Setting yourself up for success: Making every role count as a freelancer

As part of our Step Up strand, we’re offering training to help individuals coming back into the industry after a break, moving into a new role or responsibility level, or improving skills in unscripted TV. 

Freelancing in unscripted TV offers many opportunities but also presents challenges. In this course, you will learn how to ensure that you join each new project or team with all of the information you need to do your best work. We will explore how to get ahead of potential challenges during the onboarding process and how to set expectations and boundaries for yourselves and your teams with new employers.

Who it's for

Freelancers working in Unscripted TV who are seeking to maximise every contract and opportunity.

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. Please email the above address if you have any access requirements and we will be delighted to help.

What it covers

A half day workshop to help freelancers approach each freelance role with confidence and feel more in control of their professional progress.

Before you begin

• Getting clarity on your role.
• Identifying your goals.
• This role and your development – creating the conditions to do your best work.

The nuts and bolts

• Core questions around expectations.
• Before you get started - making sure you’ve got the skills and knowledge necessary to work with confidence.
• The people – who are you reporting to? Who is supporting you?

Being your own brand champion

• Simple questions to invite constructive feedback.
• Recording your contribution – what do you want to take away from the role?

Trainer:

Alex Dalton is a consultant, facilitator and trainer, specialising in leadership, personal development, communication and creativity.

Alex’s training work ranges from delivering bespoke creative leadership training to broadcast commissioners to offering personal development tips to industry apprentices.  She developed and leads training that launched a creative network in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has designed and teaches a strategic innovation model adopted across all digital teams in the BBC and has earned the trust and respect of senior leaders in media and entertainment with an innovative and empowering one-on-one leadership development programme. Recently, she has coached production teams to pitch for and win business worth over £20 million.

Along with these clients, Alex works with a number of other brilliant organisations, including The Wellcome Foundation, The NHS, Cambridge University, L’Oreal, BP, Moneysaving Expert, IMG, Coca-Cola and Pernod-Ricard.

During her career with the BBC, Alex produced major events such as The Olympics, The General Election, The Grand National and Wimbledon

How to apply

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

If you need additional support to complete your application or require the application form in an alternative format please contact USF@screenskills.com

Places on these free online courses are limited and applications are often highly competitive. To stand the best chance of securing a place, please be sure to consider the following:

• When asked to list your three most recent credits, please include the programme title and your job role.
• When asked what you hope to gain from the course, please be concise but ensure you cover the specific elements of the topic you would like to gain knowledge of and what gaps in your skillset you believe the course may address. A rewording of the course title or a general comment on career progression does not tell us much about how this course would benefit you.

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 course is supported by ScreenSkills, by the Unscripted TV Skills Fund 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.