Courses are grouped in three strands: Step Up, Your Life at Work and Mind Your Business. Each strand lasts for one month and is offered four times a year, with multiple iterations of courses within the month. This ensures there are plenty of opportunities for people to forward plan and schedule training around their work and life commitments. There is an exhaustive list of all our courses sorted by strand below.
Step Up
Step Up offers training to help individuals coming back into the industry after a break, moving into a new role or responsibility level, or improving skills in unscripted TV.
Courses offered in this strand usually take place in January, April, July, and October; they include:
- 1-to-1 format clinic with the format doctor
- Advanced podcasting
- All ideas welcome: development for non-developers
- Access all areas: How to negotiate the keys to the kingdom
- An introduction to branded content: top 10 tips for getting started
- Archive 101
- Career mapping in a changing industry
- Casting researcher
- Creating a route map from shoot to edit
- Creating branded content: the deep dive
- Development for small indies and individuals: How to compete without an in-house team
- Directing with style – and making the most of your budget
- Essential influencing skills: getting the buy in at work
- Essential kit knowledge for PCs and PMs
- Finding the story – on the shoot and in edit
- Future proofing your post production workflows
- Interviewing contributors in unscripted
- Key questions to ask your format from the get-go!
- Make AI work for you: development toolkit
- Networking essentials: how to build and grow your professional network
- No silly questions – post production edition
- No silly questions – small group camera tutorials
- Podcast 101
- Post production for production teams – editorial teams
- Post production for production teams – production teams
- Scripting for unscripted
- Sizzles masterclass: how to create a tape that will sell your show
- Schedules, audience and budgets: decoding TV buyers’ needs
- The AI age: what’s next for unscripted post production
- The art of commentary to capture audience engagement
- The perfect deck: how to plan, write and design pitch materials
- Writing a shooting script in real time
Your Life at Work
Your Life at Work offers training aimed at sharing workplace best practice as well as how you and your teams can stay healthy, happy, and productive, both in work and when looking for your next opportunity.
Courses offered in this strand usually take place in February, May, August, and November; they include:
- A practical guide to neurodivergence in the film and TV industry
- Building self-trust in your professional life
- Career sustainability in unscripted TV
- Creating inclusive productions: how to make deaf, disabled and neurodivergent crew part of your team
- Deaf awareness training in association with Signpost Productions
- Developing the art of successful negotiation
- How to have difficult conversations at work
- Leadership and management essentials for those working in unscripted TV
- Managing new entrants
- Managing people for the first time
- Managing tricky relationships
- Navigating post production work on traumatic content
- Setting yourself up for success: making every role count as a freelancer
- The CIISA standards explained
- Trauma-informed contributor communication and language
- Welfare and duty of care essentials
Mind Your Business
Mind Your Business offers training in a range of areas related to business management and development, production finance, legal and business affairs, rights and compliance. They give individuals the tools needed to thrive in their chosen field in unscripted TV.
Courses offered in this strand usually take place in March, June, September and December; In addition to the courses listed below, the latest AI Briefings with Kelsey Farish can be found in the Training Directory by filtering your search to "AI."
- Business affairs 101
- Creating a budget and schedule for unscripted TV
- Embracing industry change: diversifying revenue streams for production companies
- End of production paperwork for production management
- Fair dealing in unscripted content
- Funding your factual projects: an introduction to co-productions and alternative sources of funding
- Globalising your development slate
- How to push boundaries and navigate legal risks in unscripted TV
- Libel masterclass for unscripted productions
- Managing Excel cost managers
- Music licensing 101 – Learn the basics of music licensing with MediaTracks music
- Ofcom 101 – Introduction to Ofcom
- Production management in focus:
- PM in focus: The changing role of a PM
- PM in focus: Employing freelancers
- PM in focus: Welfare for on-screen participants
- PM in focus: Mental health and wellbeing for PMs and their teams
- PM in focus: Health and safety and risk assessments
- PM in focus: Legal and compliance
- PM in focus: Music rights
- PM in focus: Managing co-productions and international versions
- PM in focus: Sustainability and albert reporting
- Production paperwork for editorial teams
- Risk assessments 101
- Setting up shoots in remote and hostile environments
- Staying attached – Legal essentials for creators in development
- Understanding budgets for editorial teams
- Understanding budgets for series producers and executive producers
- Understanding commissioning for production teams
- Understanding, managing and creating post production schedules
- Understanding rights in television
Connect and Inspire
Connect and Inspire offers a variety of sessions, from in-person networking and online roundtables to in-depth case studies. All are designed to promote the sharing of knowledge and the building of relationships across unscripted TV.
As these sessions are often standalone sessions reacting to current industry needs, we won’t be keeping an exhaustive list on this page. Instead, see all upcoming sessions here.
If you have an idea for a Connect and Inspire session please get in touch with the team at USF@screenskills.com.