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:
- Access All Areas: How To Negotiate the Keys to the Kingdom
- A guide to branded content
- AI for TV development: introduction to generative AI for inspiration, research and assets
- Archive 101
- Avid for edit producers
- Career mapping in a changing industry
- Creating a route map from shoot to edit
- Finding the story - on the shoot and in the edit
- Influencing skills 101 with Fiona Dolton
- Interview techniques for unscripted TV
- Introduction to co-productions – how to fund your projects
- Leadership and management essentials for those working in unscripted TV
- Lighting for PDs
- Navigating imposter syndrome
- Networking essentials: How to build and grow your professional network
- No silly questions - small group camera tutorials
- Pathway to production management
- Pitch to production for freelancers: Everything You Need to Go from Idea to Commission
- Podcast 101
- Senior leadership one-to-one surgeries
- Schedules, audience and budgets: decoding TV buyers' needs
- Sony FX6 familiarisation
- Unlocking genre and formats
- Using AI for Unscripted TV development: practical introduction to image generation for posters, pitch decks, and sizzles
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 at work.
Courses offered in this strand usually take place in February, May, August, and November; they include:
- Anti-bullying and harassment training
- 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
- Embracing industry change: Diversifying to future-proof your freelance career
- Enabling mentally healthy productions: The Whole Picture Toolkit - webinar
- Equality and inclusion essentials… with Addie Orfila
- How to have difficult conversations at work
- Managing teams working remotely
- Managing tricky relationships
- Mental health awareness for managers
- Navigating sensitive and traumatic content in unscripted TV
- Sustainable resilience
- Understanding and managing stress with Lucy Adams
- 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; they include:
- AI in unscripted TV: Rights and realities
- Budgeting 101
- Business Affairs 101
- Creating a budget and schedule for unscripted TV
- Data protection for programme makers
- Embracing industry change: Diversifying revenue streams for production companies
- End of production paperwork for production management
- Globalising your development slate
- How to push boundaries and navigate legal risks in unscripted TV
- How to work with production companies to monetise your TV idea
- Introduction to post production for production managers in unscripted TV
- Introduction to post production for series producers in unscripted TV
- Managing costs in post production
- Managing Excel cost managers
- Music Licensing 101
- Navigating the rights minefield: business affairs and copyright… with Ben Green
- Ofcom 101 - Introduction to Ofcom
- Production Management in Focus:
- PM in Focus: The Changing Role of the 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
- TV Trends and Data: What It Means and Why It Matters
- Understanding budgets for editorial teams
- Understanding budgets for series producers and executive producers
- Understanding contracts for production managers
- Understanding rights in streaming and multi-platform
- Understanding the commissioning process for production teams
- Using social media posts in programmes - rights and legal considerations
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.