Media Parents

Huge thanks to everyone who attended Sunday’s IWD event and made it such a great success. Event organiser Lisa Harmer curated a programme of 10 films by female filmmakers in the Hastings area, which were screened to a full house at Kino-Teatr. BBC England Head of Commissioning Aisling O’Connor shared her thoughts on content she’d commission and flexible working in TV which will be summarised for this blog shortly.

With thanks to Lisa Harmer (left) and the BBC's Aisling O'Connor

It was a great opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women on International Women’s Day, and to connect with people in the different spaces of the atmospheric cinema.

Director Bindu De Stoppani screened trailers of her two most recent feature films

Films ranged in length from 1 to 15 minutes, and included shorts, art pieces and trailers. The youngest filmmaker, Calypso Cragg, was just 15 years old. Media Parents’ next event will be a negotiating masterclass on April 29th, run by video conference so that people from all round the UK can join, virus or no virus. Please keep an eye on the blog and site emails for details.

Money was raised for women's refuge Turner House. If you would like to donate, or are in need of refuge in Hastings please contact the organisation here: https://saha.org.uk/

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

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

In celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD), Media Parents is sponsoring a celebration of women’s filmmaking on Sunday March 8th, and we’d love you to join us. As part of the event, Media Parents Director Amy Walker will be interviewing BBC England’s Head of TV Commissioning, 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 (see biog below). Aisling will be discussing both her BBC England brief, and, as it’s IWD, we’ll cover flexible working and the impact of motherhood on career.

The event, which features 10 shorts by regional women directors, has been curated by Writer / Actor Lisa Harmer. To download the full programme click here IWD Media Parents Event Film Programme, click here for tickets.

If you would like to join us for lunch at Kino-Teatr in St. Leonard’s on Sea before the film programme, please email events@mediaparents.com. Please purchase your tickets for the cinema event separately.

Aisling O’Connor

Head of TV Commissioning, BBC England

Aisling O’Connor is the recently appointed Head of TV Commissioning for a newly re-structured BBC England, with a brief to re-invent the TV offer for the BBC England audience. She is based in Birmingham but works across England.

Aisling oversees BBC England’s non-news TV portfolio including long-running current affairs programme Inside Out. She will also develop opportunities to commission more TV and online content for English audiences by working with other parts of the BBC.

BBC England includes all the BBC’s regional and local services in the English regions such as local radio and regional TV.

The Head of TV Commissioning role for BBC England was created to develop a new approach to content commissioning for TV and online and to deliver content across other genres. Currently the BBC only broadcasts current affairs or light factual programmes aimed specifically at audiences in the English regions.

Aisling O’Connor, who began her career at LWT, has worked at every level of TV production including a stint as a presenter of consumer affairs programme Watchdog.

Aisling says: “I’m looking forward to working across England, delivering content which reflects the lives and stories of our diverse audience, from Hull to Hastings, Newcastle to Newquay.”

Helen Thomas, Director of BBC England, says: “We’ve created this role to work within the BBC to find opportunities to create more content for people in England across a broader range of genres.

“With her huge network of contacts, and excellent relationships with senior people across the industry, Aisling brings a wealth of experience, enthusiasm and innovation that will help deliver content that appeals to English audiences and reflects communities right across the country.”

Aisling started her career in television 25 years ago at London Weekend Television and has worked at all levels of production. She has been a BBC Daytime Commissioner, a Music and Arts Commissioning Executive for BBC Two and BBC Four, an Executive Producer on the BBC’s flagship investigative current affairs programme Panorama and a Senior News and Current Affairs Adviser in BBC Editorial Policy.

While a BBC Daytime Commissioner, Aisling looked after 17 series concurrently including The Housing Enforcers, Great British Menu, Wanted Down Under, Heir Hunters and Bargain Hunt. As a Music and Arts Commissioning Executive she looked after programmes as diverse as The Secret of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for BBC Two and The Quizeum with Griff Rhys Jones for BBC Four.

The two highlights of her career to date were executive producing U2 Innocence and Experience Live in Paris and flying to Chile (economy) to make a speech about public service broadcasting. Aisling is from Dublin and lives in Hastings.

click here for tickets

I’m a director who is about to embark on my first feature documentary, writes Sherice Griffiths, and I’m looking for advice and/or collaborators via Media Parents.

Sherice Williams seeks collaborators for her feature doc on a pregnant MMA cage fighter

I’ve got a wonderful story about a female MMA fighter (Mixed Martial Arts AKA Cage Fighting) who is now 3 months pregnant and plans to continue her martial arts training throughout her pregnancy. I’m planning on following her journey to see what impact the training has on her physical and mental wellbeing and whether or not it can be sustained.

Sofie plans to gradually reduce the amount of sparring she does month to month but wants to stay active until the very last moment. She’s agreed on exclusive access to myself and a small crew, and we’re also able to film at the places she trains. I’m keen to film with her family, training partners, coaches and doctors to get their view on whether they think such an extreme sport should be continued through pregnancy.

MMA cage fighter Sofie will continue to work and be filmed whilst pregnant

I filmed a sizzle with Sofie about a year ago when we made a short video about the relationship between sports and mental health and she’s great on camera. If anyone wants to get involved or find out more drop me a message as I think it’s going to be a really exciting project, and we start filming on 23rd February 2020.

Here’s a link to the 2-minute doc we made with Sofie,  https://vimeo.com/322195307/d6ed0b3346

Log in to contact Sherice Griffiths via the Media Parents network: https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/collaborator/16728/sherice-griffiths

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

Two Producer Directors, One Toddler

I’m a self-shooting Producer Director who has filmed in some of the most unforgiving parts of the world, writes Cara Bowen (who is currently looking for her next Edit Producing gig). From the unrelenting wilderness of Alaska filming gold miners in search of their fortune on Gold Rush, to the complete chaos the Scottish weather can bring to hapless model railway enthusiasts building a tiny railway across 74 miles of the Highlands in The Biggest Little Railway in the World. I have worked in some of the most sensitive access situations possible, and with some of the most vulnerable contributors around.

PD Cara Bowen on location. https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/11666/cara-bowen

I’ve shot car crashes, police chases, and resuscitations with specialised police and ambulance units throughout the country. I captured the RSPCA’s never-ending rescuing and treatment of abandoned animals on The Dog Rescuers; and the dedication of the NHS staff undertook to deliver live triplets in extremely high risk circumstances. I’ve witnessed an inmate break down when fully confessing to the crime she committed for the first time on Women in Prison. I’ve followed the disintegration of professional relationships while building a dream house; and I’ve filmed incredible people with disabilities find the confidence to take a step closer to finding love on several series of The Undateables.

And then I had a baby.

Baby meets kit

Our world changed and so did our priorities. My partner, Charlie Clayton, is also a PD and we have both seen the type of work we can do alter. With a new objective of wanting to be at home more often to look after our baby, Wolfie, Charlie and I agreed we would take turns going out on shoots. He spent the summer looking after our little boy, while I filmed farmers across the UK, FaceTiming at bath times and coming back for weekends. Charlie is now on a shoot in America as I look for my next job while solo-parenting now 20 month old Wolfie, who is confusing Duggee and Daddy, (probably a sign he’s been watching too much Hey Duggee).

While taking turns having jobs may be one solution to raising a family when both parents are PDs, there must be other families who have made it work without having to sacrifice half of their salary? I’d love to hear how others have done it. I’m also keen to find a jobshare via Media Parents so do contact me. The most logical solution it seems is to be able to go into the edit more often, and have more than one income coming in. Charlie has been lucky enough to land a couple of edit producing roles recently but, whilst I’ve edit produced a BBC2 hour, filmed and edited several charity films, made tasters and done all the edit producing courses I can find, it’s been harder for me to find the work. I know I can do it, and my BBC references attest to it!

PDs Cara Bowen and Charlie Clayton, with their son. https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/11666/cara-bowen

I love what I do and I know I have more to offer than either being on location or not working at all. With so much experience and a strong editorial mind, I would love to find more opportunities in the edit, to mould sequences I shot on location into shape, and occasionally be able to get home in time to put my kid to bed. I don’t want to stop shooting, but I want to prove that I have what it takes to be in the edit too, and I would very much appreciate the chance to do so.

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/11666/cara-bowen

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/11666/cara-bowen

Thank you to everyone who attended our Bristol Media Parents CV Masterclass last week and made it such a worthwhile event. The feedback has been so great that we’re running the masterclass again ahead of our next company networking event so you can get your CV in the best possible shape – and if you’re a jobsharer you can benefit from our new jobshare double CV.

Media Parents Director Amy Walker with freelancers at a Media Parents event

Media Parents February CV Masterclass will take place in Central London on Monday February 1oth, kindly hosted by Clearcut Pictures. Further details and the guestlist link are on the Media Parents watercooler – not yet a member? Drop us a line through the contact button at www.mediaparents.co.uk. Amy Walker will present CV wizardry and there will be the opportunity to get hands on, individually tailored feedback too.

Producer Ginny Bing attended the Bristol CV event: "It was so useful to get a fresh perspective on my CV from Media Parents. We’ve all read our own CVs a million times but what came out of this event was that if you don’t make things clear and concise and if you don’t highlight all your skills, then you’re selling yourself short."

Producer Ginny Bing attended the Bristol CV event: “It was so useful to get a fresh perspective on my CV from Media Parents. We’ve all read our own CVs a million times but what came out of this event was that if you don’t make things clear and concise and if you don’t highlight all your skills, then you’re selling yourself short.”

Cardiff-based Production Coordinator Jess Gow said: “The Bristol CV Masterclass has inspired me to get my new and improved CV uploaded to Media Parents ASAP. The workshop was great because you don’t always see the glaringly obvious! It’s provided me with helpful practical examples and made me appreciate the importance of selling yourself. There were some great networking suggestions too.”

If you’d like to get a head start on your CV before the event, you can read Media Parents CV Tips here: https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2018/10/media-parents-cv-tips/

"Thank you for organising the Media Parents CV workshop, the session was excellent and gave me loads of great ideas" Melissa Bishop, AP / Researcher, Bristol & London

Our hosts, Clear Cut Group, comprising of three companies (Clear Cut Pictures, The Edit Store and Clear Motion) are renowned for providing highly creative post-production to a wide range of broadcasters. Offering full end-to-end post-production across four sites in London, plus location and regional services as needed, we offer 4K, HDR and SDR capabilities in bespoke solutions to deliver your content to screen.

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

Jessica Sharkey, Joint Director of Production, Hat Trick

Jessica Sharkey, Joint Director of Production at Hat Trick has been working with Media Parents since 2010

A big thank you to Hat Trick’s Joint Director of Production, Jessica Sharkey, for mentoring Media Parents Back to Work Scheme Winner Jessica Farrow, who has been working as a JPM since her return to work via Media Parents’ scheme.

Jessica Sharkey and Laura Djanogly oversee the whole range of programme output from the Hat Trick Group from initial development and budget negotiations, through production to delivery.

Jessica joined Hat Trick as Joint Head of Production in 2004, and has been jobsharing ever since, sharing her experience of job share for the benefit of Media Parents members. Hat Trick also considers job share and flexible working in all jobs listed on Media Parents. Prior to joining Hat Trick, Jessica was Production Executive at Alomo Productions, a role which followed 14 years in the freelance production world working in Drama, Comedy, Children’s and Documentary.

Jessica Farrow, B2W JPM

Since winning the Media Parents Back to Work Scheme in 2019 I’ve been JPM at Wild Blue Media, working on a 3-part documentary for Channel 4/Discovery about tribes in the Amazon.

Wild Blue have asked me stay to see this project through post, and also to help on another programme for Nat Geo until I go on mat leave at the end of March. Jessica Sharkey has very kindly agreed to stick with me longer term as a mentor, and suggested that our next meet up should be a month or so before I want to go back which will be this time next year, as I’ll be looking to return to work Jan 2021.

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/14788/jessica-farrow

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

Here’s wishing you and yours a Happy and Healthy Christmas, and a Prosperous 2020. We look forward to working with you next year, and hope to see you at one of our brilliant events. Here are some photos from this year’s Media Parents Drinks, and some highlights from the year too.

Back to Work Winner Scripted Director Candida Scott Knight celebrates her return to directing with PD Julia Rooke at the RGS drinks

In true Media Parents style, PD Clare Richards brought her mum along to Christmas Drinks - cheers!

Got to love this one! https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/collaborator/3533/sunita-shroff

The lovely team at www.take1.tv invited Media Parents freelancers along to Christmas Drinks in soho. Back to Work Winners PM Hannah Williams Lovell and PC Jenny Madalura are pictured here with Take1 Founder Dom Bourne - cheers Take1!

Hannah & Jenny with Take1 CEO Louise Tapia - cheers ladies!

Take 1's Marketing Manager Emma Kemp is hoping to run an event with Media Parents in the new year!

january 2019

Petal Felix (pictured here with Media Parents' Joanna Gretton at Back to Work Drinks) wrote for the blog asking TV to be more diverse in 2019: https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2019/01/5-minutes-with-petal-felix-on-diversity-in-tv/

January event: Maverick TV's HoP Maria French (pictured here with the jobsharing Edit Producer she employed through Media Parents) and Spelthorne TV's Jude Winstanley joined Media Parents' Amy Walker for a masterclass in Negotiating

February 2019

Ginny Bing, PD blogged about juggling TV, kids and property developing https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2019/02/5-minutes-with-ginny-bing-producer-directoredit-producer/

march 2019

We celebrated International Women's Day with a flexible working survey - we all want it and there are many ways we are doing it! We're delighted that flexible working has made it into the 2019 Queen's Speech

April 2019

Easter break.

May 2019

Thank you to sponsors Outline Productions and Films at 59, Christopher Hutchins, Rob and Jasmine at BBC Bristol Club, and Clare Adams for all their help at the Media Parents Bristol Flexible working event in May

June 2019

At our summer party BBC Scripted Head of Talent Jacqui Taunton Fenton (now at ScreenSkills) had a good laugh with BBC Children's Exec Ros Attille and freelancers https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2019/06/media-parents-summer-party-photos/ Thanks to ClearCut for hosting!

Hannah Williams, one of 2018's Media Parents Back to Work Scheme winners blogged about her successful return to work at Merman https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2019/06/5-minutes-with-returning-pm-hannah-williams/ and PM Natalie Brook-Reynolds crossed over from theatre to TV https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2019/06/5-minutes-with-pm-natalie-brook-reynolds/

july 2019

Media Parents Back to Work Scheme applications opened. West Digital hosted Media Parents' job share event which resulted in Media Parents' Back to Work Winner Joanna Gretton finding a job share partner - and ultimately getting back to work as a job share!

August 2019

Media Parents five Back to Work Scheme Winners 2019 announced and head to Edinburgh. https://blog.mediaparents.co.uk/2019/08/ Thanks to Hat Trick and Raw TV for sponsoring the scheme this year.

Media Parents Back to Work Scheme Winners Laura Martin-Robinson, Candida Scott Knight and Joanna Gretton

PC Kirsti Davidson returned to work on BBC2's Gone Fishing at Owl Power

Jess Farrow returned to work as a JPM at Wild Blue Media

Employers, returners and freelancers celebrated with Back to Work Drinks in September. Thanks to S+O Media for sponsoring, and ENVY for hosting.

october 2019

Mentoring for the Back to Work Scheme began in October. Media Parents would like to thank BBC Docs Commissioning Editor Emma Loach for mentoring Cardiff-based PD Laura Martin-Robinson; Piers Vellacott, MD at Raw TV for mentoring PC Kirsti Davidson; Jessica Sharkey, Hat Trick Director of Production for mentoring JPM Jess Farrow; Endemol Shine’s Director of Factual Kim Shillinglaw for mentoring Casting Producer Joanna Gretton; Exec Coach Sam Jukes-Adams for mentoring Scripted Director Candida Scott Knight.

BBC Commissioning Editor Emma Loach is kindly mentoring for Media Parents Back to Work Scheme

november 2019

Media Parents would like to thank Fremantle’s talent team Emily Gale and Jenny Spader for hosting a returners lunch supported by ITV, the BBC, The Garden Productions, Nutopia and Multistory. Click here to see more.

december 2019

Romesh Ranganathan & Celebrity Island Composer Stefan Fletcher wrote for Media Parents blog, as did PM Helen Landeau.

If you are a company or freelancer who would like to blog for Media Parents, or a company who would like to sponsor a Media Parents event in 2020 please contact us via the contact button above. Many thanks to everyone who has supported Media Parents in 2019 by attending or sponsoring events, and employing great Media Parents talent. We look forward to working with you in 2020.

Presenter Sunita Shroff with Media Parents Director Amy Walker, Scripted Director Peter Chipping and Editor Daren Tiley at YouCanFreeUs drinks at the RGS

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

Piers Vellacott, MD, Raw TV

A big thank you to Piers Vellacott, MD of RAW TV, one of the sponsors of this year’s Media Parents Back to Work Scheme for not only sponsoring but also mentoring. Having mentored Elena Mourey on the Media Parents Back to Work Scheme 2018, Piers has been mentoring returner Kirsti Davidson, who left as an AP and successfully returned as a PC in 2019 after a substantial break.

Piers himself left four years of law school and decided to become a television producer! He joined RAW in September 2008 having previously worked as a Producer and Line Producer on over 50 hours of television programming across a range of genres. He is as conversant in US production and business affairs as he is in Europe, and has been across over 500 hrs of programming whilst at RAW.

Kirsti Davidson, B2W Production Coordinator

I recently finished a full time two month Production Coordinator contract with Owl Power on Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing. We were working on three shoots for Series 3, with the remaining three to be shot next year. I really enjoyed the process of production and it was a small and friendly team.

It was a bit strange at first being a PC after my last job in TV was as an AP 12 years ago, but it was a really useful experience.

I’ve now taken more illustration work, so I’m not available until end of February / beg of March. I’m looking to find something part time in spring which would be more manageable for my family.

https://www.mediaparents.co.uk/freelancers/16237/kirsti-davidson

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

I am a freelance music composer for television, writes Stefan Fletcher, so far specialising in factual entertainment and documentaries, and I’m available now. I recently wrote the music for The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan (BBC2) and my credits and television placements include: Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls (Channel 4), Curiosity (BBC1), House of Extraordinary People (Channel 5) and 21 Kids and Counting (Channel 4), The Yorkshire Vet (ITV) and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (ITV). Click here to listen to my reel.

Composer Stefan Fletcher https://www.stefanfletchermusic.com/ Photo credit: Helena Dolby

I joined Media Parents because networking plays a crucial role in my line of work. Media Parents seems like an excellent platform to reach out to those in your industry.

I got into music through learning the guitar at an early age and eventually went on to study Creative Music Technology (BMus) at Surrey University, a course specifically designed for writing music to picture.

Stylistically, I am very diverse, ranging from minimal piano and orchestra (suitable for documentaries) to high-impact trailer music (appropriate for tension and ad campaigns.) Whilst I do specialise in factual entertainment and documentaries, my music experience has covered lots of other areas too including: adverts, orchestration, metadata, computer games, production, mixing and more.

I would love to connect with editors, edit producers, executive producers, directors – anyone who has a say when sourcing music for television, be it bespoke or library.

Stefan Fletcher. Photo credit: Helena Dolby

https://www.stefanfletchermusic.com/

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