Getting Started in Film & Television - An Introduction

Irregular work, long hours, hard work, not fantastic money. Glamour? Yeah Right.
If you want an easy life, find another career. Still interested? Read on...

Why are we doing this?

When we set up film-tv.co.uk a few years ago, we made the decision to aim the site only at experienced practitioners already working in the industry. Why? Well, firstly as we both work in film & TV pretty much full time, our free time is a little limited and we simply don't have the time available to manage submissions from new entrants without degrading the current service we offer. Secondly, being a small part time outfit (just 2 of us) we couldn't compete with the business sites who deal with all levels of personnel including new entrants.

So unfortunately there are no plans to expand film-tv.co.uk to include people with less than one year's commercial experience (there are other sites aimed a new entrants.) However we are very aware of the "Catch 22" situation and due to the increasing number of submissions, emailed CVs and enquiries we have decided to put together some useful (we hope) information on do's and don't's to getting that foot in the door.

Introduction

With such a huge amount of graduates wanting to work in the media each year (well in excess of 20,000 and that's just from media related courses) making the right impression is obviously key. Put frankly, a large proportion of the recent bout of CVs/letters we have received were in all honesty terrible. Employers will very rarely tell you this and more often than not your CV goes straight in the bin.

Studies show you have around 30 seconds to make an impression with your CV so make the RIGHT impression.

We do not claim to be the fount of all knowledge, to offer the perfect guide to getting a job etc and we certainly don't know any secrets but we can give pointers. Some of it may appear to be stating the obvious, some of it might appear to be incredibly picky, and some of it might even make complete sense. Believe me employers do have pet hates, notice the fact that you have spelt curriculum vitae/your own name incorrectly, the absence/incorrect use of punctuation*, absolutely no reference to why you might be interested in a career in this strange industry, the absence of any relevant experience etc.

The information is compiled from a variety of sources including experienced crew and HODs listed on film-tv.co.uk plus a wide variety of useful websites. It is by no means definitive and will be amended as time progresses (treat it as a work in progress) but, we hope it offers some useful advice particularly in areas where advice seems to be scarce.

So read and inwardly digest; a little bit of planning might just give you that push in the right direction.

 

 

*Please note we are not professional writers (this is probably obvious) we therefore make no apologies for not being word/punctuation/grammar perfect on occassion. Cassell's Guide to Punctuation by Loreto Todd is however a very helpful book.