The BBC Writersroom Director's Scheme
Simon Nelson
BBC Writersroom Development Producer
Nearly a year ago, at the 2015 Edinburgh Television Festival, we announced the launch of an exciting and innovative new training scheme for television directors early in their careers. The objective, quite simply, was to train directors – on the job – to work professionally on BBC Dramas. At the same time there was a deep desire to radically alter the industry’s idea of what a typical British drama director looked like.
With the invaluable support of DirectorsUK and Creative Skillset, BBC Writersroom constructed a programme whereby 12 directors new to television work on a block of one of the BBC’s four flagship dramas (Eastenders, Holby, Casualty and Doctors). During their time on the drama, the trainee director is mentored by an established director: the trainee observes the established director through prep, on set and in post-production.
At the same time, the trainee preps and directs one episode him/herself and the established director supervises the trainee though this process. On completion, the trainee then receives a full credit as the director of that episode.
The end result is something truly tangible – not only has the trainee benefitted from observation and instruction, but they also have a full drama credit to take with them into the jobs market.
So how did we select trainees for such a golden opportunity? Well, applications were accepted throughout the autumn of 2015 and, predictably, competition for the scheme was extremely strong with a total of 555 prospective candidates applying. I think I had expected a large amount of entries but I’m not sure I had expected the quality to be quite as high as it was. The standard of work was really superb. So over several weeks, the applications and accompanying showreels were viewed and scrutinised by an expert panel of experienced drama directors; and after a huge amount of deliberation, 95 of these were duly invited for interview with 12 candidates eventually being selected for paid mentoring and training.
The scheme’s review panel was hugely impressed by the high standard of the applicants and it is a measure of the candidates’ high standard that several BBC Executives have already approached BBC Writersroom for director recommendations based on the candidates interviewed (not just those selected for training).
We are already beginning to see fruit: several of our trainees have completed their training block and some of these have already been booked for a full professional block on production, and we hope that others will be equally successful.
The scheme is nearly one year old – and I think we’ve learnt a great many things along the way. But what I’ve mostly come away with is that it only works well when people work together: we couldn’t have launched this training without the support and input of DirectorsUK and CreativeSkillset; we could not have run the scheme without the tireless co-operation of Casualty, Doctors, Eastenders and Holby; and we couldn’t have done any of it if we hadn’t encountered the most extraordinarily talented pool of directors. We very much hope we can go on to serve another intake of new TV directors and keep the UK’s directing talent fresh, exciting and diverse.
This year’s trainees were: Baff Akoto, Rob Brown, Ruth Carney, Edward Dick, Samantha Harrie, Thomas Hescott, Waris Islam, Alex Jacob, Lynsey Miller, Afia Nkrumah, Nimer Rashed, Vito Rocco, and you can read Ruth Carney's blog about her experience on the Writersroom website.
Simon Nelson is Development Producer for BBC Writersroom