Jay Kishan Patel is grateful for the part ScreenSkills has played in his career in high-end TV. “ScreenSkills is very good at teaching you the skills you need,” he says. “It also introduces you to a community. When I started in the industry I didn't know anybody and through ScreenSkills met so many others that I was on the high-end TV Trainee Finder programme with. We were all a great support to each other.”
Jay's most recent job has been on the BBC drama The Responder, a production which welcomed a number of placements from ScreenSkills’ High-end TV Trainee Finder, its new entrant programme, which Jay is an alumni of. “It doesn't surprise me,” he says. “And it's great that that was the case.”
He loved working on the show. “I knew that was quite different; I had a good feeling about it but you never know until you see the finished product. It's so rewarding when you see the reaction to it.”
Jay was born in London and as a teenager developed an interest in the film and TV industry, so took a two-year diploma in media production at Uxbridge College. It was there that he realised he really liked the editing part of the course, so went on to study a degree in post-production at Ravensbourne University in London.
He adopted a forward-thinking approach to his career and, while still at university, started contacting post-production companies, taking a job as a runner just a few months after graduating. He wanted to add to his skills and later worked in Endemol Shine's emerging digital department, delivering online content for various platforms including YouTube and for commercials.
When Jay decided he was ready to move back into high-end TV he got a second assistant editor job on Sky's Stan Lee's Lucky Man. Then, through the ScreenSkills High-end TV Trainee Finder programme, he was taken on as trainee editor on another Sky drama, Curfew.
“I'm very happy with my association with ScreenSkills,” Jay says. “It got me my second job in the industry which in turn led me to meet other people and build my contacts. But it also helped me with how to be a freelancer, how to manage my money, how to network. I'm friends to this day with other people who were on the Trainee Finder programme at the same time as me.”
He says it also gave him confidence and is impressed by its unofficial aftercare. “You have this community in the background and you know there are people that have your back. Even though I'm no longer on the Trainee Finder programme, I still get emails suggesting things I might like to do. They remember you.”
Jay believes ScreenSkills helps create diversity in high-end TV. “There is no obvious or immediate route into the industry and if you don't know anybody you may not know how to enter. ScreenSkills gives people the tools to get into it, but also gives productions the opportunity to avoid the problems we sometimes have in this industry of nepotism. ScreenSkills enables people of different backgrounds to come into the industry and develop their career.”
Jay is active on social media. “It's a great way to explain what my job is and, for those who aren't the industry, to explain that it's very accessible; there are ways in if you show them how. It's also nice to share your work and show what a great industry it is to work in.”
He was delighted to step up to editor on one of the episodes of The Responder. “I cut a couple of trailers and promotional stuff and [series producer] Rebecca Ferguson liked what I had done. She asked me if I wanted to edit an episode - it's a big step but she really believed in me.”
Rebecca wasn't the only person who has helped Jay's career progress, and he gives a shout-out to editor Danielle Palmer, with whom he has worked on three shows – The Responder, The Trial of Christine Keeler and the BBC drama The Serpent – and Claire Davis in post-production on Stan Lee's Lucky Man. “They've all been so helpful and I'm very grateful,” he says.
Jay plans to step up to editor permanently, but only when the time is right. “I want to gain more experience cutting as an assistant but in another year or so I want to step up.”