Lunch with a Commissioner: Emma Westcott, commissioning editor, factual, Channel 5

Grab your homemade sandwich of choice and get ready to dine with a different commissioner every day. At 1pm from Monday to Friday, participants will be able to join a commissioner and listen to their insights as well as ask questions at the end of the hour.

These are great sessions for our freelance community who don’t normally get the opportunity to chat to commissioners. So, if you’re a head honcho who normally has all the commissioners on speed-dial this session isn’t for you! Please keep this in mind when booking. Thanks for your support and understanding.

This session will be chaired by Elaine Hackett.

Speaker

Emma Westcott has been commissioning editor, factual at Channel 5 since February 2013. She oversees a wide range of factual series in the channel’s peak-time schedule and also leads the channel’s push to double its amount of regional commissions.

At Channel 5 Emma has been responsible for successful series such as: Thirties in Colour, Walking Britain’s Lost Railways, Dogs Behaving Badly, Toddlers Behaving (very) badly, Ten Years Younger in 10 days, GPs: Behind Closed Doors and Violent Child, Desperate Parents.

Before joining Channel 5 she was Director of Commissioning at The Lifestyle Channels in Australia from 2010 to 2012. There Emma developed and managed key local productions as well as successfully translating a number of UK formats such as: Location Location Australia; Grand Designs Australia and Trinny and Susannah’s Australian Makeover Mission.

Prior to that she worked as Channel 4 Commissioning Editor for Features, responsible for channel defining shows including: Location, Location; Property Ladder; No Going Back; You Are What You Eat and Ten Years Younger as well as managing key brands such as Grand Designs and Supernanny.

Emma has also worked for ITV Productions Children’s and Entertainment and BBC Entertainment and Features as well as an executive producer in the independent sector, producing content for all major UK broadcasters.

Chair

Elaine Hackett is an award winning show runner with over 20 years’ broadcast experience. She launched Crackit Productions in 2008, at the beginning of the last financial crisis, with a vision to create ground breaking television that would stimulate debate, generate headlines and engage viewers.

12 years on, and Crackit has 3 thriving hubs in London, Manchester and Brighton and has produced over 600 hours of content for UK and overseas broadcasters.

Some of Crackit's most recent hits and returnable series include Shoplifters: At War with the Law, A&E After Dark (S2 currently in production) Casualty 24/7 (S4 currently in production) for Channel 5, Animal A&E coming soon for ITV1 & Season 2 of Britain's Deadliest Kids for Discovery. In Bad Habits: Holy Order. Crackit broke new ground by putting a group of young women into a Catholic convent for the first time ever on British television. And The Secret Life of the Hospital Bed gained a unique POV of hospital DNA by creating the first movable rig which allowed us to move with the patients’ story.

This event is supported by the ScreenSkills Television Skills Fund which invests in training for the freelance television workforce thanks to contributions from the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

It is part of a ScreenSkills programme managed by the Indie Training Fund to support freelancers to upskill and stay connected, helping keep the industry resilient in these difficult times.

This session will take place online via Zoom. Click ‘get ticket’ to reserve your place: you must login or register before you are able to get a ticket for this event. A booking confirmation with a joining link to the session will be sent to you via email.

If you are no longer able to use your ticket, we ask you to please contact support@screenskills.com  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.