guide

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A podcast series for those interested in the mechanics of situation comedy. James Cary and Dave Cohen discuss the art of sitcom writing for TV and Radio. Download episode Published: 14th April 2022 Length: 38 mins Size: 51.9mb Dave and James talk to Hat Trick boss Jimmy Mulville about his decades of phenomenal comedy success, developing new writing talent and why you should never send him a substandard script.

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Writer James Cary's blog on writing sitcoms

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Writer James Cary's blog on writing sitcoms

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James Cary

James Cary is a comedy writer for BBC TV and Radio. Full list of broadcast credits HERE.

He co-created Bluestone 42 for BBC3 with Richard Hurst. James met Richard working on series 1 & 2 of BBC's award-winning sitcom, . He also co-wrote Miranda Hart's Jokeshop for BBC Radio 2. James has also written episodes of My Hero, My Family and Citizen Khan for BBC1, and an episode of Shakespeare & Hathaway, to be filmed in 2021.

His radio credits include three series of four series of Think the Unthinkable , and sketch show, Concrete Cow. He has also written five series of Another Case of Milton Jones, as well as and Thanks A Lot of Milton The House of Milton Jones with, er, Milton Jones for BBC Radio 4.

His script editing work includes Almost Never (CBBC), Recorded For Training Purposes (BBC Radio 4), Gigglebiz (CBeebies) and Mr Bloom's Nursery (CBeebies).

He is represented by Georgina at The Haworth Agency. For more info, go here.

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James Cary is a comedy writer for BBC TV and Radio. Full list of broadcast credits HERE. He co-created Bluestone 42 for BBC3 with Richard Hurst. James met Richard working on series 1 & 2 of BBC's award-winning sitcom, . He also co-wrote Miranda Hart's Jokeshop for BBC Radio 2.

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loads of entry level jobs in production

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a free resource to find jobs in tv and film

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Looking for work in film and TV in the UK? We work with over 70 production companies and broadcasters to help them hire and crew up more inclusively.

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Most of the training takes place in the workplace and is tailored to ensure apprentices develop the skills the company wants. This enables apprentices to have a real advantage in the workplace with better long-term salary prospects and progression opportunities for either studying further or to advance within the company and the industry itself.

All apprenticeships are real jobs and, as an apprentice, a salary of at least the national minimum apprenticeship wage is possible - the rates are usually updated annually, so please check here for more information on current rates. However, some employers may pay more, and apprentices should work for at least 30 hours per week. These apprenticeships normally take between a minimum of 12 months up to 18 months to complete. All Spring Media typically deliver these apprenticeships in 13 months.

Employers of apprentices should support the apprentice's on-the-job learning utilising the skills and expertise of their workforce. They should also be involved in reviewing the progress of an apprentice. More information for employers considering taking on an apprentice can be found here.

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Specialist in Broadcast Production Assistant and Junior Content Producer apprenticeships Apprentices will earn while they learn and can gain a qualification whilst working with on the job training and experience. To apply for an apprenticeship, leaners must live in England and be over

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Could you work in unscripted production management?

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Could you work in unscripted production management?

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Production Management - Have You Got What It Takes? | RTS Careers Fair

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Production Managers in unscripted describe what their roles entail

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Production Managers in unscripted describe what their roles entail

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TV Production Management: The Unsung Heroes of TV Production | RTS Scotland

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TV Studios and Sound stages for hire in the UK and abroad

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Talent managers explain the roles of runners, researchers and APs in reality and entertainment TV

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Talent managers explain the roles of runners, researchers and APs in reality and entertainment TV

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Talent managers explain the roles of runners, researchers and APs in reality and entertainment TV

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After running a meetup for creatives of colour to get together and have a cathartic bitch about the industry, it quickly became obvious we needed a space online to carry it on. So here it is!

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Series created by comedy producer Saima Ferdows from the workshops of the same name. Discussing how little the landscape of TV talent has changed for people of colour.

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This creatives of colour workshop, entitled Screen Acting, happened on Tuesday 21st April 2020 with the brilliant actor, Hamza Jeetooa who has been in numerous shows such as Doctor Who, Zomboat!, Grantchester, Sandylands and more!You can find me Saima on Twitter and Instagram @SaimaFerdows and on Twitch @SaimaF and Hamza Jeetoa on Twitter and Instagram @HamzaJeetooa, You can find Sketchy Ones on Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.Please support the podcast by tweeting and instagramming about it and liking, subscribing and leaving a review.

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Listen to episodes and learn more about Creatives of Colour Podcast. Creatives of Colour began last year out of sheer frustration with how little UK TV has progressed with using people of colour in front of and especially behind the camera.

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Procreate® - the most powerful and intuitive digital illustration app. Available only on iPad, and packed with features artists and creative professionals love.

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Find out how all the Oscar nominated films were made. 

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Find out how all the Oscar nominated films were made. 

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Lisa McNamara breaks down the budget, schedule, crew size and more for the 2022 best picture nominees.

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Welcome to Frame.io's annual Oscars Workflow Roundup!

If this is your first time, this deep dive gives you all the details about what it takes to create an award-worthy movie. And if you've read our coverage in previous years, we thank you for joining us again.

So much has happened over the past year, and there's plenty to unpack. The return of the blockbusters! The resurgence of the theatrical releases! The rise and consolidation of the streaming services!

And, of course, there's the controversial decision to not live broadcast eight important categories, including one that's especially close to all our hearts. What's up with that!?

The one thing that remains constant is we're always excited to take that deep dive into the creative and logistical processes behind the Best Picture nominees. So we hope you enjoy reading our fifth-annual Oscars Workflow Roundup as much as we enjoy putting it together.

While the numbers don't lie, they don't always give you the whole picture. So after we go through the movies, there's some additional information to help contextualize what might seem puzzling at first glance.

Budgets

Although Dune and West Side story are two of the three films with $100+ million budgets, keep in mind that both were originally intended to premiere in 2020 and were delayed by COVID. With only one high-budget new release in 2021, Netflix's Don't Look Up, most of the 2021 releases fell somewhere between $30-$60 million.

Compared to 2020's Oscar slate, in which The Trial of the Chicago 7 (also produced by Netflix) was the most expensive at $35 million, this year trended more toward the medium-budget films-many of which were available to stream either at the same time as their theatrical release, or shortly thereafter.

Days of principal photography

Last year only one movie, the very low-budget Sound of Metal, was shot on 35mm. Perhaps counterintuitively, director Darius Marder cited the economic guardrail of being able to capture a couple of takes for each shot as a way to keep him on track creatively and his actors' performances fresh.

This year, Licorice Pizza, West Side Story, and Don't Look Up opted to capture on film. But Don't Look Up, with its large all-star cast and sprawling story, also had an equally sprawling workflow, capturing on everything from 35mm VistaVision to iPhones.

Crew size

What a difference a year makes. In 2021, only the teams behind Mank, Judas and the Black Messiah, and The Trial of the Chicago 7 had relatively large crews (in the 300-400 person range) to deal with the "invisible" VFX necessary to create authentic-looking period pieces. The rest fell more into the 100-200 person range, with Nomadland getting by on a skeleton crew of only 62, some of whom were locals they met on location.

This Oscar year, the return of VFX spectaculars like Dune (1190) and Don't Look Up (1073), the splashy West Side Story (699), and the extravagantly moody world of Nightmare Alley (513) saw a more typical year in terms of crew size. Or, more accurately, if Dune and West Side Story had kept to their original release dates, last year would not have been as atypical as it was.

Weeks in post-production

It almost goes without saying that COVID caused countless projects to shift schedules as they temporarily suspended production or switched to remote workflows. Most would say that the impact was detrimental financially or creatively-or both.

But one production made the most of the delayed release date. Dune's Joe Walker says, "The pandemic was very kind to give us some time to really think without the great heat of schedule upon us for a few months. We were able to just dream a little bit and follow our instincts to develop things, which we did a great deal."

Spending nearly two years from the beginning of principal photography to the final DCP check clearly paid off, with ten nominations and six wins for Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Production Design.

On the other end of that spectrum, Drive My Car spent only about 8 weeks in post-production, and still garnered accolades and awards, including the Oscar for Best International Film. Another reason why the numbers don't always correlate directly with quality.

Before we delve into the workflows, it's interesting to examine this year's slate of films in terms of common themes or trends.

Less weight, more laughs

Last year, many of them were intimate character studies that addressed larger issues like Sound of Metal, Judas and the Black Messiah, Nomadland, .

Similarly, this year CODA focuses on a deaf family, King Richard on a family making their place in a racially exclusive sport, and Belfast and West Side Story on societal rifts as a result of racism or belief systems.

But this year we also saw movies like Licorice Pizza that were more lighthearted and nostalgic, and Don't Look Up which, despite its political satire and dystopian theme, made us actually laugh out loud. And then there was Dune, which transported us to fantasy worlds inhabited by floating despots and big, scary worms.

This year's movies were also lengthier than last year's by an average of 20 minutes! Last year, the longest was Mank, with a running time of 131 minutes. By comparison, the average length of this year's ten films is 138 minutes, with Drive My Car weighing in at just one minute under three hours-and Dune at 155 minutes for what is basically half of a movie.

Perhaps this is the result of more robust budgets, although the longest movie had the lowest budget. Or maybe it's indicative of the audience's appetite for spending longer periods of time on diversionary activities.

Last year, the critical reception of the films was uniformly high, with Rotten Tomatoes scores running between 89 and 98 percent "fresh." This year, although most fell into that range, there was one film with a mediocre rating from Rotten Tomatoes-55 percent for Don't Look Up, territory that was only previously occupied in 2020 by Joker with 68 percent.

Can we interpret this as a hint toward some semblance of normalcy as we attempt to collectively return to our regularly scheduled lives?

Technology trends

More functional commonalities include the fact that this year all Best Picture-nominees were edited on Avid-unlike last year, in which Mank edited on Adobe Premiere Pro.

Of the films captured digitally, most used ARRI Alexas, with the exception of CODA using Sony CineAlta Venice cameras.

Of the three film-originated productions, both Licorice Pizza and West Side Story chose Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2s, while Don't Look Up used a variety of cameras including Aaton Penelopes and Arricam LT and STs, but also used iPhones to capture some of the "found" footage from the international locations. For those who want an even more detailed discussion of the cinematography techniques, check out our upcoming roundtable with this year's top cinematographers.

Trusted partners

As is often the case, a number of the films relied on longtime collaborations between directors and editors or cinematographers.

If last year saw a number of repeat pairings, some of the relationships this year are almost like professional families or marriages-perhaps none more so than legendary editor Michael Kahn, whose first project with Steven Spielberg was 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. From there, he went on to earn three Oscars with the director on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan. At age 90, Khan and editor Sarah Broshar, another Spielberg alum, teamed up to handle the film/digital editorial workflow on West Side Story.

Dune is Joe Walker's fourth collaboration with Denis Villeneuve, after Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049, and they're already at work on Dune: Part Two scheduled for release in 2023.

Adam McKay and Hank Corwin, only three years out from their nominations on Vice, reteamed to earn more nominations for Don't Look Up. Corwin has also worked previously with McKay on The Big Short and more recently on the new HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.

Andy Jurgensen has risen through the ranks on Paul Thomas Anderson's movies, going from first assistant on Inherent Vice to associate editor on Phantom Thread, before taking the editor's chair on Licorice Pizza. Anderson, who often acts as his own DP, also worked with another of his frequent collaborators, Michael Bauman, who has likewise been a part of those projects as a lighting technician, lighting cameraman, and DP, respectively. It's also Anderson's fifth film with composer Jonny Greenwood, who had the busiest year with Licorice Pizza, Spencer, and The Power of the Dog (for which Greenwood was nominated for Best Original Score).

Another editor who has developed his career through repeat collaborations is Cam McLauchlin, who first met Guillermo del Toro during Pacific Rim where he served as an assistant editor. From there, he went on to Crimson Peak as first assistant, The Shape of Water as both associate and music editor, and now Nightmare Alley as editor. Also joining the team was four-time DP Dan Laustsen, who first worked with del Toro on Mimic (1997) and has received Oscar nominations for both The Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley.

If there's a lesson here, it's that skills and talent are necessary to becoming a great editor or cinematographer, but being a great collaborator is just as important. There are few creative relationships as close as that of the director to these key craft areas, and becoming someone directors trust with their vision is the not-so-secret ingredient to a lengthy and successful career.

And now, let's go to the movies.

The darkest of this year's films both raise questions about what it means to be human-or, more to the point, what instincts do we possess that undermine our humanity?

Nightmare Alley

If there's any director who knows how to build a rich and moody world, it's Guillermo del Toro.

Reimagining the 1946 novel (which was previously adapted for the screen in 1947), del Toro, along with editor Cam McLauchlin and cinematographer Dan Laustsen, created a new Nightmare Alley that takes the noir thriller to new depths.

For starters, they captured in color, using ARRI Alexa 65 and ARRI Alexa LFs with ARRI Signature prime lenses. But, they lit as if for a black and white release-which they subsequently did even while the color version was still playing in theaters. (Best Picture 2020's Parasite was also released in color and black and white, although not concurrently.) Fans of the genre will appreciate both versions, which Laustsen has said feel like different films.

In fact, both versions were graded separately from the ARRIRAW files, which was done at Company 3 with lead colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld.

The 95 days of principal photography took place in Buffalo and Toronto (fun fact: the burning house at the beginning of the film was done practically). During filming, they had a cutting room set up in Toronto at the production office because del Toro liked to go through the previous day's footage with Cam before starting his shoot day. According to first assistant Mary Juric, he would also sometimes come to the cutting room at lunch break and after wrap to work on scenes.

The DIT used Resolve to send the media and projects to Company 3 in Toronto for them to transcode overnight and send the files back, via Aspera, to the cutting room. Depending on the shooting schedule, dailies prep could be tricky for both the lab and for second assistant Harrison Perez, who often shifted his start times to as early as 3:30 a.m. in order to get the footage loaded in so Cam could start cutting with del Toro at 8 or 9 a.m.

During production, the editorial team did six-day weeks, because del Toro wanted to be able to see cuts of everything that had been shot during the week on Saturday mornings. Occasionally it fell to the DIT to give the editors dailies if they went late on a Friday, because there wasn't enough time for Company 3 to turn them around-even though, Mary says, they "bent over backwards" to accommodate the production.

The editorial team used Avid Media Composer (v. 2018.12.10), and made the decision to work at DNx36 1920×1280 because sometimes Cam would go to the set to edit, so the smaller file size made the process more mobile. In the cutting room, they had three edit stations with Mac Pro "trash cans" working off NEXIS. They also had two iMac stations-one dedicated to receiving dailies and one to create faster outputs because del Toro likes to receive a copy of the entire show on a daily basis, which made it necessary to have the extra processing power when they reached the point where the show was three-plus hours running time.

Post-production lasted approximately a year with most of the work done in person in Toronto, Los Angeles, and New York-except when COVID restricted travel between Canada and the U.S. At that point, the small editorial team consisted of just Cam, Mary, and post-production supervisor Doug Wilkinson.

Cam did some rather extensive sound editing to help sound designer Nathan Robitaille and his team create the lush sonic background of the carnival world. They also did "meticulous" ADR to create authentic audio for the crowd scenes.

Mr. X in Toronto handled approximately 560 VFX shots in the final movie. Many were the usual invisible effects to remove modern details, but they also did more than 50 sky replacements, some set extensions, and environmental enhancements for snow, rain, lightning, and fire. More complex effects included Molly's (played by Rooney Mara) electric show effects, and the blood and gore for the death scenes.

Cam also relied on Mary, with whom he's worked since Crimson Peak, as a VFX editor. An " After Effects wiz," she was able to previs how the footage could work to create some of the split-screen effects used to stitch together different performances or angles before giving them to the Mr. X artists-a task made more difficult because del Toro loves to move the camera.

Of course, COVID added to the already substantial challenge of making an elaborate Guillermo del Toro movie. According to Cam, they began shooting in mid-January 2020 and had to suspend production in mid-March. By the time they resumed in September, Rooney Mara had given birth, but del Toro picked up right where they'd left off without needing to reshoot scenes-such is the advantage of having a director who's so intimately involved with the editor and the cut as it's coming together. He was constantly able to see what was missing, what was needed, and to economically strategize his shoot to provide the necessary elements.

Cam says that despite the dark subject matter, the process of working with del Toro is incredibly fun and helps mitigate the impact on his own family life when he's away. But it's another reason why forming these creative families is so important and fulfilling.

The Power of the Dog

Speaking of dark subject matter and families, Jane Campion managed to imbue her film with a sense of foreboding even as the sun shone brightly in the New Zealand sky where they recreated the 1920s-era Montana cattle ranch.

Like Nightmare Alley, the source material is a novel, written in 1967 by Thomas Savage, which drew upon his own experiences as a young man in the American west.

Ari Wegner's camera package consisted of two ARRI Alexa LFs and an ARRI Alexa Mini LF. The A-camera captured in ARRIRAW 4.5K (Open Gate) and B-camera in anamorphic ARRIRAW 4.5K (Open Gate). The C-camera (the Mini) captured in anamorphic ARRIRAW 4.5K (Open Gate).

They paired the larger-format camera with Panavision Ultra Panatar lenses. "We loved those lenses," cinematographer Ari Wegner said. "They're beautiful on faces and 1.25x anamorphic is a very gentle anamorphic."

In a film where dialogue is sparse, capturing the subtleties of expression to convey the characters' thoughts is essential. Benedict Cumberbatch, Kodi-Smit McPhee, and Kirsten Dunst's faces speak volumes in their closeups. Using anamorphic lenses was also important to do justice to the sweeping landscapes of the New Zealand (South Island) wilderness where principal photography took place over 51 days, as well as in Auckland on the North Island for the studio interiors. Unfortunately, after the first day of filming in Auckland, the production shut down for three months due to COVID.

Each day, the DIT sent dailies in DNxHD 36 at 1920×1080 to dailies assistant editor John Erasmus via Aspera. He downloaded them straight to a password-protected transfer drive and transferred them to NEXIS.

This was editor Peter Sciberras's first time working with Campion and he describes his interactions with her as "genuine and incredibly fun." He and first assistant Kasra Rassoulzadegan had Avid setups on Apple Mac Pros both during production, where they were working at ARC Edit in Melbourne, and during the 8-month post-production period from September 2020 to April 2021 at Images and Sound in Auckland, where Peter and Jane were able to work together. He also cut at ARC in Sydney, where he often edits commercials.

Visual effects editor Stephen McHardy worked with the team at Alt.VFX. The approximately 200 shots included set extensions, CG animals and trains, and digital matte paintings. And yes, no real cows were harmed in the castration scene.

DI assistant editor Cara Harvey helped with the final mastering process, and colorist Trish Cahill graded the various deliverables at Soundfirm in Melbourne. Campion went for a somewhat desaturated look, which served to heighten the harshness of the wilderness.

Leading the pack with 12 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing, Jonny Greenwood's score was also nominated. According to Peter, Greenwood began composing the score at the script phase, so they were able to use the actual music to cut to.

It's an atypical score as Westerns go, dark and moody, creeping into your consciousness rather than dictating how you should feel. Greenwood has said that he "wanted to avoid the trope of sweeping strings to accompanying sweeping landscapes." Peter describes it as "more textural and more emotional in a thematic way than in a scene-specific or a moment-specific way."
Peter says that aside from the disruptions caused by COVID, the biggest creative challenge was "managing and refining the bold structure of the film. The film changes points of view several times and keeping the story focused while shifting perspectives between characters was the biggest task."
Because he and Campion so beautifully achieved that task, The Power of the Dog rewards repeat screenings, as the viewer becomes more aware of the nuances of the characters' reactions, depending upon whose POV you're in.

CODA

CODA is an acronym for Child of Deaf Adults which, coincidentally, is what last year's Best Supporting Actor nominee, Paul Raci (Sound of Metal) is in real life. That film not only cast him for his fluency in ASL (American Sign Language), but also cast other members of the deaf community in many of the group scenes.

This year, Sian Heder cast three deaf actors in leading roles: the Oscar-winning Marlee Matlin as the mother, Troy Kotsur as the father, and Daniel Durant as the brother of Ruby (played by Emilia Jones), who is the only hearing member of the family and functions as their interpreter with the hearing world.

Much has been written about how CODA has advanced the issue of inclusion in Hollywood films. Matlin, who was the only deaf actor to receive an Oscar until Troy Kotsur won for this film, has been quoted as saying, "To have a hearing actor put on a deaf character as if it was a costume, I think we've moved beyond that point now. We're talking about a new generation of viewers." With its additional wins for Best Adapted Screenplay and surprise win for Best Picture, it seems to have achieved what the filmmakers set out to do.

According to editor Géraud Brisson and cinematographer Paula Huidobro, there were numerous challenges on the film. First, an indie budget always demands efficiency, which added an extra element of pressure to the extensive shooting on a small fishing boat. Second, Géraud had to cut dialogue in ASL (which he does not know), but his previous work on a project entitled This Close for Sundance Channel helmed by two deaf writers and actors helped prepare him for this job. (Fun fact: That show was also the first time Géraud used Frame.io, to share cuts with the directors and producers.)

Paula chose two Sony Venice 6K cameras for the 30-day shoot in Gloucester, Massachusetts, often hand-holding the cameras on the boat due to space limitations. The raw files, CDL, and sound files were sent everyday from the set to Boston via shuttle drives, where dailies colorist Rob Bessette at Boston Finish created two sets of dailies. One was the Avid dailies for editorial that were shipped to Géraud and assistant editor Michael LaFond, who were based at Light Iron in New York during production, via Aspera. The other set was uploaded to Frame.io so Sian, Paula, and the producers could review the footage on location.

The team edited on Avid Media Composer (v. 2018.12.7) at DNxHD 36 with media stored on NEXIS. Géraud had a cylinder Mac Pro, a couple of large computer monitors and a client monitor. Once production ended, he went back to LA and worked at Flash/Cuts in person with Sian, and the rest of post-production moved to Montreal. For the next 14 weeks of cutting, Mathieu Bérubé took over assistant duties for Michael. Assets were again stored on NEXIS, with Mathieu using local drives and passing new media and bins to each other through Dropbox. Luckily, they were able to lock picture just before the world shut down for COVID.

But by the time they did the final grading, they were under COVID lockdown and Canada, where the mix and the color timing was taking place, wasn't open to travelers from the U.S. They ended up doing a remote grading session which, according to Géraud, was "tricky because Sian and Paula weren't looking at the exact same image resolution in LA as the one that our colorist, Marc Lussier, had in front of him at Mel's in Montreal."

Because Géraud is not fluent in ASL, one important step in the dailies process was making sure all the audio tracks were included in his master clips. There was an interpreter on set in the video village recording a separate soundtrack along with the ASL scenes, which allowed Géraud to "learn" the dialogue when reviewing the dailies in Avid.

"Roughly half of the dialogue in CODA is in ASL," he says. "Beyond making sure the dialogue was properly edited, I wanted to be able to integrate some of the improvised interaction by our actors with the parts that were scripted. Also, I was worried that as an outsider and a hearing person, I might impose my point of view or logic onto those scenes and not do justice to the language and the culture."

The important school concert scene posed additional challenges, Géraud says. "We had over 12 hours of footage for the sequence as they shot with three cameras. We had to build a moment that felt memorable but keep ourselves in check because we couldn't inadvertently suggest that we were reaching the end of the story yet. Also, all our worlds were converging at the same time: improvisation in ASL, comedy, drama, music performance, multiple storylines, and shifts in POVs."

The visual effects load in CODA is minimal, reserved for invisible effects like removing boats in the fishing scenes or removing earpieces the cast used during the musical moments. But for one poignant scene in which Ruby sings to her deaf father, they added stars to the night sky to echo a line he says about the stars at sea.
Even more so than last year's Sound of Metal, CODA has given voice to deaf actors and made new strides toward more inclusive casting.
Drive My Car

Some people have biological families, while others manage to create familial bonds with those to whom they have no blood relationship. At the center of Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car (based on a Haruki Murakami short story) is a widowed theater director who bonds with a young woman (who has suffered through her own family strife) hired to be his chauffeur while he's working on a new staging of Chekov's Uncle Vanya.

Minimalist is the best way to describe this production. Shot primarily with one ARRI Alexa Mini at 2.8K ARRIRAW (3.2K Open Gate) using Zeiss Ultra Prime and Angenieux Optimo Lenses, principal photography took place across 12 initial days in Tokyo before COVID shut the production down for eight months. They then resumed shooting for another 40 days in and around Hiroshima, Hokkaido, and in South Korea. (Fun fact: the car was shot neither in a studio nor on a towing rig. Instead, Hamaguchi rode in the trunk of the car with a sound recorder as they drove, listening to the actors throughout the very lengthy scenes.)

Editor Azusa Yamazaki did not edit during filming, but cut together the Tokyo footage for approximately two weeks during the COVID shutdown. Working with just one assistant on an iMac with an external drive, she cut on Avid in MXF DNxHD 80 from "a personal work space."

During the remainder of principal photography Yamazaki watched rushes but cut nothing more until they wrapped. She and her assistant moved to a rented space at a post facility, where they spent approximately another six weeks on the cut with director Hamaguchi attending many of the sessions.

The film's three-hour running time presented unique challenges. But, clearly, the director and editor (who had previously worked together) were in sync, finding the rhythm of the film in scenes that play out in what feels like real time, often containing (and embracing) long silences. Much has been made of the fact that the opening titles don't appear until 40 minutes into the movie-but Hamaguchi felt that it was important to let the story unfold without relying on flashbacks in order to let the viewer experience the characters' development over time.

Final grading was handled at IMAGICA Lab by Yumeto Kitayama and cinematographer Hidetoshi Shinomiya, whose approach to this movie was to have "a minimal presence because the cast was the primary focus." Hamaguchi recognizes the precision of Shinomiya's camera placement, which took hours to set up, allowing the actors to have the freedom to move while creating the effect of a "non-static, dynamic way of shooting."

Visual effects were minimal, only approximately 60 shots, used in the car accident and for some additional invisible effects.

King Richard

Like the family at the center of CODA, the Williams family is a tightly knit unit, deriving their power from their belief in each other.

But unlike them, the Williams family is real. In this biopic, director Reinaldo Marcus Green and producer Will Smith (who won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Richard Williams) tell the triumphant story of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams from their early days in Compton to the pinnacle of the sport.

Winning the ACE Eddie this year for her work, editor Pamela Martin was also nominated for the Oscar for Best Film Editing. King Richard isn't her first tennis movie, however. She previously cut Battle of the Sexes, the true story of the 1973 tennis match between male chauvinist Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King-her third movie with the directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (she also cut Little Miss Sunshine and Ruby Sparks).

Pamela didn't sign on for this movie because of the tennis, but rather because she loved the script, the family story, and the people involved. But her experience on Battle of the Sexes allowed her to clue in Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit about some of the pitfalls of capturing tennis footage. She says, "By the time they shot the tennis, we had already determined what types of angles worked and what kind of coverage did not work. So that was helpful prior to the principal photography."

The team also did previs for the tennis matches, necessary to inform the VFX load which was divided among several studios, including Luma, Lola, Crafty Apes, and Static Chair Productions. The film has approximately 500 VFX shots, primarily doing face replacements and adding tennis balls to make it look like the non-tennis playing actresses were really hitting the ball. They also had to flesh out crowd shots because COVID restrictions meant they could only use a fraction of the extras it would take to fill a stadium.

Elswit used four ARRI Alexas over the course of 50 days around the Los Angeles area from Compton to country clubs, plus two days for pickups.

Company 3 prepped dailies for editorial, who cut on four Avids with NEXIS at DNxHD 115. The editorial team of five including Pamela, first assistant Staci Pontius, second assistant Jouven Exantus and the VFX editor, and editorial PA initially worked together out of Hula's West LA location, but after the six-month COVID shutdown only Pamela worked at the cutting room with the director. The rest of the team worked remotely from their homes for the approximately nine months of post-production. Stefan Sonnenfeld did the final color grading at Company 3.

Obviously, a production shutdown is always problematic. But the team actually discovered some silver linings. Robert Elswit has said that the downtime allowed the actresses playing Venus and Serena to become good friends, which enhanced their on-screen dynamic. Because as much as this is a film about tennis, it's more about the bond that allowed this extraordinary family to produce two great champions who are the greatest of friends.

What do Don't Look Up and Dune have in common?

In addition to big budgets and tons of VFX, they both feature central characters who neither initially intended (or expected) to try to save their respective worlds nor succeeded in doing so. Yet. ( Dune: Part Two is due out in late 2023.)

In the case of Don't Look Up, Jennifer Lawrence's Kate Dibiasky is a character whose best intentions pave the road to her personal hell, as her quiet life as an astrophysicist is upended by her cataclysmic discovery.

Dune's central character, Paul Atreides, is similarly thrust into the uncomfortable position of stepping into a role he's too young and too unprepared to assume. And we, as viewers, get the chance to ride into dangerous territory with them as they battle enemies both familiar and foreign.

Don't Look Up

Adam McKay's Don't Look Up has it all: a high-concept satire with the highest possible plot stakes; a cast that includes some of the biggest stars in the world; a complex shoot that took place during the height of the pandemic; footage captured on a vast array of film and digital formats. All of which resulted in record-breaking viewership for Netflix and four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Film Editing for Hank Corwin.

The team shot primarily around the Boston area over 64 days of principal photography. Additionally, they did two VFX days for green screen elements, several days for people "looking up" and some VFX backgrounds in Peru and Hawaii, and four days in Washington D.C. for establishing shots and an additional scene.

The capture formats ranged from 35mm film (including widescreen format VistaVision), to various digital HD footage for some of the big media-focused sequences, to iPhones. There were also numerous stock footage elements of varying sizes, codecs, and formats. They even used the Red Hydrogen One both as a capture device and a prop!

Using an Aaton Penelope (which he also used on First Man) and Arricam LT and STs for film, DP Linus Sandgren very deliberately chose the cameras and formats in order to evoke different moods and achieve different responses from viewers. "We wanted to tell a story that's happening now. For example, in the TV studio scenes, we will be with our film cameras behind the TV cameras or behind the actors shooting them in the studio lighting. We tried to make that a point as well, where some footage is obviously from 4K TV cameras that is super sharp, colorful, and artificial. We wanted to make the audience feel the difference between everything that comes at them."

Among the footage they shot were lots of what Sandgren described as "small details," like in the opening sequence of Jennifer Lawrence's character making tea. As an editor, Corwin appreciated the ability to cut to the intimate moment of "the tiny shot of hot water being poured into a cup."

Corwin also enlisted the help of Netflix staff located around the world, to capture what looked like personal footage of nature and people. "Netflix has a zillion employees, so I asked them to send me videos of them looking into the sky or watching television, being involved with the media or being in nature," Corwin says. "We got stuff from all over the world, and it was beautiful because I wanted it to feel very human and not professionally shot. It was a gold mine."

Because they shot on so many different formats, the dailies and editorial workflow was a little extra challenging. The film was sent to Fotokem in L.A. to be processed, which took a day. Then Fotokem sent the processed footage to Company 3, where they backed up to LTO and synced and transcoded the media to DNxHD 115. The editorial team was sent dailies files via Aspera each day, but were always two days behind production because of the processing time.

They worked on Avid 2018, on 2013 Mac Pros configured with 2.7 GHz 12-Core Intel Xeon E5 processors, 64 GB 1866 MHz DDR3, and AMD FirePro D700 6 GB. They stored everything on a NEXIS and also on G-Raids when they were working from home-which they did from the start of production. Shooting during COVID was, according to McKay "extra complicated" due to the lack of rapid testing at that point.

Corwin worked out of his home editorial suite, and the team used G-Raid hard drives working locally and uploading and downloading media back and forth. They kept the NEXIS up to date at their Pivotal Post facility and used JUMP to access it.

Some additional challenges presented themselves when they were processing in Avid because the film footage was shot at 24fps but most of the digital footage was shot at 29.97fps. Company 3 converted the 29.97 footage to 24, but a fair amount of hand syncing was needed on the converted digital footage.

Also, grouping the film and digital footage together when they shot multicam with both was complicated because over time they would drift out of sync from each other, so the team had to chop up long takes into smaller parts to keep everything in sync.

The core team of five-Corwin, additional editor Scott Morris, first assistant Sarah Russell, VFX editor Andrew Loschin, and apprentice editor Michael Shusterman (as well as short-term assistants Jon Thornhill and Meryl Goodwin) continued to work from home until February 2021. After wrapping principal photography, McKay also worked from home like the rest of the team, using PacPost to do live sessions.

They were able to move the cutting room to Sony Picture Studios in Culver City where they worked out of Cutter's Alley beginning on February 20, 2021 to October 31, 2021-approximately 36 weeks. Colorist Matt Wallach handled the final grading at Company 3.

Obviously, a movie that deals with a giant comet that's about to destroy the planet has a hefty VFX component. Approximately 750 VFX shots were completed primarily at Framestore and Scanline VFX. There was a computer-generated comet created for all comet shots, along with a heavily augmented CG background and CG ships and creatures at the end of the movie.

For the two launch scenes, a CG space shuttle, rockets, drones, and base were created. And beyond that they did set extensions, crowd additions, production fixes, and television and monitor composites. The editorial team also used Adobe Creative Cloud applications including After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Media Encoder.

Caption: Leonardo di Caprio and Adam McKay discuss the observatory scene in Don't Look Up. Image © Netflix

According to the team, some of the bigger creative challenges centered around finding the correct tone and the balance of comedy, satire, and drama. Hank Corwin talks about the first Oval Office scene. "You had these great actors in a room for two days, and they're running between four and six cameras. With these actors, there's such a plethora and gamut of performances. You may choose a piece of improv and you're not going to know that it's not working until you're into the film for another 35 minutes. So, you're constantly refining and fine tuning the tone and the emotional colors of the film."

In the end, the effort of bringing this film to life was only slightly less heroic than the movie's characters' attempts to save the world.

Dune

Denis Villeneuve's Dune was one of the most eagerly awaited films of 2020, and its delayed release only ratcheted up the anticipation. Fans of the Frank Herbert novel hoped to see a version that hewed more closely to the book, while those loyal to the 1984 David Lynch version hoped it would take the story to new and different places.

What both can agree on is that the quality of the world building is first rate, and the story has the time to breathe and unfold in all its complexity and nuance.

Villeneuve's longtime editor Joe Walker sat down with Steve Hullfish for a video interview in October 2021, and generously took us further into the mechanics of their workflow for this article.

The massive production took place over 96 days of principal photography in locations from California to Budapest, Jordan, Abu Dhabi, and Norway. Winning the Oscar for Best Cinematography, Greig Fraser (who also won both the BAFTA and ASC Award for Best Cinematography for Dune) used ARRI Alexa LF 4K cameras and ARRI Alexa Mini LFs with Panavision H-Series and Ultra Vista Lenses. They captured in Alexa RAW which was transcoded to DNxHD 115 for Avid. According to Joe, there was a "good amount" of single-camera capture, and also quite a lot of IMAX.

Having to keep both the wide-screen and IMAX presentations in mind, Joe explains, "We started cutting at 1:43, and once we'd felt that we were confident, we flipped over to cutting at 2:39. It felt like a more comfortable, less distracting viewing experience when we were showing cuts to the producers."

During principal photography, Joe and his team were in Budapest with the production, moving back to LA to work from the Legendary office in LA afterwards. There, Joe and Denis were able to work together in person, which Denis strongly prefers to do, likening their collaboration to that of a band's.

Which is why it took some adjustment for both of them after the COVID restrictions forced them to work remotely with Joe in LA and Denis in Montreal. As Joe says, "I had to get used to seeing the front of his face. I've sat to the left of him for so long that the right side of his face is like the dark side of the moon." But, like others, Joe appreciated the flexibility of working from home. Being able to have a middle-of-the-night idea and execute it, then returning to bed and sleeping well was an unexpected perk.

The rest of the editorial team-first and second assistants, supervising VFX editor plus two VFX assistant editors, and an editorial PA, also worked remotely using Jump desktops to remote into the Avid Nitris DX at Legendary.

The VFX component was, as you'd imagine, epic. From animated sandworms to 3D spice harvesters to practical ornithopters, Dune 's visual effects incorporate a full range of techniques both practical and computer generated.

The extensive world building was supervised by Paul Lambert, who previously worked with Villeneuve on Blade Runner 2049, for which he earned an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The bulk of the approximately 2000 effects shots were handled by DNEG, with Wylie VFX, Rodeo VFX, and Territory Studio also contributing.

Villeneuve and Fraser used a hybrid digital capture-film scan approach that Fraser had developed to give the final movie a look that's not as sharp as digital or as soft as film. Fraser explains the process: "You basically shoot the movie digitally, give it a quick grade, output it to film and then grade the scan of that. This gives you the best out of digital and the best out of film, and we found it to be a really interesting process." Final grading was handled by Dave Cole at FotoKem.

Joe, a classically trained musician, talks about how Dune was "a massive work of rhythm." Working closely with composer Hans Zimmer (who is also Oscar-nominated this year), Joe has woven the many visual, musical, and sound elements together to create a rich and immersive viewing experience.

One of his biggest challenges? "Trying to make Paul's inner world compelling, and rendering the telling of this story both strongly rhythmic and gripping," he says.

From the first shoot day until the final delivery, two years elapsed. And, clearly, every minute and every dollar spent is evident on the screen, and by its 10 Oscar nominations.

Period music also plays a huge role in each of the films. Although only West Side Story is an actual musical, Van Morrison's songs organically act as the score for Belfast, as do the popular songs of the 1970s in Licorice Pizza. Even more so in period pieces, recalling the sights and sounds are equally vital to immersing the viewer in a specific time and place.

Belfast

Sir Kenneth Branagh's reflection on his early childhood in Belfast during "The Troubles" of the late 1960s is a poetic rendering of a tumultuous time in Irish history in all its beauty and turbulence.

Branagh's longtime cinematographer, Haris Zambarloukos (with whom he's made eight films) shot on Arri Alexa Mini LFs with Panavision System 65 Lenses for 35 days. Sadly, due to the pandemic, they were unable to shoot on location in Belfast and instead had to recreate the neighborhood on a set at Farnborough Airport, just outside of London. They captured at 4.5K Open Gate in ARRIRAW 24 fps at 1.85:1.

Digital Orchard handled the dailies duties using Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 16, applying the show LUT along with the CDL values from the DIT, and delivering DNxHD 115 files for editorial along with H.264 QT 720p files for dailies distribution.

While Sir Ken was shooting in London, editor Úna Ní Dhonghaíle was working in Dublin. "I had an Avid with the drive in my house; he had an Avid with the drive at his house, my assistants had the same," she says. "We had three second assistants because people stayed with us for two months at a time-which is the nature of independent film-and the same thing with the first assistants.

Carly Brown was a first assistant who stayed for the duration, but Simon Davis and Matthew Tucker both did two months each just to help with the sheer volume of turnover for sound and preparation for grade and everything. The other second assistants are Lydia Mannering and Tímea Kalderák, and they helped a lot with all of that turnover."

During principal photography, Úna says that the schedule was very tight. "We had to hit the ground running. Let's say he started shooting Monday morning; that meant I was editing Monday night so that we could show him the first assembly of that week by Friday night. He would wrap at 7:00 pm and be with me by 8:00 pm, and we watched everything until midnight just to make sure we got everything or if he needed anything extra."

Because they weren't physically together, they did a lot of their work over the phone, Úna says. But despite their distance, the fact that this is the third film they've done together meant that they had an established shorthand.

"Normally, if the director's in the room with you, you can show them ideas and cuts quickly," Úna says. "But because Ken wasn't physically with me, I'd build a few options and have my assistant render it and send it over to his bin, and he could just press play and get on the phone with me. It was brilliant because it meant that Ken was actually very hands-on and could watch these different versions. It was a really great experience. It meant that both of us were crafting and exploring anything that could happen."

Zambarloukos shot in color and they desaturated during the final grade, done at Goldcrest by colorist Rob Pizzey. But there are pops of color at crucial plot moments, including the opening and closing of the movie to highlight the vibrancy of Belfast in the present day.

Úna explains that aesthetically, "the black and white is a motif to represent the past, but when they went to the cinema that would be in color. Ken was trying to show the impact on the child, that cinema was an escape. It was very vivid and real in the midst of all the ordinariness of life."

There's nothing ordinary about Belfast, however. From concept to screen it's an extraordinary realization of a passion project by a group of dedicated filmmakers.

Licorice Pizza

A Paul Thomas Anderson film is always a joyous event for cinephiles, and Licorice Pizza is yet another of the auteur's masterpieces. A departure from the dark and moody films he's been recently known for, it's a nostalgic look at a place beloved to the director-in this case the San Fernando Valley of the 1970s.

Anderson chose to shoot and finish on film for 65mm projection, which required an elaborate dual workflow. Shooting in 35mm on Panavision Millennium XL cameras with Panavision C-series Anamorphic lenses, the 65-day shoot took place exclusively on locations in the Valley and LA. They mostly used one camera, except for stunt or driving scenes, and shot some sequences in 16mm for Gary's POV. (Fun fact: Anderson and co-cinematographer Michael Bauman shot with the same pair of Panavision Millennium XL2 35mm film cameras that were used on the J.J. Abrams-directed Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.)

The original 35mm camera negative was developed by FotoKem in the early morning hours and then scanned in 4K. The film dailies were color timed by Don Capoferri, who would then make 35mm prints of all lab rolls. Using the scans, FotoKem synced up production audio for each lab roll and burned the audio files to DVD-R. Prints and discs were then sent to editorial for dailies screenings, where audio would be synced up to picture via Fostex DV40 decks.

Andy Jurgensen talks about the unique experience of watching film dailies with Anderson. "We get the film first, even before we're getting it digitally because that's just the way everything gets processed with the scanning. So the first time we're seeing it is on print. We can judge so many things when watching it big on film. Not only the performance, but the lighting, and the lenses and focus."

Digital dailies color timer Greg Curry set looks based on the print reference and sent digital frames to editorial for review. Once approved, FotoKem nextLAB rendered out Avid media at DNxHD 115.

Andy and Avid first assistant editor Jay Trautman worked on Mac Pros with Avid NITRIS DX. During production, Andy and Paul worked together in an office space. Jay had his Avid set up at his home and each worked off a 20TB external hard drive. Dailies were copied to each location using shuttle drives, and during post they shared media and render files via secure Dropbox folders.

Post-production lasted approximately a year, during which film first assistant Bill Fletcher worked out of Pivotal Post, where the dailies film prints were stored after the screening. (According to Andy, Bill also works with the other directors who shoot film, like Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan.)

Once the cut was locked, Bill conformed the workprint using the Avid cut list and checked it on a KEM junior edit table with a chasing Fostex DV40 Master Recorder deck for audio sync.

Unlike many of the other films, Licorice Pizza contains minimal VFX. Anderson prefers to do everything practically and preserve the original 35mm negative as much as possible. The final photochemical version has about 40 digital negative shots for reflection removals, paintouts, stabilizations, speed changes, and titles.

Mo Henry cut the original camera negative and handed it off to FotoKem, who created A/B rolls for printing and doing the optical dissolves. Kristen Zimmermann was the photochemical color timer for the 35mm release prints and the 70mm release prints. Mike Sowa handled the DI color timing and mastering.

It's a challenging workflow under the best of circumstances but the COVID remote factor upleveled the difficulty, and post-production supervisor Erica Frauman was key to keeping everything running smoothly. Between sharing Avid bins and media, tracking film dailies, and making sure the five members of the editorial team stayed in sync, she kept a lot of plates spinning.

As Andy puts it, "This movie is just so unique. You can't really put a label on it. It is a coming of age story, a romance, and a meandering slice-of-life kind of thing with all these crazy characters."
Politics aside, by combining time-honored technology with modern-day ingenuity and tools, Spielberg and co. were able to imbue West Side Story 2021 with a fresh look and dynamic energy that makes seeing it on the screen as thrilling to audiences as it was 60 years ago.
Which is to say, it's another Paul Thomas Anderson film, perfect not just for its meticulous construction, but also for its authentically perfect imperfections.

West Side Story

If you're Steven Spielberg and your dream project is to bring a new version of the iconic musical West Side Story -which won 10 Oscars in 1961-into the world, you'd best bring your A+ game.

Spielberg definitely brought his A+ team, as we've discussed, along with an attempt toward greater cultural authenticity, going so far as to not subtitle the Spanish lyrics in an effort to not "give power to English over Spanish." Still, the outcome remains somewhat controversial.

Yes, they shot on celluloid (as they almost always do) in an effort to capture the technicolor vibrancy of the original. But, also, Spielberg and Kaminski were able to easily move their cameras to create a more actively immersive experience for the viewer by bringing new and previously unseen angles to the dance numbers. Kaminski has also said that he was able to bring in all the lights he needed to achieve a sharp depth of field, and enhance the "razzle dazzle of Broadway musicals," whether shooting at night or in the streets of New York City in the summer.

Like Paul Thomas Anderson, Spielberg and Kaminski used a pair of Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2s with C-series and T-series lenses and shot on Kodak stock in 2.39:1 widescreen. Steadicam operator John S. Moyer who, according to Kaminski, used to be a dancer, was able to maneuver through the production numbers to fluidly capture the action.

Shooting took place over 81 days in and around New York City and Patterson, NJ, from July through September of 2019. Kodak processed the film each night, and Technicolor graded and scanned the dailies the next day. That night, they created DNx115 files which they delivered to the editorial team the next morning. According to editor Sarah Broshar, the assistant editors synced the sound and organized the film into scene bins and dailies rolls.

During production, they had a NYC cutting room set up, and there was also an on-set editing trailer to work with Spielberg. Their machine configuration was Avid Media Composer 8.9.3 on Mac Pros with local NEXIS storage for the media. The team consisted of the two editors (Michael Kahn and Sarah Broshar); associate editor Pat Crane; assistant editors Kevin Birou, Andrey Ragozin, and Nicholas Lundgren; music Editor Joe E. Rand; and PAs Tim Quane (NY) and Molly Biscardi-Silver (LA).

After principal photography, they moved to Los Angeles for post-production in October 2019 where they worked until COVID shut them down in mid-March 2020. After that, they worked from home over the summer and completed the cut in September 2020. Fortunately, for the most part they were able to work together with Spielberg.

Shooting in New York in 2019 for New York in 1957 meant that there were a lot of modern window air-conditioner units and satellite dishes to remove, as well as some set extensions. The 667 VFX shots were handled by MPC, Lola VFX, and Mr. X.
Without the release of those tentpole blockbusters, a raft of low-budget, high-quality, under-the-radar films broke through, paving the way for future indies to garner wider recognition.
Technicolor also handled the final mastering, with supervising colorist Michael Hatzer (formerly a photochemical timer) performing the final grading.

Now that you've read about the films, we'll take a closer look at the industry. After the past two years of upheavals and adjustments, let's see what patterns have emerged-and what trends seem to be taking hold.

Déjà vu
From the cautious reopening of the world last summer to the holiday season arrival of the Delta and Omicron variants, theaters have yet to get back to any kind of business-as-usual stability.
Remember way back in early 2020 how we were excited about seeing movies like No Time To Die and Dune and West Side Story? And how we assumed they would be Oscar contenders for 2021?

The proof-of-concept that was the 2021 Oscar slate bears out. This year, we have the low-budget and critically acclaimed darlings Belfast, CODA, and Drive My Car. Then there are the mid-budget offerings like King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, and The Power of the Dog.

So let's have yet another look at how COVID has impacted the industry, turning some of last year's predictions into this year's trends.

The box office story

As recently as 2018, the U.S. box office hit an annual record of $11.8 billion, followed by 2019's $11.3 billion-demonstrating only a 5% dip that is likely attributable to the rise of streaming services.

And then came 2020, the year when the U.S. box office dipped by a catastrophic 81% to take in only $2.1 billion.

The rebound in 2021 sounds like a lot over the previous year-113%-but that means that the annual take of $4.5 billion is still 60% below the last pre-COVID year.

With box office earnings currently standing at $765 million at nearly the end of the first quarter of 2022 (largely boosted by the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home), it's probably fair to say that this year still won't come close to the pre-COVID box office highs.

Movie theaters are dead-or are they?

Remember the first time a studio decided to release what would have been a theatrical blockbuster as a premium video on demand (PVoD)? It was in April 2020, when Universal released Trolls World Tour at a 48-hour rental price of $19.99. It was a smash, earning more in three weeks than the original did in five months at the U.S. box office. Warner Bros.' Scoob! followed suit.
Some described missing the communal experience of watching movies with others: the shared laughter or jump scares, or bonding with nearby attendees over plot twists or meanings.
When Disney decided to release Mulan exclusively on PVoD for a rental price of $29.99 in September 2020, some industry experts predicted the demise of the theaters. During the first year of the pandemic it certainly seemed as though people-particularly those with children-were happy to pay premium prices for the at-home experience. This trend led former CEO of Paramount and 20th Century Fox, Barry Diller, to declare that the movie business as we knew it was dead.

Or was it? As the pandemic dragged on and cabin fever set in, the theaters were met with a resurgence in attendance. The performance of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which knocked Avatar out of its third-place all-time highest grossing movie slot with a North American box office take of $760 million-and $1.8 billion worldwide-provided the first hint that people were ready to head back to packed theaters.

And then came The Batman. Released on March 4, 2022, it reached $128.5 million in domestic ticket sales in just its first weekend. Despite its higher ticket prices ($1-$1.50 more than for other features screening in the same multiplexes) and nearly three-hour running time, people flocked to see it.
When you dig into who has financed and distributed this year's movies, you may see the answer come into clearer focus.
According to a survey conducted by Vox in December 2021, movie lovers missed more than just getting out of the house. Naturally, some missed seeing blockbuster movies as they were intended to be seen-on a giant screen with surround sound and a big bucket of popcorn.

But surprisingly, even older moviegoers have returned to theaters to watch "art-house" offerings. The theatrical success of Belfast, earning $34 million at the worldwide box office, is a sign that quality films can still draw audiences. And if they come with a glass of wine or a pint of craft beer, even better.

Streaming services and PVoD

So what does that mean for the streaming services? If movie theaters are rebounding, will the streamers see a dip in their subscriptions?

Netflix financed two of this year's films: The Power of the Dog and the sole big-budget offering produced in 2020-21, Adam McKay's Don't Look Up.

Even McKay himself was gobsmacked to learn that Don't Look Up broke Netflix's own viewing record, garnering more than 150 million viewer hours in just its first week.

Warner Bros. produced Dune and King Richard, both of which streamed on their subscription service, HBO Max, for 30 days while also opening theatrically-which had been the case with all their films from Wonder Woman 1984 in December 2020 until The Batman in March 2022.

Dune earned more than $100 million at the domestic box office and nearly $400 million worldwide because loyal fans wanted to see the spectacular effects on the big screen.

Would it have earned more with an exclusive theatrical run prior to streaming? Maybe. But even still, Dune enthusiasts are already eagerly anticipating the sequel.

Meanwhile, Disney Studios funded two films through their subsidiaries: Searchlight Picture's Nightmare Alley and 20th Century Studios' West Side Story.

After a strong premiere at Sundance 2021, Apple Studios purchased CODA for a record $25 million in a bidding war with Amazon who, after their acquisition of MGM, streamed Licorice Pizza as a $20 PVoD rental after its successful theatrical run, earning $27 million worldwide.

The takeaway? As the content-production giants consolidate, they continue to secure their dominance in the global marketplace by creating movies for screens both large and small.

Release strategies are changing, as the theatrical-run windows narrow to accommodate those viewers who prefer to stay home. At the end of 2021 Netflix had 203 million subscribers; Amazon Prime had 150 million; Disney had 94 million at Disney Plus (and as a majority owner of Hulu another 38 million); and HBO Max had 17 million.

It may be too early to predict how the day-and-date release model plays out in the long-term impact on box office earnings. But according to studio executives speaking at the 2021 Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) expo, giving movie lovers faster access to more content and more choices over how to consume it bodes well for continued engagement.

The good and bad news

As the DEG expo also cited, the pandemic has proven that people's appetite for entertainment is virtually insatiable.

In 2021, they reported an annual expenditure in home entertainment of $32 billion dollars. That's the good news.

But looking at the predictions for 2022, some casualties seem inevitable. For example, as the number of movie theaters shrinks, it will likely impact the ability of indie films to get theatrical releases.

As we began to see even pre-pandemic, the variety of films being produced has diminished as franchises, sequels, adaptations of properties with a built-in audience, and remakes have dominated theaters. (Of the ten Best Picture nominees, four this year are remakes, including Dune and West Side Story).

And then there's the cost of producing movies while adhering to COVID safety regulations, which affects the lower-budget productions disproportionately and, for any film, can cause unexpected production delays.

Still, there's reason to remain optimistic that our industry will evolve and adapt. Historically, even in dire times like the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, and the Great Recession, people crave diversion, which means that creativity flourishes.

The annual off-screen dramas

Last, but hardly least, there's invariably a controversy connected with the way the Oscars operate, and this year is no different.

In 2020, #OscarsSoWhite drew the industry's attention to the lack of diversity among nominated movies. In 2021, the pendulum swung a little, when the first woman of color (and only the second woman, ever), Chloe Zhao, took home the award for Best Director for Nomadland. (Interestingly, the subject of the film itself was the main source of the controversy last year, in its depiction of the conditions in Amazon's warehouses.)

This year, we have The Power of the Dog's Jane Campion and her female cinematographer, Ari Wegner, nominated in their respective categories, with Campion taking home the Oscar for Best Director. But although Sian Heder's CODA won Best Picture, she wasn't nominated in the director category, instead taking the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

All of which is to say, there's still plenty of work to be done. Even with AMPAS's continued efforts to diversify its membership and to encourage diversity both in front of and behind the camera, there are still some glaring gender inequities.
At this year's ACE Eddie awards, whether in speeches or private interviews, most editors agreed that excluding craft categories is a slight to all involved and a disappointment to the many people who bring considerable talent, time, and skill to them.
According to The Celluloid Ceiling report, of the top-grossing 250 movies of 2021 only 6% had women DPs, making Ari Wegner's nomination that much more noteworthy as only the second woman in Oscar history. On the other hand, if you look at the fact that of the ten movies nominated for Best Picture, two had female cinematographers ( CODA 's Paula Huidobro is the other), that's an unprecedented 20%, so there are glimmers of hope.
For those of our readers who are editors, or who appreciate the importance of their contributions, we see you. That's why we'll once again run a separate article highlighting the creative editing process behind the Oscar-nominated films in our editors roundtable.
This year's controversy concerns the decision not to live-broadcast awards in eight important categories, including Best Editing and Best Sound.
Sincerest thanks to Stephen Hullfish and to the PR teams at Netflix, Impact24, Strategy PR, and Paula Woods Consultants for their outreach to the editorial teams behind the nominated films. We especially want to thank the respondents for their time and insights: Géraud Brisson, Sarah Broshar, Úna Ní Dhonghaíle, Morgan Heller, Paula Huidobro, Andy Jurgensen, Mary Juric, Andrew Loschin, Pamela Martin, Cam McLachlan, Staci Pontius, Sarah Russell, Peter Sciberras, Michael Shusterman, Kat Spiess, Chris Voutsinas, Joe Walker, Doug Wilkinson, and Azusa Yamazaki.
A similar decision in 2019 was spurred by the previous year's (then) all-time low viewership, resulting in limiting the broadcast to three hours by excising the presentations for Best Editing and Best Cinematography, among others. The backlash caused so much industry outrage that prior to the broadcast it was overturned and all awards were televised.

Last year, the 2021 broadcast broke the 2018 record for low viewership with its scaled-back COVID coverage and relatively "small" movies. Once again, ABC's effort to boost (and retain) its audience ignited a firestorm of criticism from Guillermo Del Toro in a speech at the Hollywood Critics Association awards ceremony to luminaries including James Cameron, John Williams, and Kathleen Kennedy in a letter to Academy president David Rubin.

None other than the great Walter Murch has expounded on the essential relationship between director and editor. And as Dana Glauberman, ACE reminded us during a recent interview, a movie is written three times: first on the page, then in production, and finally in the edit suite.

For now, that's a wrap. As always, we welcome your comments, observations, and insights. Most of all, we thank you for your contributions to the art and craft of filmmaking.

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Workflow Breakdown of Every 2022 Oscars Best Picture Nominee

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Welcome to Frame.io's annual Oscars Workflow Roundup! If this is your first time, this deep dive gives you all the details about what it takes to create an award-worthy movie. And if you've read our coverage in previous years, we thank you for joining us again.

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BAFTA Membership aimed at future creative leaders in the film, games and television industries.

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Introducing BAFTA Connect, a new tier of membership as part of BAFTA's ongoing mission to strengthen support for future creative leaders in the film, games and television industries.
Applications are now open and will close on Thursday 28 April, 18:00 GMT. Apply here
BAFTA Connect UK welcomes applications from emerging and mid-level creatives and executives, with a 3-year term limit.

Applicants should be currently working in the film, games and television industries at emerging and mid-level in their field.
UK Benefits

A tailored development programme: roundtables and workshops with BAFTA winners/nominees and wider industry, as well as structured peer-to-peer networking.

Full-day conferences aimed at developing craft and understanding of best practive and industry landscape - eg. sustainability, mental health and wellbeing, anti-bullying and harassment and leadership.

Access to BAFTA's year-round programme of in-person and online industry events and screenings.

Access to BAFTA 195 Piccadilly, including full use of the members' club for networking, meetings and entertaining.

Access to curated content on BAFTA View, BAFTA's online viewing platform.

Discounted Room Hire at 195 Piccadilly for private screenings and events.

Inclusion in the online BAFTA Connect Membership Directory, which is promoted to full BAFTA members and the wider industry.

Opportunity to apply for ceremony-only tickets at selected awards ceremonies

UK Criteria
We welcome applications from emerging and mid-level creatives and executives currently working in the film, games and television industries meeting one of the following criteria:
Writers, directors and producers

Actively working towards their debut feature-length project or their first TV, streaming or online commission with previous experience in shorts, short form, theatre, web series or radio.

Recently completed their debut feature-length project or their first TV, streaming or online comission.

Making a creative contribution to the film and/or television industry as a director, writer or producer for hire - including writers and directors of block/ series episodes and writers' room credits.

Development, production management, craft, technical, post-production, research and editorial roles

A minimum of two broadcast or feature credits in the last three years.
Those with experience in theatre, commercials and short form may still be considered at the discretion of the jury.

Actively working on, and making a creative contribution to, games produced and/or distributed in the UK with up to five years experience.
Exhibition, distribution, sales and acquisitions

​Currently working for a broadcaster, distributor, production company or industry body with up to five years' experience
For more information, please take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions

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Introducing BAFTA Connect, a new tier of membership as part of BAFTA's ongoing mission to strengthen support for future creative leaders in the film, games and television industries. Applications are now open and will close on Thursday 28 April, 18:00 GMT.

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Researcher Tom works in unscripted TV. He interviews behind the scenes talent about their roles and more

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Hey, my name is Tom and I'm trying my best to make TV more accessible by talking to people, both in scripted and unscripted about what they do. If you have any questions, or want to be involved then please get in contact.

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Facebook group for UK based sound professionals (or aspiring professionals) working in sound for picture as a primary role. Sound mixers, recordists, designers, dialogue and effects editors, boom operators, Foley artists, assistants and trainees.

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This is a group for UK based sound professionals (or aspiring professionals) working in sound for picture as a primary role. Sound mixers, recordists, designers, dialogue and effects editors, boom...

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We divided the world into 3 metre
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AMPS - Association of Motion Picture Sound

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AMPS - Association of Motion Picture Sound

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UK  craft guild made up of over 550 of the most imaginative and highly experienced people working in Film, Television and Game sound.

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New Podcast

AMPS PODCAST EP 11 - JOHN ALDRED A LIFE IN SOUND (PART 2)
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Credit Initiative

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E-NEWSLETTER

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EVENTS

AUDIO & VIDEO

AMPS is a craft guild that represents the best in UK Film, Television and Game sound. Our more than 550 highly skilled members include Production Sound Mixers, Sound Designers, Supervising Sound Editors, Sound Editors, Re-recording Mixers, Music Mixers, Music Editors, Boom Operators, Sound Assistants, Foley Artists, and many more.

AMPS organises regular socials, training sessions, and screenings for members. We provide technical and creative support both on-line and in person, and are constituted to strive for excellence in our craft. Though our entry requirements are strict, all active members of the industry are encouraged to join us.

NEWS

Keep up to date with all the latest News from AMPS and its Members.

AMPS EVENTS

Keep track of all AMPS Events, along with other relevant dates for you diary.

SUSTAINING MEMBERS

AMPS financial and industry supporters help make up our Sustaining Members.

THE LIBRARY

View our Library - Recorded Events, technical papers, video, audio and more.

SALES & WANTS

See a list of items for Sales and Wants by Members.

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AMPS | The Association of Motion Picture Sound.

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AMPS PODCAST EP 11 - JOHN ALDRED A LIFE IN SOUND (PART 2) Find out more >> To see the open letter, click here Find out more >> AMPS supports any attempts to end racism and discrimination..... Find out more >> I'm looking for a... Search all entries on our website...

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Production Executive at Sky Sports - Jennie Blackmore

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Production Executive at Sky Sports - Jennie Blackmore

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Day in the Life of a Sky Sports Production Manager

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Filming The Fire! | Behind The Scenes | EastEnders

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This is the official YouTube channel for RED Digital Cinema that showcases creative visionaries who use RED cameras to shoot their projects. Every video is v...

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Annual, FREE to attend, tech expo, usually takes place in Amsterdam but now webinars available

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The IBC Accelerator Innovation Programme has, since its inception in 2019, reflected key emerging themes and challenges within the broad media & entertainment eco-system.

The IBC Accelerator Kickstart day is an opportunity to get involved and learn more about the programme - a framework to support fast-track collaboration and innovation, identifying, addressing and solving business and technology challenges in a matter of months.

Prospective challenges for 2022

Sustainability and Climate Change

Virtual Sets & Cloud Enabled Virtual technologies

Cyber and Content Security

Advertising, particularly dynamic ad insertion

Game engine live animation

The ongoing evolution of 5G and unfolding new capabilities

Other potential challenges include Flexible (Object based) media, live event-based workflows, video telemetry, video compression and volumetric video for live broadcast.

Only 6-8 projects are expected to get underway for culmination at IBC in September and your voice counts!

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the ibc technical papers programme welcomes entries from all industry sectors across the media

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entertainment and technology industry and from every discipline

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The IBC Accelerator Innovation Programme has, since its inception in 2019, reflected key emerging themes and challenges within the broad media & entertainment eco-system. The IBC Accelerator Kickstart day is an opportunity to get involved and learn more about the programme - a framework to support fast-track collaboration and innovation, identifying, addressing and solving business and technology challenges in a matter of months.

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3D rendering and animation

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KeyShot brings you real-time 3D rendering that displays results instantly and reduces the time to create realistic product visuals. KeyShot is trusted by brands around the world for its speed, ease of use, scientifically accurate materials, and advanced material editing capabilities. Communicate your ideas easier, explore concepts sooner, and deliver jaw-dropping visuals faster - Try KeyShot today.

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KeyShot brings you real-time 3D rendering that displays results instantly and reduces the time to create realistic product visuals. KeyShot is trusted by brands around the world for its speed, ease of use, scientifically accurate materials, and advanced material editing capabilities. Communicate your ideas easier, explore concepts sooner, and deliver jaw-dropping visuals faster - Try KeyShot today.

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3D Design Software

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3D Design Software - Fully Integrated BIM | Vectorworks

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Design software that delivers a flexible and collaborative design process to architecture, landscaping and entertainment professionals. For Mac or Windows.

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Free download for open source graphics software

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Free 3D design software

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Free trial download for 3D design

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Rhinoceros 3D: Download Rhino for Windows or Mac. Also available are Work-In-Progress (WIP) builds to current Rhino version license holders.

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Free trial download for software used by post production & VFX for media management

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Can't find an app to solve your problem? Build one with FileMaker's low-code platform to digitize real-world processes and obtain better insights.

With FileMaker you can:

Eliminate time consuming manual processes

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There's not a thing I've found that the FileMaker Platform can't do...I've never experienced anything like it.

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Lead Digital Systems Manager, Harvey Water Softeners

Get a 45-day free trial.

I have read, understood, and agree to the Terms of Use. I also understand how Claris will use my information. Privacy Policy. You can opt-out anytime by clicking the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of our emails.

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Download a free 45-day trial of Claris FileMaker Pro along with ready-to-use templates to start solving your business problems.

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The AD Guild is the professional association for all Assistant Directors working in the UK - a centre of excellence which provides training, benefits and grade certification.

A Service for Productions

COVID 19 Guidance

Get up to date with the latest experiences of working with COVID on various production and read the most up to date guidance in our resources section.

Find An AD

The latest upgrade to our Find an AD facility. Fine-tune your search to include AD's availability, skills and on set experience.

Guild Committees

Education & Training

1st AD, Francesco Reidy introduces the Guild's Movie Magic Scheduling training, available soon for AD Guild Members.

Commercials

Working on behalf of all Guild members working in Commercials.

Sign up for our newsletter

Keep up to date with everything going on at the AD Guild

Assistant Directors Guild UK is a company registered in England and Wales (Company No. 12741448)

First Floor, 23 The Drive, London E4 7AJ, UK

© 2022 Assistant Directors Guild UK Ltd

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The AD Guild is the professional association for all Assistant Directors working in the UK - a centre of excellence which provides training, benefits and grade certification. A Service for Productions Get up to date with the latest experiences of working with COVID on various production and read the most up to date guidance in our resources section.

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The TV Studio Production Handbook - Lucy Brown & Lyndsay Duthie

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The TV Studio Production Handbook - Lucy Brown & Lyndsay Duthie

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The TV Studio Production Handbook explains the production process from beginning to end and covers everything media students need to know to create a successful studio television programme.

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The TV Studio Production Handbook eBook : Brown, Lucy, Duthie, Lyndsay: Amazon.co.uk: Books

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BFE - British Film Editors. 1,088 likes · 474 talking about this. British Film Editors (BFE) celebrates and promotes the art, craft and science of editing. Founded in 1966, BFE's membership is...

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Exec Producer, Shu Richmond shares top tips for getting into unscripted TV as a career

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A multi award-winning senior producer and highly effective manager, Siubhan has extensive experience of developing, producing and managing live and pre-recorded factual, cookery, daytime and lifestyle programmes. As Editor of ITV's flagship daytime programme, 'This Morning', Siubhan achieved a NTA and two TV Quick awards in successive years after turning around the ratings of this long-running series.

Specialising in the conception, development and production of innovative programming she set up the award-nominated 'The Villa' for Sky One, conceived the unique format of 'Have I Been Here Before', a regression series for ITV1 and was instrumental in developing Peter and Jordan as presenters in their own chat show for ITV2.

As an Executive Producer for ITV Daytime and Lifestyle, Siubhan successfully managed all aspects of television production, including compliance, commercial projects, PRTS and secondary rights development.

Siubhan is now a Media Consultant providing training in making, presenting and pitching to TV in the UK.

Founder & editor of website, So You Want To Work in Television (www.wanttoworkintv.com)

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An Expert's Guide to Getting into TV eBook : Richmond, Siubhan: Amazon.co.uk: Books

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Breaking into UK Film and TV Drama - Matt Gallagher

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Breaking into UK Film and TV Drama - Matt Gallagher

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The book also includes unique contributions and advice from leading organisations such as AMPAS, BAFTA, Creative Skillset, Film London and WFTV, as well from Oscar and BAFTA-winning talent including Amma Asante (director, A United Kingdom), Steven Hall (VFX DoP, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and Rebecca O'Brien (Producer, I, Daniel Blake).

Adrian Wootton, Chief Executive of the British Film Commission, says: "A refreshingly honest, remarkably comprehensive view of the challenges, opportunities, and obstacles faced by those entering the UK film industry. Backed up by well-researched facts, historical analysis and real insight from an array of talented professionals it is a valuable guide to this wonderful business."

Lizzie Evans, runner ( Holby City, Spectre), says: "The ultimate secret weapon for anyone aspiring to work in drama. Packed full of facts and information and with interesting insights from industry pros, this book will equip you with all the knowledge you need to kickstart your career (and give you tips on how to get ahead once you're in)."

A comprehensive guide to finding work in UK Film and TV Drama for new entrants and graduates.

Includes information on...

How to find work in the Film and TV Drama industry

How Prep, Production, and Post really works

Understanding the paperwork

Guide to the UK job market and production companies

How to write a brilliant CV and cover letter

Advice on networking, finding jobs & building a career

Plus....

10+ interviews with experienced Oscar and Bafta-winning crew

50 'pearls of wisdom' from the best in the business (more below)

100+ job titles and departments explained

200+ Film and TV terms explained in our glossary

250+ useful links and resources

Insight from the people who worked on Gravity to Game of Thrones, This is England to Downton Abbey, Sherlock to Bond. You will find this book packed with authoritative insider knowledge from some of the very best in the business

Includes exclusive comments and career advice from:

Lord David Puttnam, Producer, Chariots of Fire

Carola Ash, Director of AMPAS (The Oscars) Europe

Amanda Berry OBE, Chief Executive, BAFTA

Alison Small, Chief Executive, The Production Guild

Dinah Caine CBE, CEO, Creative Skillset

Amma Asante, Director, Belle

Roy Button, Executive Vice President, Warner Bros. Productions

Jacqui Taunton-Fenton, Head of BBC Drama Talent

Jed Mercurio, Writer/Director, Line of Duty

Debbie Vertue, Head of Production, Hartswood Films, Sherlock

John Yorke Head of Company Pictures

Rebecca O'Brien, Producer, Sixteen Films, I, Daniel Blake

Gillian Berrie, Producer, Sigma Films, Under the Skin

Sarah Greenwood, Production Designer, Beauty and the Beast

Neil Corbould, Special Effects Supervisor Saving Private Ryan

Nigel Heath, Hackenbacker Studios, Downton Abbey

Nicky Ball, Creative England Crew & Facilities Manager

Vicki Allen & Tamana Bleasedale, Calltime Company

David Worley, Camera Operator, Game of Thrones, Indiana Jones

Andy Lowe, Gaffer, Paddington

Flora Moody, Make Up & Hair Artist, The Avengers: Age of Ultron

James Cox, Stunt performer, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Mark Sanger, Editor, Gravity

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Breaking Into UK Film And TV Drama: A comprehensive guide to finding work in UK Film and TV Drama for new entrants and graduates for

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Buy Breaking Into UK Film And TV Drama: A comprehensive guide to finding work in UK Film and TV Drama for new entrants and graduates for by Gallagher, Matt (ISBN: 9781523676002) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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The Kid Stays in the Picture - Robert Evans

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The Kid Stays in the Picture - Robert Evans

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Tell-all autobiography from Robert Evans, the legendary Hollywood producer ("The Godfather", "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown") who's lived the Hollywood dream

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From his marriage to Ali McGraw, his cocaine bust, the accusations of murder, the friendships with the likes of Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman, to his legendary court case and bust up with Francis Ford Coppola, this is the tell-all autobiography from Robert Evans, the legendary Hollywood producer ("The Godfather", "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown") who's lived the Hollywood dream.

He wrote a great autobiography.

Your review has been submitted successfully.

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The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Alan Evans | Waterstones

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From his marriage to Ali McGraw, his cocaine bust, the accusations of murder, the friendships with the likes of Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman, to his legendary court case and bust up with Francis Ford Coppola, this is the tell-all autobiography from Robert Evans, the legendary Hollywood producer ("The Godfather", "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown") who's lived the Hollywood dream.

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Attend Our First Bootcamp for Free!

Saturday, December 5th

In our very first live Bootcamp we're going to take a detailed look at the power of creative editing and many of the skills that separate the keen amateur from the high-end professional. This is not software training, these are the skills that turn you into a powerful creative editor.

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Once Upon a Timeline: The Official Inside The Edit Podcast

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In our very first live Bootcamp we're going to take a detailed look at the power of creative editing and many of the skills that separate the keen amateur from the high-end professional. This is not software training, these are the skills that turn you into a powerful creative editor.