The scheme offers candidates the chance to gain valuable training and get their foot in the door of TV employment, with 82% of Mama Youth Project alumni still working in the industry a year after the training.
With no industry experience necessary, Mama Youth Project encourages those from under-represented backgrounds to apply, having previously helped over 400 young people break into the competitive TV industry.
Simon Winstone (left) and Arwel Wyn Jones with Edward Russell (right)
(Photo: Aaron Lowe)
The initiative seeks to put measures in place to address the gender imbalance in comedy on television.
ITV’s Controller of Comedy Saskia Schuster hosted the launch event supported by the RTS, The Writers' Guild, Era 50:50, Funny Women and BAFTA on 18th October.
Producers, writers and agents were able to network at the event, with each producer hosting introductory meetings with female writers.
The sold-out tour featured the complex’s world-famous Underwater Stage, post facilities and the TV studios where many of the UK’s top TV sitcoms and panel shows are shot.
Head of television Sarah McGettigan, who hosted the tour, offered advice to the RTS Futures visitors starting out on a career in telly: “Make yourself useful, and be interested; you can never ask too many questions.”
Alehammar was born into a family of make-up artists. Both her mother and sister are both in the industry, working in fashion. “I started my career when I was about 15/16 in the fashion industry in Sweden.”
She moved to the UK to study film and TV make-up at London College of Fashion and worked in post-production for a few years. “Then I decided I missed make-up but I didn’t want to go back to fashion.”
Succeeding in the creative industries takes as much luck as it does talent and dogged determination. But ultimately someone does make it. Why couldn’t that be you?
That is the central question of Young and Promising from All 4’s Walter Presents.
Reid, who graduated from the BBC Broadcast Engineering scheme after joining as an apprentice in 2013, receives an all-expenses paid trip to the broadcasting trade show, IBC, in Amsterdam this September.
The young engineer was chosen to receive the award, which is sponsored by digital technology giant Atos, by a panel of industry judges, chaired by digital media consultant Terry Marsh. “It was a very strong field this year, however Gareth stood out immediately,” said Marsh.
The annual BBC Writersroom scheme offers talented screenwriters the opportunity to write the first episode of a BBC original series or serial.
Writers must have at least one professionally produced piece of work of up to 30 minutes in length in television, radio, theatre or film to apply. Applicants must submit an original script alongside a one-sided pitch outlining the drama idea.
When he was offered two days a week on the Scott Mills Show in 2012, he did everything in his power to get noticed. “I would turn up at 8.30 and stay all day and help wherever I could, no one asked me to leave!”
He has since gone on to become a household name on Radio 1 and has carved out an exciting career with fresh and interesting content for the station. “Try and find a way of being yourself which inherently will make you different,” he explains.
Like most editors, Matt Meech started out as a runner, working at a post-production house in Soho where he spent his spare time learning how to use editing software Avid.
Matt put together a showreel which impressed his bosses enough for them to give him a job as an assistant editor.
