Media Parents

An Introduction to Edit Producing with Jo Woolf

by

Thanks everyone who joined us for our freelancers monthly hello in November. Followed by…

Media Parents members gleaning edit producing tips from Jo Woolf

Edit Producing is one of the more family-friendly roles in TV and one that TV Trainer and Exec, Jo Woolf, decided to move into over 15 years ago when she started her family. Having joined us for Media Parents Autumn Drinks, Jo is offering a free intro to Edit Producing.

Jo Woolf Edit Producer Training

Jo now runs Edit Producer training as well as working on productions and on Wednesday 6th November she is running a special session for Media Parents members with her top tips about Edit Producing, including a Q and A.

If you are new to edit producing, or want a refresher, then this 1 hour free session, hosted by Media Parents Director Amy Walker, is for you. For more info about Jo take a look at her website at jowoolftv.com

Jo Woolf, left at Media Parents Autumn Drinks

www.mediaparents.co.uk - the jobs and social networking site for short term, part time, job share and regular hours jobs in media. For free events for subscribers go here: https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk

October 21, 2024 @ 8:49 pm Posted in News Comments Off

Christmas Drinks for Freelancers with TV Mindset

by

ALT TEXT: Flyer with Christmas tree, deer and candy canes advertising Freelancers Christmas Drinks on Weds 4th December from 6pm til late at The Miller, Snowsfields, London SE1. Turn up early if you want a free drink!

November 6, 2024 @ 2:26 pm Posted in Events Comments Off

Unwritten by Mel Leschallas

by
Media Parents is delighted to share this piece by writer and yoga teacher Mel Leschallas, written on Doon Mackichan’s Loch Rannoch retreat.

Writer Mel Melvin shares a piece from Doon Mackichan's Loch Rannoch writing and wild swimming retreat

UNWRITTEN

Blacken the pages
Take down the books from the shelves
Remove the pen from every scribe
Stand by the gravestone and utter not a word

I can’t write without you

I learnt to form my letters on your knee
I herded ink into squares
Only to delight you,
To lie down in the ‘C’ of your thin-lipped smile

I can’t write without you

At primary school I wrote a pearly sentence to hang around your neck and learnt how to disappear
into a book.

As a teenager, you drew out novels for me from your high shelves
Like an apothecary dispensing a vial of medicine
Heyer, Trollope, Mitford, Shreve

You could spot the past imperfect subjunctive from a mile off,
you taught me how to place an adjective and turn a phrase
You were my grammar,
My exclamation mark,
My full stop.

Finally I wrote my first novel and you kept it beside you during your final chapter,
At the hospice I read you Keats and left gaps for you to mouth the words – Alien corn.

I can’t write without you.

So let’s stand at the graveside,
may the inscription I ordered be my final words:

CICELY KNOWLES
1940-2023
BELOVED MATRIARCH

To join Mel’s Brighton Yoga retreat on Saturday December 7th click here.

Our next event is on Nov 6th, scroll down the blog for more info www.mediaparents.co.uk - the jobs and social networking site for short term, part time, job share and regular hours jobs in media. For free events for subscribers go here: https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk

November 2, 2024 @ 3:02 pm Posted in Freelancer Profiles Comments Off

5 minutes with Actress Doon Mackichan

by

Doon Mackichan has written (hilariously and often painfully) in her memoir about her principled career choices and where they’ve got her as a staunch feminist. You can imagine. Now motherhood is shaping her decisions, Mackichan is a lonely voice in this looks-obsessed industry calling out botox, writes Media Parents Director Amy Walker.

Doon Mackichan on the banks of Loch Rannoch with Media Parents Amy Walker

“I don’t want to shame women who want to do things to their faces because it’s completely their face and they can do what they like. I think what we have to be responsible for, is the legacy we’re giving to younger girls. So if you’re a mum and if you are like ‘Oh I just hate that line’ – when your daughter sees her first line, she’s going to hate that line. So we’re just teaching our daughters that we are not happy with our faces, so we’re basically under the tools of the patriarchy…”

We’re sitting on a bench beside Loch Rannoch in the Scottish Highlands, where Doon is running her creative writing and wild swimming retreat. I privately wonder if she is carrying the black marker pen she famously uses to deface cosmetic surgery ads, but I guess there won’t be too many billboards around here.

“Plastic surgery has never been so massive – the blue circles of shame made us hate ourselves – so beautiful young women hate themselves and their bodies” Doon continues, “So if we’re just going – ‘oh it’s just a little freshener’ – that’s actually very insidious because that’s bleeding into a culture that says ‘I don’t want to see an older face’. We are role models. It’s everywhere now, even some of our favourite actresses are succumbing to it. They have work done to keep working…”

Personally, I’m relieved to hear this opposition to botox from Doon – it’s refreshing and inspiring to have an unbotoxed public figure unrepentantly sticking two fingers up at the cosmetic industry. We need more feminist icons like her to be open and honest and lead a separate path, loudly. Reflecting on the conversation later, I realise I feel a pressure lifted that has sat on me for at least a year, and I’m not even on screen. My close friends are pretty much divided down the middle in terms of botoxers and notoxers. They talk to me about it – the procedures or the resistance – and those who are resisting are frequently told by other women that they need work.

photo credit : Doon Mackichan

Don’t be mistaken – Doon does have physical advantages over many of us. She is beautiful, tall, built like a greyhound, clever, funny. She has been cast opposite Jon Hamm, say no more: “I have to have a word with myself when I see myself on screen – because you see yourself in high definition – that was a terrible, terrible invention” she says, her eyes crinkling with laughter. “HD is every thread vein – imagine you think ‘I don’t like that photo because I don’t like my neck’ – imagine you’re just a moving photo which is effectively what that is… I want to be someone whose face moves and whose face is her history. I don’t like looking at faces that have been “done” – I can’t bear watching them. I feel very passionate about botox because it’s filtering down an image of self-hatred” says Mackichan.

But touched up faces are undoubtedly the majority of faces on screen these days, and Doon is likely making a decision that could cost her roles. Nonetheless, she is insistent that her career choices haven’t been solely financially motivated, and has been open about using Universal Credit to keep herself and her family afloat during lockdown. It’s surprising to learn that a performer of her standing was in that position, and yet in the Guardian long read publicising Doon Mackichan’s book and career, amongst many things, she reflects regretfully on being “a little bit poor”.

Like many creative freelancers at the moment, Doon may well get poorer if the government doesn’t step up its efforts to jumpstart TV and the creative arts. Despite her recent BAFTA nomination, the future of the BBC sitcom Two Doors Down, in which she plays “foul-mouthed, half cut and self-centred” alcoholic Glaswegian housewife Cathy, is uncertain after the sudden death of writer and friend, Simon Carlyle. The team behind the show bravely and subtly put alcoholism at the centre of a Christmas special – if you haven’t seen it is remarkable, funny, authentic. Production of Season 3 of her Amazon show Good Omens also looked uncertain for while. Most of us it seems are walking this precipice of talent, luck, contacts, persistence.

photo credit : Morag Jamieson

Even so, Doon is principled about the work she will and won’t take – she enters into everything with best feminist intentions and on her own terms. She has written in her book about holding out against the advances of ITV’s I’m a Celebrity – a line she won’t cross. I do think she could clean up in the jungle – I’m convinced she would massively increase the devoted following her character Cathy has in Scotland (we dine in a private room at the highland hotel so she is not continuously mobbed), her earnings from that alone would likely buy a London flat. But it’s not an argument I’m going to win. “I would lose my integrity if I went into the jungle – my whole career has been about trying to guard that” says Mackichan firmly. Likewise her face. “Hopefully it’s going to pass, this [botox] fad, but I’ve got a feeling it’s embedding. The only way to stop it is to show girls botox is not the only way.”

photo credit : Morag Jamieson

Doon’s way is generally not the easy way. In her book she is creative, determined, battling her demons. In front of me at the lochside she tells me she is often described in interviews as cold, but she definitely sees herself as a sister. And the sisterhood has brought us here, to surprisingly sunny Loch Rannoch, on the swimming and writing retreat.

“I started a cold water swimming group through the pandemic. Three of us started in Hastings, socially distanced… and by the end it had swelled to 103… Coming out of the water I would just feel ‘Wow! My mental health is recovered’. When I got back to London I just remember thinking ‘I want to give this to more women’”. And so she has. Along with Travel Matters, Doon runs this annual retreat. The one I attend is an interesting mix of people who have never cold water swum before, alongside women with a compulsion to hurl themselves into freezing water daily; published writers, women who have not enjoyed creative writing since school, and quite a few in between.

https://www.travelmatters.co.uk/scotland-wild-swimming-writing

“Cold water swimming is a quick fitness fix” Doon tells one of the women as she emerges from the water, energy renewed. “Fitness in three minutes!” And who would deny this busy, determined career woman and divorced mother a quick fix? She has seen a path to taking others along on her ride. After three days, everyone on the retreat is embracing the water and the writing at their own level of comfort, some beyond. There are writers who arrived blocked, one cold water swimmer who slammed on the brakes when the water reached her ankles on day one – she is now up to her goosepimpled knees. I’ve used the cold swim part of things to get into gear for October’s #Dipaday, which has inspired me to take part in the November 3rd https://marchforcleanwater.org. As for the writing side of things, you’re reading some of it.

Doon is a charming facilitator, offering writing prompts, and sparse but strict rules for the daily two-hour creative period: no laptops and complete silence. The only water regs are to listen to the health and safety briefing and to make some noise on entry. The group is fairly socially diverse, and expertly curated by Doon, who definitely earns her whack by hosting nightly drinks and dinners with the retreatants, where we largely laugh and laugh. [There is booze, it’s not that kind of retreat].

For Doon’s part, cold water swimming helped her write her memoir “My Lady Parts: A Life Fighting Stereotypes”. She wrote it during the pandemic. “It wasn’t written for publication, I just sat down and wrote a chapter each day, working backwards from the present… What a cold dip does is it just blasts out all those voices that tell you what’s the point in doing that? Not sure I would have done it without the swimming, not sure I would have been quite as alive.”

As for so many of us, lockdown was not an easy time, we are still coming out of its shadows, and many of us with or without domestic responsibilities are grappling its legacy in creative terms. “Our focus is completely punctured by so many things in our day – admin, life, children, partners, parents – ageing parents – it’s ridiculous” says Mackichan. “You don’t have to do that all day, you can set aside two hours – two hours is a long time, you can get a lot done.”

Wild swimmers at Loch Rannock. Just do it. Join some of us at marchforcleanwater.org London Nov 3rd

Media Parents will be publishing short pieces of work from the retreat drawn from family life. If you would like to write for the Media Parents blog, please get in touch.  For more information about Doon Mackichan’s retreat click here.

Our next event is on Nov 6th, scroll down the blog for more info www.mediaparents.co.uk - the jobs and social networking site for short term, part time, job share and regular hours jobs in media

October 28, 2024 @ 1:00 pm Posted in News Comments Off

5 minutes with PM Michele Kimber

by

I’ve been a Production Manager for 24 years and one thing I enjoy most is nurturing my teams, writes Michele Kimber. Attending Media Parents Autumn Drinks has inspired me to blog for the first time about my career.

PM Michele Kimber, left, not wanted by Interpol at the Media Parents Autumn Drinks https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/18138/michele-kimber

My job is not just making the budget and schedules work, it’s to ensure that everyone on the team know that they can talk to me regardless of the situation; being able to notice if someone is not happy, getting them to tell me why, and then finding a solution which is best for them and the team. It’s also making sure that you are on the same side as Editorial, so when they come up with a ‘must have’ item, it’s being able to say yes but then asking what they could do without. This ‘must have’ generally goes away!

Every time you think you’ve seen it all, something else happens that you really couldn’t have predicted.   During my 5 years working on Wife Swap (7 series back to back) we had a contributor who decided she wanted to go home before filming completed, the problem was she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to fly back North or go by train; as it was a Bank Holiday, this was causing considerable problems. Whilst she was changing her mind for the umpteenth time she managed to run away from the team into a swanky London hotel and straight into a wedding party having photos taken in the lobby; she then passed a note to a very bemused window cleaner saying she had been kidnapped by Channel 4.  That took some unpicking!

On Made in Chelsea (series 4 BAFTA award winning!)  we were filming a Christmas special in a country house and we had a very specific get out time, otherwise we were going to be heavily fined.  MIC was notorious for not adhering to timings so my job was even more stressful on that day.    I managed to get everyone out with 5 minutes to spare, when the house-keeper announced that the men’s toilet was blocked and I needed to deal with it.  With nothing to use other than my bare hands, the toilet was cleared but I was unable to wash my hand as I had to leave, only to see about ten cleaners standing at the door waiting to come in. My journey home was spent with my hand out of the car window, arriving back home at 3 in the morning.  I laughed about it eventually.

At Blast! Films, the one genre I said I would not be happy with was animals, especially if they were injured.  How they laughed, saying I’d just finished 26 episodes of 999: What’s Your Emergency?  During the first series of The Supervet onlines, I made the Online Editor turn the surgeries into black and white; by the second series I was much more comfortable with the formerly distressing material.  I went on to do not one, but three series of The Supervet!

I’m extremely adaptable and, after experience with shows like 999 and Forensics: The Real CSI (and Wife Swap) I am across all compliance and legal too. I am not good at having my photo taken (I’m afraid to say that I generally end up looking like I’m wanted by Interpol in 26 countries) so here is a picture of my trusty calculator which is currently showing my job situation…

Finally, not working, I miss not being able to tell my team that I’m going to join the Foreign Legion if things get a bit sticky.  The last time I said it, a coordinator asked me if they were a girl band he’d never heard of.  Said coordinator is now a very successful Series Producer!

To contact Michele Kimber, log in to Media Parents and click here.

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/18138/michele-kimber

www.mediaparents.co.uk - the jobs and social networking site for short term, part time, job share and regular hours jobs in media. Our next event is a hello to new members followed by Jo Woolf's Edit Producing tips - scroll down the blog for more details

October 25, 2024 @ 3:28 pm Posted in Freelancer Profiles Comments Off

5 minutes with Edit Producer Heidi Perry

by

Returning to TV as a Producer/Director after my second break in 25 years seems like a bold move when 60% of the industry is still out of work writes Edit Producer Heidi Perry. I’ve tried to reinvent myself as a charity communications manager and PR a few times but I always find I’m longing to do what I do best; collaborating with contributors and finding the gold in hours of rushes to tell a powerful story. Unscripted TV of any kind – I actually love it all – is in my DNA. On a shoot or in the edit, everything makes sense. And I know that the more experience I have of life and of other kinds of work, the more I become a better Producer/Director or Edit Producer. To this end I attended Media Parents Autumn Drinks and had a surprisingly great time, meeting some great hirers and freelancers.

Heidi Perry, centre, was on great form at Media Parents Autumn D. Pictured here with ClearCut MD Rowan Bray, hosting

While travelling with my family last year, I made 5 episodes of Shamba Shape-Up, a popular farm makeover show that goes out to 8 million viewers across East Africa. Filming with a Kenyan crew was an incredible experience and made me want to go back to TV more than ever. So I’m jumping back in! So far I’ve had some feature doc development work with Blackbox Multimedia and I’m putting feelers out for edit producing or directing. The commissioning landscape has changed considerably since I last left, but adaptability is a superpower possessed by anyone working in TV, and I have it in spades. I also have a passion for TV that I can’t shake and valuable experience I know I can put to great use.

Heidi Perry on location in Kenya

The first time I left TV, after a trip to Cameroon undercover filming Crime Scene Wild for Animal Planet, it was because on my return, my two-year old daughter Nina gave me one look and strolled nonchalantly away. It was clearly time to stop going away all the time and luckily, alternatives came along: the first at Immediate Films directing charity fundraising films that would raise £1 million at high-profile events. The second was making films for the Ministry of Justice about the issues faced by vulnerable women in the criminal justice system. Making films with a purpose honed my storytelling fast and I learnt how to impact an audience in different ways.

Heidi Perry shooting in the Cameroon for Animal Planet

When my daughter was older, I tried TV again. I’d missed the camaraderie and collaboration of team-working across a series. I did some development in BBC Specialist Factual, a Hairy Bikers’ food history series, an Antiques Roadshow spin-off obs doc, a few series of Bargain Hunt. Then I fell in love with fixed rig filming as a P/D on One Born Every Minute and The Hotel for C4.

Although bouts of edit producing made TV more compatible with parenting, when my relationship ended, I struggled as a single mum on freelance contracts. So I took an offer of a secure job in a national children’s charity. People asked if I missed TV and I’d call to mind squeezed budgets and crazy hours, trying to convince myself and them that I didn’t, but in truth I missed it unbearably. Now it feels wrong not to be doing what I love so much. So here goes again…fingers crossed!

October 21, 2024 @ 3:00 pm Posted in Freelancer Profiles, News, TV Returners Comments Off

Media Parents Autumn Drinks Gallery

by

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for Media Parents Autumn Drinks – we had a great time! Freelancers met with hirers including ITN, All3Media, Dragonfly, Yes Yes Media both in the room and live from the event on zoom. We were so well looked after by the ClearCut Pictures team led by Rowan Bray and Phil Knowles – thank you! Watch this space for more, join us at Media Parents to join in!

Join us inside... Media Parents for networking, jobs, training and community https://www.mediaparents.co.uk

Big Fish Little Fish Head of Children's and Young Audiences Ros Attille has a serious discussion about fashion with the ClearCut team. Richard studies the floor

Dragonfly's Head of Talent Gayl Paterson chats with freelance PD Tom Colvile

“Thank you for a lovely evening!” Jo, Exec Producer

Freelancers Mav Brown PM and Tom Colvile, with Story Films' LP Donna Blackburn

All3Media's Annie Conlon, centre, and PM Michele Smith left.

“Glad it was fun,  it felt very retro to be meeting in person!   I think it was a mixture of reassuring those who are looking for work and networking for those in work, seemed a really positive event.” Rowan, ClearCut Pictures

Producer Katie Flamman with Offline Editor Daren Tiley, very pleased to be back on the blog after all this time. Editor Liz Convey behind

PD Lorraine Molloy, left, made it all the way from Cornwall. PD Heidi Perry with ClearCut MD Rowan Bray. Thank you so much for lovely hosting

“Thanks for a brilliant meet up last night, it was really nice to catch up with some familiar faces, and meet some new ones too. And it was so nice of Clear Cut to host again.” Anna, Producer / SP

Huge thanks to Offline Editor Alex Kirkland who hosted a simultaneous zoom from the event, joined by freelancers and companies

Tinopolis' Katie McAfee was no sooner through the door than she was zooming - thank you Katie

It was great to have you around and I’m glad everyone enjoyed themselves. Was good to see everyone get over the initial awkwardness and socialise.” Phil, ClearCut Pictures

Director of Production Sarah Buckenham from Yes Yes Media meets with a returning freelancer

Thank you Zara McFadden ITN for making everyone laugh on zoom

“Great to meet the other night. Really good event and good energy in the room!” Jim, SP

I love this pic of Producer Julie Dawson-Wills

Box to Box's LP Emily Freshwater and Scripted PM Richard Godfrey had a laugh with the zoom attendees

This is just a quick note to how much I enjoyed yesterday evening’s Autumn Drinks at ClearCut Bloomsbury. Thank you for arranging the evening and making sure that I was meeting other invitees that might be relevant to my career.” Richard, PM

“A quick thank you for organising the event last night. It was great (and a bit strange) to be among so many people. And thanks also for all you’re doing to support everyone just now.” Tom, SP

Media Parents' Amy Walker with returner Steph Carpanini - thank you Jo Woolf for the photo!

A good time was had by all. It can be a lot to get to an in person event after working remotely, or looking for work for a while. The energy in the room was great, and the garden was good to escape to too!

“Thank you so much for organising such a lovely event last night. It was so nice to meet yourself and so many others in real life!

Thanks also very much to Clearcut for hosting – and I’m so sorry that we outstayed our welcome! How did it get to 9pm so quickly?!” PD, Eliza

Spot the back of Little Bird TV SP / Exec Matt Holden. Thanks Jules Seymour for the photo

Yes Yes Media's HOP Sarah Buckenham with Lucy Maxwell, Community Development Manager from Film + TV Charity. FTVC have available funding for freelancers who need stopgap help to pay rent and bills, and also have free available counselling support for freelancers - get in touch with FTVC to find out more

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for Media Parents Autumn Drinks – we had a great time! Freelancers met with hirers including ITN, All3Media, Dragonfly, Yes Yes Media both in the room and live from the event on zoom. We were so well looked after by the ClearCut Pictures team led by Rowan Bray and Phil Knowles – thank you! Watch this space for more, join us at Media Parents to join in!

www.mediaparents.co.uk - the jobs and social networking site for short term, part time, job share and regular hours jobs in TV

October 18, 2024 @ 5:35 pm Posted in Events, News, TV Returners Comments Off

5 minutes with Edit Producer Sarah Mckenzie webb

by

Back in the Game: My journey as a new Mum and job-sharing Edit Producer

Juggling life as a new mum and diving back into the world of TV post- production felt daunting! writes Edit Producer Sarah Mckenzie Webb. But after 10 months of maternity leave, I was eager to return to work, and ideally I needed something that would let me be the mum I wanted to be while still flexing my creative muscles. That’s when luck stepped in – I landed a job share on a show I know like the back of my hand: Married at First Sight UK.

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/18399/sarah-mckenzie-webb

This opportunity was perfect for dipping my toes back into the TV pool. I was paired with Lydia Akonas, another lovely mum and very established Producer and together, we had all the ingredients to whip up something great. I brought my seven series of MAFS UK/AU experience to the table, while Lydia added her fantastic background in big entertainment shows and reality TV.

Our setup was pretty ideal: Lydia took the reins from Monday to Wednesday, and I wrapped things up on Thursday and Friday. Working consecutive days gave our editor, Will Porter, the continuity he needed and kept our workload smooth and steady. We kept in sync with phone calls, WhatsApp messages, sharepoint documents and by cc’ing each other on every email. We made sure that every note or piece of info was shared between us, so no one was left out of the loop, nor needed to repeat themselves.

One of my favourite parts? The voice notes Lydia would send at the end of her days – long, detailed updates that got me pumped to jump back in. It’s a system that worked brilliantly for us and, honestly, made me realise that job sharing is my new secret weapon for balancing work and motherhood.

Between Lydia and me, with our combined experience on shows like Britain’s Got TalentI’m a CelebCelebs Go DatingLove is Blind, and Big Brother, we managed to craft an episode that was even better than before. Two producer brains (plus our awesome editor) really do make magic!

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/18399/sarah-mckenzie-webb

This gig has shown me that I can have the best of both worlds – doing what I love while being there for my daughter. It’s a balance I’m excited to keep in my future projects.

Now, I’m on the lookout for my next Edit Producer role. Ideally, another job share with a fellow talented producer. If you’re reading this and want to chat, whether over a real or virtual coffee, hit me up via Media Parents. Let’s make some TV magic together!

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/18399/sarah-mckenzie-webb

Our next event is Autumn Drinks in London www.mediaparents.co.uk - the jobs and social networking site for short term, part time, job share and regular hours jobs in media. For free events for subscribers go here: https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2024/08/event/

October 11, 2024 @ 11:35 am Posted in News Comments Off

5 minutes with Senior Producer Jodie Chillery

by

September is synonymous with the back-to-school rush when reality slaps us hard in the face as summer memories fade and we resume our 9 to 5 timetable writes Senior Producer Jodie Chillery.

September is also Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, giving us an even harder dose of reality faced by an increasing number of families worldwide, many of whom would do anything to endure the routine slog of back-to-school preparation. So would you settle in on a cosy September evening for a 90 minute documentary on the subject?

You’d be forgiven for finding alternative viewing, but if Nile Rodgers and Joely Richardson can throw their weight behind it, then perhaps so can you. If you need further persuasion this opening paragraph from The Telegraph’s TV review might do it.

“A documentary about children with cancer might sound like punishingly grim viewing. A sort of misery safari for rubberneckers to wallow in tragedy. Kids Like Us (Sky/NOW) defies all such expectations. This feature-length film is uplifting, frequently funny and really rather beautiful.”

I wrote about my experience working on this project here (https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2024/03/5-minutes-with-senior-producer-jodie-chillery/) back at Easter. Now I can shout about it, and it is possibly the most shouted about film I’ve been involved with. When I started out on BBC’s Watchdog, long before social media and when BBC1 primetime consumer affairs shows regularly courted 8 million viewers, I used to get a bit excited, butterflies as the title music rolled and we went live to the nation’s households.

As the years went by, traditional TV audiences diminished along with the novelty of my career, that buzz I felt as a fledgling runner never quite replicated. Last week, Kids Like Us, a 90 minute feature documentary produced by Echo Velvet in association with Children With Cancer UK and available now on SKY/NOW TV was played out on Leicester Square’s IMAX screen with over 700 people in attendance. A VIP red carpet event sponsored by pladis Global  and hosted by Cineworld was a spectacle that the factual documentary genre rarely enjoys. If September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month, what more awareness could you want with Nile Rodgers, Sophie Capewell, Ashley Cain, Tracey Ann Oberman and Brentford manager Thomas Frank all making an appearance.

Jodie Chillery's profile: Jodie Chillery Senior Producer (also available now for job opportunities!) Jodie has had work through Media Parents and now wants more! To contact Jodie log in to Media Parents and click here: https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/4945/jodie-chillery

This glitzy affair must surely be a career highlight worthy of that kind of juvenile excitement first felt back on Watchdog. Yet, amongst the glitz and glam of the evening, something way more significant occurred, perhaps the real career highlight and most definitely the reason you should tune in.

One of our contributors hugged me and whispered “Thank you, you’ll never know how grateful we are for giving us a voice, filming with you has been life changing for all of us.” I don’t recall a contributor saying anything quite like that to me before, not with so much emotion for sure. For me it cements the importance of documentary programming and if we were able to give these kids a voice, they now need to be listened to, it’s the least they deserve. Available now Kids Like Us on SKY/NOW TV.

Jodie Chillery Senior Producer (also available now for job opportunities!) Jodie has had work through Media Parents and now wants more! To contact Jodie log in to Media Parents and click here: https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/4945/jodie-chillery

October 1, 2024 @ 9:28 pm Posted in News Comments Off

5 minutes with Media Parents Amy Walker

by

How have you been filling your time when not working? Asks Media Parents Director Amy Walker. (Media Parents is running a series of free courses for freelancers so job applications hit the spot and it’s been great to meet so many talented freelancers through those. Make sure you catch the networking workshop before Media Parents Autumn Drinks!)  I love wild swimming and as well as all the sh*t in TV, I am infuriated by what’s happening in our waterways, so I’ve signed up to Surfers Against Sewage A Dip a Day in October largely to raise awareness of how often we cannot swim in the water these days due to dumping. I’ve enlisted champion wild swimmer Doon Mackichan (Toast / Two Doors Down / Smack the Pony) to help me face the brown water problem.

Actress Doon Mackichan will be cold water swimming with media parents Amy Walker in September

This weekend Doon is running her annual wild swimming and writing retreat in Scotland. I’m heading there to try to get my creative back after this soul-destroying period in TV, and partly as a way to limber up for October’s Dip A Day. Scotland, in my experience, is always a season ahead of England, so I figured if I can swim in a loch in “skins” in September, the English Channel in October is going to feel practically Mediterranean.

If you know me you know I don’t do things by halves, but actor and stand up Doon Mackichan is way beyond me in those stakes. Her book My Lady Parts details her dynamic progression from cold water to cross channel swimmer; motherhood successfully raising a child through leukaemia; and countless freelance career battles that anyone in TV can relate to and be inspired by. All this with a sense of humour and a strongly feminist punch.

Amy Walker, Media Parents Director looking warm and dry. Brace yourself for October's Dip a Day (photo: Robert Ludovic)

The TV situation, the sewage situation – both cr*p. No real solutions in sight yet. So let’s face it, if this slightly risky experiment to boost creativity and immunity doesn’t work, at least with Doon I will hopefully die laughing.

To sponsor Amy’s Dip a Day go here. Actually we have raised more than the target already so if you would like to join me in supporting a charity that gives families Christmas Dinner and Christmas gifts who would not otherwise receive them then please go here: https://survivingchristmas.co.uk/ I’ll swim for that!

www.mediaparents.co.uk - the jobs and social networking site for short term, part time, job share and regular hours jobs in media. For free events for subscribers go here: https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2024/08/event/

September 15, 2024 @ 4:36 pm Posted in News Comments Off