The first two years: lessons for educators from UK entry-level workers in film and TV

ABSTRACT

This article shares the findings from a two-year longitudinal study of the employment experiences of entry-level workers in the UK film and TV industries, with particular reference to the value they attributed to their prior education – or their perception of gaps in that education. Educational institutions were better at delivering practice-based training than career skills; many graduates lacked confidence, and soft skills proved more valuable than industry-specific craft skills, in a Bourdieusian ‘hysteresis’ where cultural capital from the academic field does not align with the need for social capital in the professional environment. The study identifies and explores a high prevalence of unpaid work and barriers to progression in the media sector, including exploitation, precarity, geographic location, the need for prior experience, and challenges to wellbeing. Recommendations are offered for educators in preparing students to navigate these early years and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Television
• film
• education
• careers
• Bourdieu

Acknowledgments

With warm thanks and gratitude to Prof. Keith Shaw, and all the research participants who stayed with the study and generously shared their personal experiences across a full two years.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical statement

Ethical approval was granted for this research project by Northumbria University’s ethics committee on November 7th 2016. (Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences Ethics Review), Title: Employment experiences of entry level workers in film and television. Information sheets and consent forms were provided to all participants online, and signed electronically as the first stage of registering for the project.

Notes

1. The coronavirus pandemic took place at the end of the research project, which was mitigated (a) through the fortuitous timing of final questionnaires, and (b) through revised wording and direction of post-lockdown survey questions. 23 (around a quarter) were unaffected as they had already completed the project before the first UK lockdown (March 2020). A batch of a further 23 took the final questionnaire very shortly after lockdown and were asked in a revised question to reflect on their progress only up to the point at which Covid impacted. The remaining half of the cohort (45) took the final survey as a batch in September 2020, when the industry was returning to a production backlog under Covid-secure filming protocols. Reflection on educational preparation, within the scope of this article, was not felt to be affected.

Additional information

Funding

No external funding was received in the course of this research.

Notes on contributors

Neil Percival

Neil Percival is Acting Director of Cultural Partnerships at Northumbria University. Following a previous career as a TV documentary director, his research interests include employment practices in the media industries, with particular focus on issues of entry level work, unpaid labour, and career exit. He has previously published on the subject of attitudes to unpaid work, mobilisation of resistance, and workers’ reasons for leaving the UK TV industry.