Media Parents

About me, writes Celebrity Producer Justine Sullivan:

Female in my late 40s

Live in West London

Mother of two boys aged 8 & 11

Kids’ father has Asperger Syndrome, so lockdown has been tough (although social distancing and isolation are two of his favourite things!)

Pretty much single parent the children

Work in TV as a Celebrity Producer/Celebrity Consultant – no work at all since lockdown. Furlough not much help as we are both directors of Ltd company so we are on the absolute minimum pay!

So, back to home school then after the weekend.

For the millions of kids not yet physically back at school and for those not fortunate enough to be at a school providing on-line teaching, this is probably how home schooling is going for them. Well this is how it is in our home.

7:30am Get up. Come downstairs and empty the dishwasher and set the table for breakfast. 

Call the kids to come down and have breakfast. Call them again and again and again and again. Resign myself to eat breakfast alone whilst continuously phoning the kids, repeating the words ‘Can you come down? What are you looking at? Why do you think you can just go on my phone and watch Youtube?’
Finish breakfast and yell upstairs again ‘If you don’t come down for breakfast, you won’t be able to game later (too late as they’ve already done so on the phones)’

Kids finally come downstairs and have breakfast. Bailey wants yet another pyjama day and Ruben wants to read. Fair enough on the reading front, but it would be easier for everyone if he just stuck to the schedule and maybe, just maybe we could all read at the same time thus encouraging Bailey to read more??
11am: Bailey still rolling on the sofa and Ruben has disappeared upstairs to get dressed.
11:45: Bailey finally picks up his laptop and logs onto the school files. Says he can’t see any new work, despite an email from school saying new files are there.  Nothing apart from a message from his teacher saying she’s been catching up on boxsets.  Bailey loses interest.
11:45 Bailey logs onto BBC Bitesize.
11:50: Bailey says he’s finished his first lesson and now it’s break time and he wants a snack as apparently, he’s hungry. Not sure that’s actually possible as he only had breakfast an hour ago.
Midday: Ruben logs onto his computer. Reads a headline on Youtube that LazarBeam has died of Coronavirus. Bailey jumps up from the sofa and goes over to Ruben saying ‘Oh let’s watch that!’ I say ‘I don’t care about bloody Coronabeam’ and could he just log onto to his school files!! (NB LazarBeam is safe and well)

Ruben logs onto his files and says he can’t write on any of the worksheets and wants to print off yet another 30 page document.

Logs off school files and logs onto BBC Bitesize.
15 minutes later says he’s done English, History and Maths and has learnt so much more from BBCBbitesize than the rubbish files school send over that don’t work.

I stupidly take a phone call for 20minutes and take my eye off the children. Both have now logged onto YouTube. Bailey tells me he’s doing Science – I’m not sure ‘How to make a party watermelon’ or ‘How to throw an egg in a bag of popcorn off a bridge’ constitutes a science lesson. Anyway, lunchtime.

As an accomplished Celebrity Producer / Consultant I’d appreciate a call to take me away from all this. My credits include six years on Top Gear, BAFTAs, GQ Men of the Year and several comedy shows. My greatest TV moment has to be spending a whole day with Tom Cruise on the Top Gear track, followed by a hand written Thank You note from him. Yes. It’s been framed!

Justine Sullivan is available now: https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/10118/justine-sullivan

Join us for Media Parents events, jobs and training at www.mediaparents.co.uk

What is In The Edit – The Film & TV Making-of Podcast? Writes freelance Media Parents Editor Rahim Mastafa. Rahim is Cardiff-based and has award-winning credits in factual, daytime and docs, including Channel 4′s Travel Man, read more here.

Offline Editor Rahim Mastafa https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/6815/rahim-mastafa

In the Edit is a weekly interview-based podcast where I speak to other working film & TV professionals. We talk about their careers, how they got started in the industry, some of their favourite projects and get inspiration for those who are working or want to work in film or TV.

Hear more about the making of Sherlock amongst many other shows on the podcast

Some of the guests I have so far interviewed from the world of drama are Dream Horse & Happy Valley Director Euros Lyn, Sherlock & Dracula Production Designer Arwel Jones, Broadchurch & Doctor Who Costume Designer Ray Holman, Peaky Blinders & Tolkien Special Effects Supervisor Danny Hargreaves, Luther & Black Mirror DOP Stephan Pehrsson, DNEGTVthe VFX company behind shows such as Chernobyl, Star Trek: Picard, Locke & Key and Sex Education & His Dark Materials stunt coordinator Crispin Layfield.

Travelman Series Director Nicola Silk talks to Rahim for In the Edit

Factual guests I’ve interviewed are Barry Hecker, Series Producer of Sam & Shauna’s Big Cookout and The One Show, Graciela Watson, Senior Edit Producer of Find It, Fix It, Flog It, Bargain Hunt & Location, Location, Location Producer Director Nick Denning, Code Blue & Manhunt documentary director Iwan Robert, The Wedding Guru director Paul Symonds and more.

Sherlock & Dracula Production Designer Arwel Jones

The idea is to get as broad a range of working professionals as possible and for them to tell their story. I’m always on the lookout for more guests to join me on the podcast, so don’t be surprised if you get a message from me soon!

You can hear the podcast on these platforms:
https://intheedit.podbean.com/
https://open.spotify.com/show/7hQuOHlPlIvJqC92RM7ZJa
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/in-the-edit-the-film-tv-making-of-podcast/id1508561910

And you can book Rahim here: https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/6815/rahim-mastafa

Join us for Media Parents events, jobs and training at www.mediaparents.co.uk

Your broadcast or other media products, whether commercials, factual documentaries, online or on TV, need a professional voice, writes voice actor, and ex-RAF Officer, Kerry Hutchinson.

Voice Actor Kerry Hutchinson at work

As a father of three children, Kerry knows life can get busy, even in lockdown. “But,” Kerry continues, “If I can help you, let’s chat. As a professional voiceover and voice actor with my own broadcast-quality equipment, I could help you if you need a voice for your next project. Contact me via Media Parents or via the link below – I’d be delighted to provide you a free sample read of a script to help you decide”.

So, how did I get into voiceovers? I used to be a Training Officer in the RAF and someone said I had a good ‘Radio 4’ voice – would I mind voicing some instructional videos? And someone else later said I should do voiceovers full-time.  I was lucky with a new agent who had a gap my vocal tones would fill on their gallery.  Having German as a second language helped me gain the attention of German-speaking companies and agencies, and being able to mimic accents has also helped with my vocal ‘shop front’.

Once I’d got an agent, I started investing in upskilling courses, especially, several years later, I decided to go independent.  Not a leap for the timid, because competition among indie VOs is pretty ferocious. And you have to upskill to keep on the ball.  Social media courses have really helped, especially when learning about techniques to reach out when networking and marketing for possible voice job leads.

And having been injured in combat when a serving infantry Officer in Afghanistan, the compensation helped me realise a long-held dream of not just launching as an independent voice actor, but having a professional, broadcast-quality studio set up, which I now have. The image below shows me (on the right) ‘resting’ on a combat patrol with the Gurkhas, with whom I had the honour to serve, in Helmand, Afghanistan.

Among the many things I have learned is to pitch for jobs that fit my vocal range – and with a voice that seems suited to documentaries, corporates and one-to-one style deliveries that engage with a ‘listener of one’ that’s what I play to. Of course, being able to sustain accents such as gravelly Slavic angry, fearsome and similar, I have started helping indie game developers voice their 2-D characters.

Kerry Hutchinson on manoeuvres in Afghanistan

I think. It is a fact that web presentations, explainers and e-learner need a trained, professional and believable voice to bring your product, presentation and training to life. And not just on TV – more than 1.3 billion people use social media – that’s a rise of 88% over the last five years, and equates to more than 8 new users every second. So how could my voice help you penetrate the above target audience with your broadcast voiced project, marketing and branding campaign, or in-house training?

Well, video slots often have complex messages that only have a short time to deliver their message – and the right voice can explain new concepts and deliver information persuasively and compellingly. And a compelling, plausible documentary or narrative voice is instrumental in selling your audiovisual story and encouraging viewers to watch future episodes. Your audience, indeed the wider public, make fast judgments on voice tone alone.

So the right voice – believable, persuasive – can attract traffic to your series, product or brand if the voice infers it is respectable and of value to them, and therefore worth listening to and watching. Especially for a major multinational like NATO, who employ me as their consistent ‘brand voice’ – even when I go to Afghanistan on short term contracts. Here’s an excerpt from a promo video I did at the start of 2020: https://vimeo.com/393166864

The right voice can inspire trust and confidence, with a perfectly rendered narration that is lively and engaging, delivering a high-quality message. And for more commercial considerations, if your product has a voice component it could boost Google rankings and increase social media shares.

Contact me at https://www.kerryvoice.co.uk/ – as they say – “it’s good to talk.”

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/16452/kerry-hutchinson

And here we are – at home, writes Media Parents Factual Exec and SP Jonathan Schutz. Working from home. Hmm. Let’s be honest: for most of us, even the least sniff of work has evaporated. Channel 4 has suggested it will be “reaching out” to freelancers. The BBC and Netflix have made donations to the Film & TV Charity, ITV has made a fund available for indies. It’s all very nice, though perhaps not all that useful for those of us who are just about grinding along.

Producer Jonathan Schutz in edit at home

In the meantime, some indies are helping out by rehiring and furloughing recent freelancers so they can avail themselves of Rishi Sunak’s seeming bounty. Many of us however (including those with Personal Service Companies) plummet between the cracks of the Chancellor’s help package. BECTU, Martin Lewis and some helpful MPs and journos – are making noise about this, but we still don’t know if that’s going to have any effect.

All the channels, terrestrial and otherwise, will soon be desperate for content – and not just shows about the virus. It’ll be on a budget as commercial broadcasters face a fall in advertising income, and those broadcasters who rely on ad-sales driven production will be hit doubly as sponsors retreat as well. I personally have two 6-hour series in development with interested sponsors who have gone extremely quiet!

But quality production on a budget? That’s good news: my whole business model for Curly Lizard Films is based on it. Frankly, my life – juggling Daddy Duty with Specialist Factual production – has been a bit like lockdown for some years now anyway. I was writing, developing, producing, editing and delivering productions from home long before all this kicked off. Last year’s main Curly Lizard production was a reversion of a very glossy Chinese series for NGC, all made from the spare room.

Some companies are managing to get commissions – you can watch Swan Films MD Joe Evans talking about his latest socially distanced commission with Talented People’s Kimberley Godboldt by clicking here, and your family can take part in Grayson’s Art Club here – but there are a lot more of us still looking for work.

Who are any of us really working for anyway?

So, dear broadcasters and indies – here’s a thought that could get us all busy right now. Pop down to your friendly distributor – online, of course. They have plenty on their shelves from around the world. Or see what you have in your own archive that could be repurposed. Send it over to me, and I’ll script something up and edit it together for you. And should you be up for some history – there are plenty of untouched subjects from all over the world, with archive accessible online. Wouldn’t it be a nice surprise if we suddenly developed a wider world-view while shut away in our houses?

Because when you come down to it, what’s the one thing better than setting up funds and relying on the government’s largesse? Getting productions started again and getting us all back to work. So now: over to you!

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/14396/jonathan-schtz

On March 8th Media Parents will be celebrating International Women’s Day by supporting a festival of short films made by local women at the Kino-Teatr in St. Leonard’s on Sea, Sussex. Click here for the IWD Media Parents Event Film Programme, and see below for biogs. Click here for tickets.

Lisa Harmer

Writer / Actor Lisa Harmer has curated this collection of films by women filmmakers for IWD.

Lisa has curated the films for Sunday’s event. She has worked as an actor since her late teens, having trained at The Anna Scher Theatre and Actors Centre, London.  She has appeared in various continual dramas such as EastEnders, Casualty, The Bill and can also be seen on All4’s repeat showing of the iconic drama Metrosexuality, playing Peggy.

Her film Lady What Does, co-written and directed by Sara Jordan, is a dark-comedy short exploring the great bond of two Women in their 50s who, despite their differences, share a dark secret and share the load when things get messy. Lisa continues to write and act and is currently developing Lady What Does as a TV series.  https://www.lisaharmer.com/

Aisling O’Connor

BBC England's Head of TV Commissioning, Aisling O'Connor (picture EdTVFest 2019)

Aisling is Commissioner for all BBC England-funded non-news TV which includes regional current affairs, and a slate of network and online content for the four BBC channels. Aisling has been a BBC Daytime Commissioner, a Music and Arts Commissioning Executive for BBC Two and BBC Four. She Executive Produced the BBC’s flagship investigative current affairs programme Panorama, and was a Senior News and Current Affairs Adviser in BBC Editorial Policy. She lives in Hastings.

Amy Walker

Media Parents Director and Founder Amy Walker

Amy champions diverse creative talent, and set up Media Parents to facilitate that. She is a factual TV Series Producer and Talent Exec and has just completed a 2-year EMBA sponsored by Channel 4. Her most recent series for Channel 4 was BAFTA-nominated. She lives in Hastings. https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/

Bindu de Stoppani

Bindu wrote and directed her first short film in 2000, THINGS I NOTICE, THINGS YOU SEE starring Michael Fassbender, followed by three other shorts including GESUNDHEIT!, THREE, and THE KISS. In 2012 she wrote and directed her first feature film JUMP (Hugofilm/Manmade Films/RSI) which won five BIFFs at the 2012 festival including Best Director and Best Feature Film. Bindu’s second feature FINDING CAMILLE premiered at the Rome Film Festival in 2017 to great acclaim and she is in now in the early stages of development on her next feature 40 AND CLIMBING (Hugofilm) which is set to shoot in 2020. http://www.bindudestoppani.com/

Calypso Cragg

Calypso is a fifteen-year-old actress, director, writer and clothing designer.  She is home educated, and lives in the South East of England. Calypso has recently released a short film called What I Saw, which she wrote, directed, edited and performed in. It has received a highly commended laurel by the Black Country Horror Shorts Film Festival and has been selected for the Lift-Off Sessions Festival.

Cheryl White

Cheryl White is a multi-award winning Writer/Director whose films have screened around the world. Her most recent film, A Lighthouse in Breaking Waves is a part-animated short which won the Fan Award 2018 at the White Whale festival (USA), and Best Sussex Short 2017 at the Crossing the Screen festival (UK).

Cheryl was a recipient of Arts Council funding for her full length play Highly Inflammable which ran as part of the Hastings Fringe Festival 2017. She is currently co-directing a feature documentary about a 92 year-old rebel and his coffin.

Claudia Kappenberg

Claudia is a performance and media artist with a background in dance, and Principal Lecturer at the University of Brighton, UK. Her work has been shown internationally across Europe, the US and the Middle East in the form of screen-based work, participatory events and site-specific performance. At the heart of her practice is an interrogation into that which makes us human. Her film Honey Hat features in the IWD Making Moving Images collection.

Recent writing has been published in Performing Process: Sharing Dance and Choreographic Practice (2018), Syncope in Performing and Visual Arts (2017), The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies (2016), and Art in Motion: Current Research in Screendance (2015).

Helen Jacey

Helen is a screenwriter, author and story consultant and the Founder and Creative Director of Shedunnit Productions, which develops female gaze content across film, TV and fiction. Shedunnit also sponsors the Women Over Fifty Film Festival Best Script Award.

Helen has worked extensively as a story consultant, working on projects with leading talent including Julia Roberts, Ben Elton, and Emma Watson. Among her many writing projects, Helen’s BBC Radio 4 Play for Today Miracle Postponed about Jean Rhys was nominated for a Mental Health in the Media Award.

Helen is the creator of Elvira Slate Investigations, featuring the first feminist 1940s detective. Jailbird Detective (which features in the Making Moving Images collection) and Chipped Pearls have been recently published by Shedunnit, and Helen is currently adapting the series for TV. www.shedunnit.com

www.shedunnit.com

Jody Sabral

Jody is an international best-selling author (I Never Lie, June 2018), award-winning crime writer (CWA Debut Dagger, 2014) and recently turned film director with her short film The Wrong Car (Oct 2018) featuring Sinead Matthews (Black Mirror, Jellyfish, The Crown) and Bill Fellows (Broadchurch, Alan Partridge, Vera).

The Wrong Car picked up second prize at the Los Angeles Television, Script and Film Festival this June 2019 and was also selected and screened at Pinewood Studios as part of LIFT OFF festival (March 2019). Jody has since written and directed her second short Helpline (June 2019). Jody is also a BBC News Editor.

Kate Grey

Writer & Director Kate Grey graduated from the London College of Printing with a BA (Hons) in Film & Video and from Goldsmiths University College with an MA in Feature Film.

Whistle…I’ll come to You is the first film in a series of short films shot in East Sussex that will form a portmanteau feature film; When Kate adapted the story for Whistle…, Kate changed all the characters to female, who, in the original short story by MR James, were men. She is currently in pre-production for the second film in this series Charlie Mawkins shooting in July 2020.

Lisa Clifford

Lisa Clifford is a British journalist and documentary filmmaker. Her film Militia Man about a Congolese warlord and his flawed trial at the International Criminal Court has screened around the world. Lisa’s latest documentary, Dad’s Coffin, is a joyful look at one unique man’s joyful stroll towards the inevitable.

https://www.facebook.com/militiamanfilm/

Nadene Ghouri

Nadene is a screenwriter, award-winning journalist and author, with two New York Times bestsellers under her belt.

When Sky Was Sea won a total of 12 festival awards including two for best drama. Https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8523740/?ref_=ttawd_awd_tt

Olga Mamonova

Olga is the creative director of Kino-Teatr and has lived in St. Leonard’s for over twenty years. She set up the cinema in 2015 with artist husband Russell Baker, and their twin daughters Dounya and Antonia are now also involved in Kino-Teatr work. A former 1913 cinema, it is now a local cultural hub.

As Kino-Teatr’s Artistic Director Olga programmes films, Documentary Festivals, Irish Film weeks, classical concerts and live theatre. A published author, Olga is also a documentary maker, and made the first documentary on the work of Russian/British artist Oleg Prokofiev, son of composer Sergei Prokofiev.

Sara Jordan

Sara has now returned to her love of the arts and is concentrating on writing and directing as well as acting after giving up a career as an actress to have a family and get a proper job.Sara co-wrote and directed Lady What Does with Lisa Harmer, and they are currently developing this film into a TV series.

Her films Pic N Mix, Planning The Funeral and The Tea Break have won awards at festivals including Best Short at the Welsh International Film Festival. The latest, Jitters, covering a woman’s struggle with anxiety, is about to hit the festivals.

https://www.flintsparkproductions.com/

Join us for Media Parents events, jobs and training at www.mediaparents.co.uk

I was directing some actors on a large day-for-night fight scene near the seaside, writes Editor-turned-Director Peter Chipping. There was a problem. It was midday in summer, and not remotely dark.

Peter Chipping directing a real blue screen scene at Pinewood

One of the giveaways of shooting this style is revealing the sky. You need to disguise the horizon. In many old cowboy films you see clouds floating in a dark blue sky. A dead giveaway. It was going to be hard to convince an audience I was shooting at night. On a camera monitor the blue sky just looked like a big blue screen. Maybe a chroma-key screen? I figured I could key in another colour – like black – and suddenly my actors would look like they were lit by the “moon” running against a night sky. It worked too. The knowledge had been acquired many years previously as I had been an editor and knew some editing trickery.

Editors often muse on how to get out of being shackled to their edit suites.  One skill editors often learn is making a story out of hundreds of hours of footage. It’s a lot of organisation. With a bit of know-how, that organisation can be applied to crews and productions.

I had learnt to operate cameras at college and after various diversions into multi camera studio directing, I gravitated towards factual. My camera and editing skills would come in handy, as what I shot actually made it through the edit. One thing that’s not taught to editors is writing. So I attended lots of courses, but what I learnt were beat sheets, inciting incidents, act breaks, inner and outer arcs. I discovered most writing is aimed at drama, not factual, but a class from the Exec Producer of The Apprentice, Patrick Uden, plus much trial and error, paid off.

I also discovered the structure of factual is often similar to drama. You still need protagonists and they still need a challenge, something to affect them and a battle to the end. It needs to be interesting with lots of “surprises”, otherwise known as: being “dramatic”. Quite often the act breaks became commercial breaks, but all those funky things such as themes, motifs etc can be used too. I learnt many mainstream directors start in factual and cross over, and have crossed back too. The biggest obstacle was convincing execs I could do it. So I wrote and shot a bundle of short dramas films. That lead to some police re-enactment videos being commissioned for The Police Federation and eventually a TV commission of documentary flanked by some drama. Fortunately, the American style drama/docs had budgets that dictated people with multi skills. The police films led to true crime that led to serial killers (In the USA, UK & Germany) and eventually war, which included another major serial killer: Adolf Hitler.

I found dealing with actors was not taught to editors either, so I took the plunge and did an actor’s class and even a stand-up comedy class. The former was helpful for more drama-centric productions, while the latter allowed me to see the funny side of my journey.

Peter Chipping’s drama can be seen this year (2020) in 4 episodes of “Nazi Megastructures: America’s War” on Channel 4, plus two episodes of “Autopsy, the last hours of..” for Potato/ITV which airs in America on REELZ.

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/15880/peter-chipping

Join us for Media Parents events, jobs and training at www.mediaparents.co.uk Media Parents' January event is a CV seminar in Bristol - see our watercooler at www.mediaparents.co.uk for details

I’m excited to invite you to a screening of my Oscar and BAFTA shortlisted film Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl) – it’s finally here in London! writes Media Parents PD Elena Andreicheva. Please join us this Friday, December 20th at 6pm, at The Cinema Museum in Kennington. There’ll be drinks and an informal reception, please RSVP as below, mentioning Media Parents.

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/4966/elena-andreicheva

PD Elena Andreicheva (left) at Media Parents Summer Party

Elena will be available in February 2020: https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/4966/elena-andreicheva

Join us for Media Parents events, jobs and training at www.mediaparents.co.uk

Sam Jukes-Adams, Coach & NED, Emergence Films

Ex-scripted HOP and Coach Sam Jukes-Adams has been mentoring returning Director Candida Scott Knight, Winner of the Media Parents Back to Work Scheme 2019, and we are delighted to announce that Candida has secured a place on the BBC Continuing Drama Directors’ Scheme 2019, and will be directing a block on EastEnders next year. After 13 years out, and two years working with Media Parents to get back in.

Leadership, Executive and Organisational Coach Sam is a Tavistock Consulting trained, senior practitioner accredited Coach (EMCC). Sam works systemically, helping individual and organisational clients gain insight into, and address, the personal and organisational dynamics that contribute to their professional effectiveness, working one to one, in groups, and through workshops. Sam’s work spans all sectors, including Charity, Finance, Creative Industries, Property, Start Ups, Entrepreneurs and Tech, from Manager level to Senior Leaders and Business Owners. Sam works with Corporations, SMEs and Self funding clients on Integration programmes, professional effectiveness, and leadership. Sam enjoys working with people around the world, both face to face and online.

Prior to Coaching, Sam spent 20 yrs in TV Production. She has worked at the BBC, was Head of Production for Impossible Pictures, and latterly SVP Scripted Production, NBCUniversal International Studios. Working on and across development, financing, production and delivery of award winning content for both domestic and international networks (US NBC/AUS/CAN) and companies, ranging from science, (Horizon) CGI heavy Specialist Factual (Walking with Dinosaurs, Space Odyssey:Voyage to the Planets, Project Earth) and Drama (Primeval, Quacks, Camp, London Spy, Yonderland, You, Me and the Apocalypse, Glitch, Deadline Gallipoli).

Sam has always been a passionate advocate for the development of talent and teams, and is a visiting Lecturer on the Producer’s MA at MetFilm, London, and served as the Chair of the High End TV Levy Council, and on the board of Creative Skillset from 2016-2018. Sam brings this wealth of professional and commercial experience and knowledge to her coaching practice, and is constantly developing her practice, including currently completing Hogan Level 1 certification. https://www.sjaassociates.co.uk/

Media Parents Back to Work Scheme Winners Candida Scott Knight (right) and Returning Casting Producer Joanna Gretton

Candida Scott Knight, B2W Scripted Director

Since working at Channel 4 and directing Hollyoaks, award-winning short film director Candida has raised a family and moved to L.A. and back. For the past two years she has been building her skills and her intention is to direct drama again. After winning her place on the Media Parents Back to Work Scheme 2019 and attending Edinburgh TV Festival, Candida recently completed the BBC Continuing Drama Directors’ Scheme 2019 on EastEnders, and will be directing episodes in 2020.

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/14731/candida-scott-knight

Join us for Media Parents events, jobs and training at www.mediaparents.co.uk

Emma Loach, Commissioning Editor BBC Documentaries

We are delighted that BBC Docs Commissioning Editor Emma Loach has agreed to mentor returning PD Laura Martin-Robinson, Media Parents Back to Work Scheme Winner from Cardiff, who is being sponsored on the scheme by Hat Trick Productions.

Emma joined the BBC documentary commissioning team in January 2017. She is responsible for a large range of output including series and singles across all the channels such as Birth, Ambulance, The Met, Nadiya On Anxiety and Stabbed: Britain’s Knife Crime Crisis on BBC One; The Baby Has Landed, Hospital, The Ethics Committee: A Life and Death Decision, David Harewood On Psychosis and Being Blacker on BBC Two; Hometown, The Left Behind, Acid Attack: My Story on BBC Three and Border Country: When Ireland Was Divided on BBC Four.

As an executive producer, Emma was responsible for helping to originate and deliver the Ambulance brand for BBC1, The Trial for C4 and a diverse range of series and singles across all the channels.

Laura Martin-Robinson, B2W PD

Laura Martin-Robinson PD (centre, rear) with talent and talent managers at Fremantle Media Parents Returners Lunch in November.

On the face of it Laura has it all – two BAFTAs and a great relationship with a production company ie ie productions (pronounced yeah yeah) that enables her to work flexibly. But she has three kids, and working part time on Welsh regional productions barely covers her childcare costs. She wants her career to be self-sufficient, full time and has network ambitions.

Read Laura’s review of Edinburgh TV Festival 2019 here: https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2019/10/5-minutes-with-pd-laura-martin-robinson-world-mental-health-day/

And see her profile here:

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/9887/laura-martin-robinson

Join us for Media Parents' Pop Up Christmas Drinks with Take 1 on Tuesday 10th December

Helen Landeau has now found work at South Shore until March 2019.

I’m currently free so if anyone needs a Production Manager? writes Helen Landeau. It’s been five years since my return to tellyland and Media Parents were there to support me back into the cut and thrust of the production office like I’ve just come out of rehab!  Previously, I had done sixteen years at the BBC as Production Co-ordinator and got my parole via redundancy in 2006. I left to join the Filofax clan of the corporate world in the dizzying heights of the concrete jungle that is Canary Wharf but the calling to return home to TV was deafening and so after eight years, I relented. No regrets!

I’m currently free so if anyone needs a Production Manager? writes Helen Landeau. https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/9357/helen-landeau

In my last Media Parents blog, I’d just finished working on the BBC One landmark documentary, ‘Stephen: The Murder That Changed A Nation’.  To date, an important documentary to me personally and professionally.  Being almost the same age of Stephen, I was there throughout the timeline of events and thought I’d known everything about this tragic event but the forensic research unearthed things that I didn’t even know!  When it was broadcasted in April 2018, me and the production team didn’t expect the reception we’d receive from the viewers and industry peers – it made the hard work so worthwhile.  However, the post production paperwork wasn’t so great but hey, someone’s gotta do it and it was muggins.

Leaving that behind, I went to Emporium Productions (part of Hat Trick) and was Production Manager on ‘Donal MacIntyre’s Murder Files’ for CBS Reality.  This series was green-screen studio with drama recon and about visiting solved murder cases with the lead detective. I finally got to meet Clive Driscoll as I didn’t get the opportunity from the Stephen Lawrence series. I worked with a cracking team especially Nick Kenton, a brilliant Series Producer.  This was the second series and it ran quite smoothly (can’t say that too often these days) and working with a pro like Donal – it was great.

After delivery of the Donal series, I stayed on at Emporium and working with Nick again on a brand-new series called ‘Talking Animals: Tales From The Zoo’ for Channel 5.  This was a bit of a challenge (which I do like) as it included working with voice-over artists and comedy writers.  What’s the problem with that I hear you cry?  Well, as a factual PM, you don’t usually work on a cross-genre programme every day.

We filmed at Jersey Zoo and it was a fantastic opportunity to go on location to visit the island of Jersey, see the animals at Jersey Zoo (created by Gerald Durrell – as in the comedy drama, ‘The Durrells’) and of course, making sure my team were okay.

Working on this production kept me laughing every day and sometimes, I step back and it’s such a privilege to be doing this job.  Keep an eye out as it’s due for TX on Channel 5 early next year!

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