Understanding budgets for editorial teams

In December, as part of the ‘Mind Your Business’ strand, we're offering training in a range of finance, HR and business affairs related areas, giving you the tools you need to thrive in your chosen field in unscripted TV.

As part of the senior Editorial team, you share financial responsibility with the senior Production team to ensure a production is brought in on, or under budget.  This is achieved through working closely with your Production team to manage editorial expectations, whilst creating the best possible programme/series within budget constraints.

The course aims to provide tips and tricks to make the most of your budget and to give you the confidence to effectively work with your Production team. It will include practical examples and guidance as well as the chance to ask questions throughout.   

Who it's for

Assistant Producer, Producers and Series Producers who want to gain a greater understanding of how to work with your Production team to get the most out of your unscripted TV budget.

The majority of the USF online short course offering is for those at early career stage and above. As a result, we generally require applicants to have at least 3 credits (unless working in a traditionally uncredited role). If you strongly feel you would still benefit from the training, please email USF@screenskills.com so we can assess if an exception should be made.

We are committed to ensuring all our courses are accessible to everyone. This course is designed to be as interactive as possible. Please email the above address if you have any access requirements and we will be delighted to help, be that clarifying the form such interaction is likely to take or discussing reasonable adjustments.

What it covers

• The financial responsibilities of the Production team 
• Understanding the basics of Cost Managers
• Working collaboratively with your Production Manager
• Dealing with overspends
• Q and As

Speaker

Hannah Gosney is an experienced Head of Production/Senior Production Manager.  She has extensive knowledge and experience of creating and looking after budgets and schedules across a variety of unscripted genres.  

Starting out as an Office Runner Hannah quickly worked her way up the ranks working on extreme sports shows and commercials to remote and hostile shoots among others, to specialise in factual, factual entertainment and natural history programmes.  Credits include The Mekong River with Sue Perkins (BBC 2), Flintoff’s Road to Nowhere (Sky One), Wild Shepherdess with Kate Humble (BBC 2), Wales: Land of the Wild (BBC 2) and Veganville (BBC Three)

Throughout her career she’s been passionate about nurturing and training crew and understands the importance of best practice in the industry.  With this in mind she now focuses her time on providing training for the media industry with an emphasis on those working in production.  She has a Level 3 Train the Trainer qualification and is a Level 3 qualified ILM Coach & Mentor.

How to apply

This session will take place online via Zoom. Click ‘apply for ticket’ and follow the instructions to apply for your place: you must login or register before you are able to complete your application.

If you are no longer able to attend, we ask you to please use the “decline ticket” function on the right hand side of the page so that we can release your place. Our sessions are often oversubscribed, so we’d like to give other freelancers the opportunity to fill available spots. Thank you for your consideration.

This session is supported by the ScreenSkills Unscripted TV Skills Fund which invests in training for the unscripted workforce thanks to contributions from broadcasters, SVoDs and production companies.

This course would normally cost participants to attend, but thanks to this support, we are able to offer it to you for free. If you fail to attend, we reserve the right to request reimbursement of costs, unless your place can be taken by someone else.