Congratulations to the six winners of the Media Parents Back to Work Scheme 2016, and thank you to everyone who applied, and to this year’s sponsors – Warner Brothers, SKY, Endemol Shine, Channel 4, the CDN and All3Media. Meet the winners…

All3Media : VIVIENNE PERRY, producer

Viv Perry is a Producer with pre mat leave credits on 24 Hrs in A&E, Inside the Klu Klux Klan and music docs. Having started her career in radio, Vivienne has an eclectic CV with a range of experience. She would like to build on her experience in the edit with a view to series producing ultimately.

CDN : ANNE-CLAIRE PILLEY, PD

Anne-Claire Pilley is a Producer Director based in Glasgow, who was responsible for many Scottish BBC documentaries including My Boyfriend the War Hero, and Transplant Tales. A mum of two young children Anne-Claire has not worked since being diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2016.

Channel 4 : KIRSTY CALVERT-ANSARI, Development Exec

Kirsty Calvert-Ansari is a Development Exec who was Head of Features and Formats development at RDF and a Factual Executive at ITN Productions before taking adoption leave in 2015. In addition to originating commissions, Kirsty was part of the teams who developed Child Genius, The Gift, and Make Bradford British, as well as working on the first series of The Undateables.

Endemol Shine : VICTORIA HARRIS, Casting Producer

Victoria Harris is a Senior Casting Producer who worked for Endemol Shine several times, as well as Raw, Love, Optomen and others, before taking mat leave in 2015. She would like to use the scheme to help her step up to Casting Exec.

SKY : GEMMA EXLEY, Digital Producer

Gemma Exley is a Digital Producer responsible for the online content around big name shows (I’m A Celeb, Big Brother, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway). She could use the scheme to come back in more flexibly after mat leave.

Warner Brothers : ANNA COWDRY, PM

Anna Cowdry is a factual Production Manager whose work includes several South Bank Show series for SKY ARTS, and work for Fresh One and Silver River. Living in Brighton, Anna has always commuted to London, but now that’s no longer an option she needs support to establish herself, ideally flexibly, in a smaller pool.

Please watch this space for details of the scheme’s mentors and updates from Edinburgh TV Festival. Follow our progress at @mediaparents.co.uk.

Media Parents is brilliant for jobs, networking and training - join now at www.mediaparents.co.uk

As a children’s  producer, writes Diana Hinshelwood, I often write scripts but I wasn’t a scriptwriter – despite ambitions to be the next Sally Wainwright. As a parent, the holy grail is working from home.  I can write, I thought.  All I need to do is find an agent.  If only it were that simple.

Diana Hinshelwood, Children's TV Producer and wouldbe screenwriter

Most agents were kind  but weren’t looking for children’s writers.  But one agent said he enjoyed my writing  and if I ever tried writing  for mainstream, he’d happily take a look.

Encouraged by this, I booked onto John Yorke’s Screenwriters’ Course. I was ridiculously excited and nervous about doing something new. The course is on-line, and broken into modules to do in your own time but to a deadline. We posted exercises for others to comment on,  which is nerve wracking  but the comments were mostly encouraging.  And there was no shortage of imagination amongst our group.  What a creative lot we were!

The best bit was watching classic films for ‘homework’.  Thelma and Louise, The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby.  I didn’t mind putting in the hours for that.  But the exercises that followed were hard, and answers by no means obvious.  Who is the protagonist? Antagonist?  What do they want?  Obstacles?  etc .  And did these films follow all the rules?  Well, no. We’re told the protagonist must appear very early on with a clear goal.  So, in “The Godfather” Michael Corleone doesn’t appear until two thirds in.  The exercise prompted fierce discussion and in most cases we disagreed on interpretations.

We also had different tastes.  I thought “Million Dollar Baby” was brilliant, but others were critical of Clint Eastwood and his directing. Another film I loved was the Disney animation “Cars”  – loathed by everyone else. Perhaps as a children’s producer I have a different perspective.

We  had to rewrite treatments for existing soaps – which was difficult even when you’re familiar with the characters.  And ultimately we were building up to writing our own treatments using the structures and techniques we’d been taught.  However, it is one thing to know the rules but quite another to apply them in your own writing.  Ultimately, I loved it!  The feedback I got was amazing. (Quote from David Roden: “This is a cracking piece of writing, and you should be very proud of yourself. Do not stop working on this.”) and with tweaks and advice from David and  John, I’ve been encouraged to turn my treatment into a script.

I’m so pleased I did this course.  It’s given me new skills and confidence – and another challenge.  But that’s what being a working parent is all about.

APPLY BY JULY 31st for the Media Parents Back to Work Scheme 2016. Media Parents is brilliant for jobs, networking and training - join now at www.mediaparents.co.uk

We’re delighted to announce that Media Parents will partner with broadcasters, indies and the Edinburgh International TV Festival for a fourth year running to support parents getting back into TV with our Media Parents Back to Work Scheme – so please apply! APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

Media Parents Back to Work Winners at Edinburgh TV Festival 2015

Media Parents (a social enterprise set up to promote flexible working and help working parents balance the demands of media and childcare) is running a scheme to help parents and carers back in to the TV industry following a career break.

Sponsors so far are Warner Brothers, All3 Media, Channel 4, the CDN, Endemol Shine and more will be announced shortly.  Thank you to Kitty Walshe Remarkable Television MD, PACT Chief Executive John McVay,  Wall to Wall MD Richard Thomson, SKY Head of Comedy Jon Mountague, BBC Wales Series Producer Samantha Rosie and BBC Wales Head of Production Talent Catrin Whitmore, Mark Robinson, Creative Director ITV Shiver and Channel 4’s Deputy Chief Creative Officer for mentoring last year’s winners.

Winner Anne Henry with Channel 4's Ralph Lee at Edinburgh TV Festival 2015

In 2015 seven successful media parents / carers were awarded sponsored places and returned to the TV workplace – this year we’re offering the opportunity again. Will you win a place?

Successful candidates will be awarded a free delegate pass, plus travel and accommodation in Edinburgh, with bespoke mentoring sessions from the sponsors. To apply by July 31st (sooner if you can please!) send an email to us to request an application form or click the link below.

Media Parents Back to Work Winners 2015 at GEITF

Applicants are required to send a 300 word précis outlining their experience and ambitions upon returning to TV, plus a CV including all dates of work, and completed application form obtained from the above address, submitted by July 31st. The email should be titled with the applicant’s name, job title and genre. Applicants must be available to attend the Edinburgh TV Festival from 23 – 26 August 2016. See the Festival programme and dates here : http://www.thetvfestival.com/

Director Vito Rocco is now directing EastEnders having completed the Media Parents Back to Work Scheme 2015

Candidates are required to have 3 years’ experience in TV and should not have worked continuously in TV for more than 12 weeks since the career break. This doesn’t mean you need to have been out of work for 12 weeks, it means you can’t have worked continuously for 12 weeks since you have returned to work.

There is no submission charge but successful applicants must subscribe to either the talent or network section of www.mediaparents.co.uk for one year to prove their commitment to returning to the workplace. Thank you for your interest, we look forward to working with you. Download application form here : application form media parents Back to Work Scheme

APPLY BY JULY 31st Media Parents is brilliant for jobs, networking and training - join now at www.mediaparents.co.uk

Media Parents Offline Editor Daren Tiley writes about working flexibly from his garden edit shed to coincide with the transmission of his latest programme for BBC2, Ian Hislop’s The Secret of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

TXing Saturday 28th May 9pm, Daren Tiley's latest work : The Secret of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

Back in 2008 I decided to build my own small facility in a converted barn within my house grounds in Sussex near Gatwick.  I realised that after working in Soho as an Editor for over 20 years it was time to think ahead of the game and offer a tailor made editing service where directors can work within a relaxed countryside setting without the distractions of busy London life. In a way, I thought to myself why not set up a post house on a mini scale just like the music  industry has done for many years and even offer Bed & Breakfast included in the deal if required.

The Surrey edit that Clearcut built. http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/9614/daren-tiley

So I enlisted the help of the engineers at Clear Cut Pictures to build the suite for me which is still going strong today. The DT Editing Shed was born!!

Since it was built I have cut many single one off documentaries for terrestrial television from “Hammond Meets Moss” for BBC4 & “Eva Cassidy A Timeless Voice”  for Sky Arts are a few to mention…It has grown from strength to strength over the past few years with production companies having smaller tighter budgets thus offering Offline & Online at a fraction of the cost of Soho facilities.

Daren Tiley meets Arrow Media's Head of Talent Dawn Beresford at a Media Parents event.

So last year a director I had worked with at the BBC a few years back contacted me as he had decided to move down to Sussex to live and thus we started working together again.

So this weekend the DT Editing shed announces its first 90 min feature doc on BBC2.

Get ready for “The Secret Of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony”  BBC2 9pm Saturday 28^th May with John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique.

Coming Soon from The Garden Edit Shed yet another 60 min feature doc for BBC2 on “Glyndebourne” backstage !!!

http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/9614/daren-tiley

Media Parents is brilliant for jobs, networking and training - see www.mediaparents.co.uk for details.

Media Parents Composer Isa Suarez’s latest gigs will run from June 3rd – 5th, see below.

http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/12898/isa-suarez

Media Parents Composer Jon Nicholls writes about his recent work for Radio 4 – Clouds in Trousers and In Weatherland.

Almost in shot… Composer Jon Nicholls with Series Producer Katy Ferguson at The Finish Line Media Parents post event in May 2016 http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/3569/jon-nicholls

Alongside my screen work, I’ve also been very involved in radio drama for a long time now as both composer and sound designer. I love it – at its best, it’s an almost cinematic form with an incredibly close and direct relationship with your audience. I’ve just finished working on two related series for Radio 4, which are going out over the next three weeks. The first is a wonderful book by Alexandra Harris called ‘Weatherland’, which is a history of English weather and writers’ and artists’ responses to it. I’ve a long-standing collaboration with the producer Tim Dee, based at BBC Bristol, with whom I’ve worked on over twenty radio projects (https://jonnicholls.com/radio-drama/radio-short-extracts/), and he asked me to compose a series of pieces exploring different aspects of the weather – ice, snow, clouds, wind etc – which was a lovely challenge. Very often the production process for radio drama is similar to that of television, with the composer receiving a ‘picture lock’ to score in the linear fashion we’re all used to, so it was terrific to be able to compose slightly more freely than I often get the chance to.

I’ve always loved the blending and layering of acoustic / organic sounds with electronics and samples, and this was a perfect opportunity to explore this in depth, mixing strings played by the brilliant Bristol Ensemble with abstract soundscapes and textures derived from processed recordings of wind and water. As quite often happens, my children (12 and 15) also both feature! They’re quite used by now to being woken up at odd hours of the day and night to have mics jammed in front of them, and they supplied some lovely whistling and distant wordless vocalisations for the wind piece. It’s being serialised on Radio 4 as a narrative history documentary the week after next.

However, that wasn’t the end of it… Tim felt that Alexandra’s book was so rich that there was much more to be done with it, and commissioned the writer Katie Hims to create a drama inspired by ‘Weatherland’. She’s written a beautiful and touching love story, ‘Clouds In Trousers’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07b3nrd), starring Patsy Ferran and Patrick Troughton, which is being serialised all this week on Radio 4. I did score this one in the more standard way, but drew heavily on the set of pieces I’d already created for ‘Weatherland’, so hopefully they feel as if they share the same musical as well as literary DNA.

http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/3569/jon-nicholls

http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/3569/jon-nicholls

Media Parents is brilliant for jobs, networking and training - see www.mediaparents.co.uk for details.

Things I’ve learned…. by Series / Edit Producer Gaby Koppel.
As Media Parents features a job which could mean a step up for someone working in the regions http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/job-listings/7489/series-producer Gaby Koppel writes about getting on in TV by moving out of London.

Gaby Koppel (left) at the Media Parents Arrow Media networking event. http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/314/gaby-koppel

I was twenty-five and a fresh faced cub reporter straight from local newspapers when I first entered the hallowed portals of the BBC.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the corporation’s iconic Television Centre or even John Reith’s magnificent building in Portland Place but the rather more modest Yorkshire headquarters on Leeds’s Woodhouse Lane, where I was the latest recruit to the popular nightly magazine show Nationwide fronted by Sue Lawley and Hugh Scully.  Two hundred miles away from the glamorous presenters, I was about to have a rude awakening to the realities of regional telly.

LESSON ONE: IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A FIRST JOB, OR A LEG UP, IN TELLY, TRY THE REGIONS.  IT’S LESS COMPETITIVE AND IN THESE DAYS OF REGIONAL QUOTAS THERE ARE LOTS OF GREAT OPPORTUNITIES.  YOU MAY HAVE TO TAKE SOME SHIT, BUT YOU GET THAT EVERYWHERE.

From what I’d seen on screen I expected that I’d be joining a large team and would be able to hide my total ignorance about this fabulous medium by sitting at the back and copying the others.  Arriving punctually, I was whisked into the boss’s office for what promised to be a cosy welcome chat.   It wasn’t.

Leaning back in his chair, a man with grey hair and a cable knit cardigan said: “This is BBC North, we are the regional representatives of the television news and our first responsibility is to serve them.  We also put out a nightly television programme called Look North, that is our second priority.  You, Nationwide, are third.  Never forget that you are last, you are bottom of the pile. I don’t want to hear about you getting in the way of my staff.”  With that, he showed me to my seat in the darkest corner of the newsroom and left me there saying “You better call London.”

That is how I learned that I was the sole representative of Nationwide in Leeds.

LESSON TWO: DON’T BE INTIMIDATED BY GRUMPY MIDDLE AGED MEN. YES, YOU SHOULD RESPECT THEM BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE, BUT THAT DOESN’T GIVE THEM THE RIGHT TO TREAT YOU BADLY.

There was a phone on my desk but no list of numbers.  After a few minutes, Brian the genteel continuity announcer who was sitting opposite mentioned something about ‘the circuit’ without explaining what it was.  More time passed and somebody brought a small contraption to my desk that could have been designed by Heath Robinson – an aluminium box with a speaker and a switch, attached to which by cloth-covered cable was a set of Bakelite headphones.  I swear it was the same kind of model they used at Bletchley Park during the war.

I listened in and could hear disembodied voices.  This was the fabled circuit.  Editors in London were talking to researchers in other regions with tags like Alison in Birmingham, Steve in Manchester, Bob in Bristol and Tina in Norwich as though the location was part of their identity.  They ran through today’s programme menu and the forward planning, and discussed potential contributions to different stories from the regions.  Finally, when it sounded as though everybody was about to go I summoned up the courage, pressed my button and said, “It’s G-G-Gaby in Leeds”.  Silence.  Then, even more worryingly, “We’ll want something from you on The Cod Wars, speak in a minute.”  Panic.

All I could think was – FISH? For Godsake, we are in the middle of the country, I don’t even know where the nearest sea port is.  What are they on?

As soon as the circuit finished I rushed over to the huge map on the newsroom wall and discovered that we were within striking distance of Grimsby and Hull.  Armed with this information, I sat by my phone and waited for the rest of the shift, but it never rang.  I was exhausted after a long day doing virtually nothing.

LESSON THREE: EVEN WHEN YOU THINK YOU AREN’T DOING ANYTHING, YOU ARE LEARNING, AND THAT APPLIES WHEN YOU HAVE LOADS OF EXPERIENCE AS MUCH AS WHEN YOU HAVE NONE.  I HOPE TO AND TRY TO LEARN SOMETHING EVERY DAY I WORK ON A PRODUCTION.  THE DAY YOU STOP LEARNING IS THE DAY TO LEAVE THE BUSINESS.

The following morning I waited for the circuit.  I didn’t say anything apart from “Hello it’s Gaby here in Leeds” but I listened and took copious notes.  One of the forward planning stories was strong on human interest, just the kind of social issue I was interested in, about ‘granny bashing’ by frazzled carers and family members.

Gaby Koppel and her daughter Sarah. Photograph Graeme Robertson. http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/314/gaby-koppel

Here my journalism training kicked in.   I got on the phone to all the branches of Age Concern in the area as well as a handful of local authorities, and within a few hours I had rustled up a solid case history of a woman caring for a mother suffering from early dementia who was willing to talk about feeling ‘close to the edge’, and crucially she was willing to say so on camera.   I rang the producer who had been asking for contributions to say I had someone who would talk about wanting to hit her mother and she told me she’d like me to make a one-minute film with the woman.   Hooray! I was ecstatic.

LESSON FOUR: YOU MAY THINK YOU KNOW NOTHING, BUT THAT’S JUST YOUR INSECURITY.  AND IF YOU REALLY DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, COMMON SENSE CAN GET YOU QUITE FAR.  BUT ONLY UP TO A POINT….

And then she uttered the classic line.

“Gaby, have you ever directed a film before?”  I gulped. Film directors were people like John Ford and Francis Ford Coppola, not me. None of my names featured the word Ford and it wasn’t even an aspiration.   It was a dream for some people maybe, but definitely not me.  I wanted to sit at the back, remember?

“Er, n-n-no,” I stammered.

“OK, no probs.  I’ll tell you what to do.  Have you got a pencil?”

“Y-e-e-s.”

I waited what seemed like an age, prepared to take down the creative bible that would help me, a humble writer, forge a memorable piece of visual storytelling. My pen was poised.

“Get lots of cut-aways.”

“Yes, what else?”

“That’s all.  Tell the cameraman to get lots of cutaways.  Don’t bother to ask what they are, just make sure he gets lots.”

LESSON FIVE: BEST ADVICE FOR A FILM MAKER IS GET LOTS OF CUT-AWAYS.  EVEN IF YOUR GOAL IS TO PRODUCE A SEAMLESS AUTEURED PIECE, THERE’S NOTHING LIKE HAVING A SAFETY NET.  YOUR EDITOR WILL THANK YOU.

My one-minute masterpiece hit the air two nights later and I’d gone from zero to hero by the end of my first week in telly.  A ‘hero-gram’ (slang from the pre wi-fi age: hero + telegram, in other words a note congratulating me on hitting the air so quickly) from programme editor Roger Bolton arrived promptly in the internal mail that kept the BBC going in the days before email.  By now I’d been running on adrenalin for five solid days. I cried.

LESSON SIX: WHEN YOU ARE FINALLY THE BOSS, MAKE SURE YOU GIVE POSITIVE FEEDBACK REGULARLY TO ALL MEMBERS OF YOUR TEAM NO MATTER HOW LOWLY, EVEN IF THERE’S ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT.  PRAISE IS LIKE A DRUG, A GOOD ONE.  THE BOOST PEOPLE GET FROM PRAISE WILL MAKE THEM FEEL VALUED, SPUR THEM ON TO GO THE EXTRA MILE, AND WILL PAY YOU BACK A HUNDRED TIMES AS WELL AS MOTIVATING YOUR TEAM TO LEARN MORE AND MOVE ON.

I’ve still got that hero-gram.

http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/314/gaby-koppel

Huge thanks to everyone who made The Finish Line Media Parents Post Spectacular event a fun night at The Hospital Club. Great to hear about The Finish Line’s flexible approach to post production, setting up shop wherever suits you best. The Finish Line hosted the event in support of Media Parents flexible working ethos, to hear more about what The Finish Line can do for you contact jonathan@thefinishline.pro, and for technical questions please contact zeb@thefinishline.pro.

The Finish Line's MD Jonathan Blessley with Blink Films Exec Miranda Peters

TwentyTwenty Head of Production Hana Canter with Raw TV Production Exec Jane Bevan

ITV Studios Resourcing Manager Harriet Brady

The Finish Line's Founder Zeb Chadfield

October Films Exec Producer Mandy Thomson sent apologies and this note about The Finish Line: “For anyone who is interested, I worked with Finish Line personally on our Jodie Marsh series and they are brilliant. I’d have no hesitation in recommending them. The PM liked their invoices, the SP and I enjoyed the flexibility of an online in our office and our broadcaster,  TLC, thought the end product looked and sounded great. A winner all round. They also looked after Walking The Nile for October Films.”

Boundless Productions' Head of Production Esther Johnson

Bookhouse Media Creative Director Ian Lamarra and Head of Production Tina Lohmann

RDF Head of Technical Production Nick Singfield Strank and Endemol Shine Exec Matt Holden

Exec Producer Nicola Waddell

Head of MSV Post Ed Bengoa spoke from the crowd about the good work The Finish Line has done for her over the years

Series Producer Katy Ferguson

TwentyTwenty PM Jude Winstanley

Great to see everyone. Please join www.mediaparents.co.uk for more great parties!

Media Parents is brilliant for jobs, networking and training - see www.mediaparents.co.uk for details.

In 2004, I’d been having a great career as an assistant director, working on stuff like Bridget Jones, Peep Show and The Royle Family for around six years. Then one summer’s day in Glastonbury Festival, I stepped into a world that, unbeknown to me, would filter through the next 12 years of my life….and counting.

That ‘world’ was a place called Lost Vagueness. For those that either can’t remember or never went, it was an area of the renowned festival that blew apart the bland aesthetic of the waning Britpop and Rave era. It was trashy glamour infused with naked cabaret, set in a decadent casino and only when you looked down at the mud, did you remember that you were in Glastonbury.

In an impulsive flash I felt I had to know more about the people involved in creating this playground. A few weeks later, camera in hand and never having entertained the idea of making a documentary, I started to follow their every venture. At first I thought it would be around six months, especially as I’d just caught the attention of a content branding agency. All seemed to be well.

Sofia Olins can be contacted through Media Parents : http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/12968/sofia-olins

But then after the first year, I’d made friends with the main characters and there seemed to be a bigger story, one that questioned cultural phenomena and closely examined individualism. Not to mention a relationship between the anti-hero central character, a man named Roy Gurvitz and legendary Michael Eavis. One year became two, then three and four until by 2007, I’d almost given up my assistant directing role so that I could plan the ending to the film, finally, in Glastonbury, where it had all begun.

Primed for the grand finale, I took a crew of five camera people, sound and stills for what was to be one of the wettest festivals in history. I cried at one point, not from lack of sleep, but from water in my wellies. Weather aside, the entire story imploded as Roy and Michael’s relationship fell apart in a spectacular and public way and suddenly Lost Vagueness at Glastonbury was no more.

I now had an unfinished film. Not long after, needing a breather and some distance, I did a masters at Goldsmiths and then, once finished, I was pregnant with our first child. We left London for two years and I found that I’d gone from a high velocity lifestyle on big budget film sets to a draughty church hall playgroup in Newcastle with sick on my shoulder.

After some intense marital negotiation, we were back in London, I’d been accepted on to a TV mentoring course and I was back on track, phew. My mentor couldn’t believe I hadn’t finished the film. And so this time last year, I was in the early stages of planning the revival of what was now an archive film and building a Kickstarter campaign.  Now there’s a refreshed narrative, some amazing new footage, an incredible team and the real final final shoot planned for this June.  We are ready to share the tale of how once upon a time in the 1990’s, the mythical west country gathering was not a 30 minute sell out sensation. Then along came a bunch of angry and lost travellers. And somehow an alchemy of massive risk, political frustration and cultural zeitgeist would catapult it to become what we now know as one of the worlds greatest festivals.

So if you’re interested in joining our progress for the next 12 months (not years, I promise) do have a little look at where we’re at. Oh and maybe see you at Glastonbury…?

http://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/12968/sofia-olins

Our next event is on May 3rd at The Hospital Club, see our site emails and watercooler at www.mediaparents.co.uk to obtain tickets. Media Parents is brilliant for jobs, networking and training - see www.mediaparents.co.uk for details.

A cover letter is the gateway to a potential employer opening and reading your CV – it’s hugely important to your job application or spec letter, so time spent getting it right is well spent, writes Media Parents Director Amy Walker.

This morning I received a cover letter that was 505 words long – almost as long as this blog post – multiply this by the number of spec emails a TV employer receives each day and you’ll soon realise that you’re likely to be wasting two people’s time with a long one.

Use your cover letter to open doors for you – it’s not a given that someone reading your email will even open your CV – so work it – make them want to read your CV and meet you. If you apply for a job via Media Parents there might only be five other applicants, but for any other job site or spec letter there could be easily ten times as many people making the same approach. Either way, you need to stand out in a positive way from the crowd.

Use your cover letter to stand out from the crowd - in a positive way. (Photo Anna Curtin)

The basics are

Keep it brief

Be relevant

Spell check

And that’s largely it.

BREVITY

So how brief is brief? All employers are busy, so, keeping manners in mind, the shorter the better. Remember you are demonstrating your ability to organise and select relevant material here (vital in most TV jobs) – a long letter can shoot you in the foot by implying you have no prioritising or editing skills.  Natalie Spanier, Talent Manager at Nutopia says “Keep them incredibly brief! Most talent managers will just want to get straight on to looking at your CV. Restrict it to key information e.g. availability and any wishes for your next job. But never more than 5 or 6 lines.”

Nutopia COO Helena Tait and Head of Talent Natalie Spanier meeting Media Parents talent

“I HATE long cover letters.  I don’t read them, I might skim the first paragraph, but I think a short, concise one is best” says Boundless Production Manager Anna Gordon.  “Polite, well written and spelt but brief! I haven’t got time to wade through loads of info. I’m afraid I largely ignore cover letters if they’re too long!”

RELEVANCE

Some people choose just to fire off a CV without a cover note, but this is a slightly wasted opportunity IMHO. Why not take the time to read the job ad or the company website and briefly highlight your relevant skills for the job? Employers don’t have time to wade through a long letter, nor do they have time to hunt for what they need on a CV, so judiciously highlighting really helps. Why not take the time to tailor a cover letter and CV rather than expecting an employer to do that work for you?

Raw Cut's Claire Walker

Rawcut Head of Production Claire Walker lists her cover letter pet hates “The ones where you know it’s a copy and paste – yes we all do it, but come on! The ones where they mix up what your company does, and what one with a similar name does. The ones where they could be anything – researcher, co-ord, editor, producer! Make a choice!” A cover letter shouldn’t be a standard one – no more than your CV should – research and send it like a guided missile to get you the job!

Pi Productions’ Head of Production Viki Carter says “As I view it the cover letter is to persuade me to interview you – I will ask for more detail on the things you highlight if and when we meet.”

Pi Productions' Head of Production Viki Carter meets freelancers at a Media Parents event

GAPS

If you’re a parent returning to the workplace you can choose to highlight a break from work on your CV or in your cover letter – frame it positively so you outline any refresher training you have done to prepare for the return to work, and also any relevant new skills you picked up during the sabbatical. Don’t labour it and don’t apologise.

SPEC LETTERS

In my first job in TV Peter Bazalgette recommended I watch programmes by the company first. A blindingly uncomplicated tactic mirrored by many of his successful programmes. Highlight something you’ve seen and loved, point out your relevant experience to that company, or for another series of that show. In an increasingly competitive industry this is still good practice today but with a word of warning from Endemol Shine Exec Matt Holden : “If you’re going to write and tell a programme maker that you like their show, then you have to think hard about what it elements really engaged you, it’s your opportunity to begin a dialogue, so make it thought provoking. It doesn’t matter if the person who reads your cover letter disagrees, at least you have shown you’ve engaged with the show.”

Endemol Shine Exec Matt Holden at a Media Parents event

HUMOUR

Like a CV a cover letter can demonstrate your ability to select and organise material as mentioned above. Both can also demonstrate your personality, so if you’re confident and can write well, humour can help. But remember brevity is the soul of wit.

Amy Walker founded and runs Media Parents and is happy to answer any cover letter queries fielded through the Media Parents contact page. Amy is also Head of Talent at TwentyTwenty Television and welcomes spec letters.

Our next event is on May 3rd at The Hospital Club, see our site emails and watercooler at www.mediaparents.co.uk to obtain tickets. Media Parents is brilliant for jobs, networking and training - see www.mediaparents.co.uk for details.