Managing Excel cost managers

As part of the Mind Your Business strand, we're offering training in a range of areas related to business management & development, production finance, legal & business affairs, rights, and compliance, giving individuals the tools needed to thrive in their chosen field in unscripted TV. 

It can be daunting to make the step up to become a production manager, becoming responsible for keeping track of the production budget using your cost manager and ensuring the production doesn’t go overbudget.  This course is designed to prepare you for that next that step and will guide you through the process to give you the confidence you need in managing your unscripted TV cost manager.

The course will include practical exercises as well as guidance and the chance to ask questions throughout.

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.

Who it's for

This course is aimed at production coordinators and junior production managers looking to take the next step in their career, or those who want to brush up on their Excel cost manager skills for unscripted TV.

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

We are committed to ensuring all our courses are accessible to everyone. Please email the above address with any access requirements so that we can make the arrangements you need.

What it covers

• Understanding Excel cost managers 
• Creating basic Formulas
• Dealing with overspends
• Q and As

By the end of the course you will learn how to look after a cost manager to keep the production on budget and schedule.

Trainer:

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), Veganville (BBC Three) and Wonders of the Celtic Deep (BBC 2).

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, a Level 3 Award in Education and Training contextualised to the screen industries and is a Level 3 qualified ILM Coach & Mentor.

How to apply

This session will take place online via Zoom. Click ‘get ticket’ at the top of the page and follow the instructions to book your place; you must login or register before you are able to book your place.

Our courses are popular and often book up quickly. 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 to someone on the waiting list.