Job Roles in TV and Film (Blog)

By Adam Joseph Reed

There are many job roles situated in the media industry. First you will need to look at management jobs. These are the roles that involve people directing what is happening when shooting or organising things like sets, talent, and equipment. An example of this is a Production Manager; they are someone who oversees the planning process, draws up the production schedule, and is in charge of organising people such as the production crew and the talent, and the sets and props. Using the media job website http://www.filmandtvpro.com/uk/jobs.php I found there is a job opening in Birmingham. The pay is £34,064 per annum and the duration is 37 hours per week. http://www.filmandtvpro.com/uk/job_view.php?uid=207691&p=2&keyword=

Secondly you need to hire people to handle the creative side of the production. These are the people that create the look of the production, for example the set or costume design. This job also detains the look of the talent. Therefore a makeup artist is needed to do their hair and makeup so that no hair/skin continuity errors take place. I found a Make-up/Hair assistant job at http://www.filmandtvpro.com/uk/job_view.php?uid=207254&p=2&keyword= situated in Lincolnshire. The job lasts one day and the pay is £100. 

Thirdly there has to be someone performing an editorial job role. This is someone who pieces everything together; a perfect example of this is the editor. This is someone who takes the separate pieces of footage and splices them together into a flowing sequence of events. As well as sorting the visual sequence of the film it is also their job to make sure the audio and soundtrack match with the picture. Looking on http://www.filmandtvpro.com/uk/job_view.php?uid=207585&p=&keyword= I found a part time editing job for the pay of £15 per hour.

When shooting a film it is important to have people in Technical roles such as technical operators and supervisors. An operator is the person who actually gets their hands on and uses the equipment on set. Their job can range from handling, the camera, the talk bike, microphones, or even a lighting rig. A technical supervisor’s job is to make sure the equipment is working so that when it comes to the shoot day everything is ready for the shoot to take place. Using Film and TV Pro I discovered a job in technical operating and Lighting available in Chiswick, West London http://www.filmandtvpro.com/uk/job_view.php?uid=208172&p=&keyword=. Using the same site I found a job for lighting and technical supervisor also available from Chiswick http://www.filmandtvpro.com/uk/job_view.php?uid=208173&p=&keyword=. I presume these jobs are for working on the same production. Unfortunately the page does not specify the amount of pay or the duration. I would need to register for an account on the site to view all of the job details.

It is critical to hire at least one researcher on a production. Their job could involve anything from verifying factual information, too finding securing film locations for a shoot day. A researchers job is very wide/open, it depends on the type of production they are working on. Say if you wanted to use a piece of archive footage in your film. It would be their job to check the copyright and acquire the permission to use it. There hours are irregular, meaning they are not regular 5-9 working hours. Instead they can be anything from working weekends or weekdays at midnight to 7 in the morning. There pay, according to https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/mediaresearcher.aspx states that a junior researcher “may earn around £415 a week.” But a more experienced person could “earn around £650 a week”.

There are types of working patterns in the industry. For example Shift work is where a company, to make use of the full 24 hour day, recruits two or more people to do the same job but at different times, on different shifts. This means someone is working on a specific job every hour of the day.

A fixed term employment is where you are employed by a company for a certain amount of time until the task you were hired to do is completed. When your job is done your contract with them expires.

Some people work freelance jobs. This means they are not tied down to just one company on a full time job, but are instead hired for a small amount of time. Advantages of being a freelancer are, they are much better paid as they can negotiate their own rate of hiring, and they aren’t tied down to normal office hours (9-5) as they can often work from home. However there is a large disadvantage to this as you may have a job for a few weeks and not have another one for months later. This means you will not know the next time you are getting paid.

Irregular hours are where a job does not have regular work hours. This means the person performing a piece of work can choose to work from home and at any hour that suits them, as long as they get their work done for a set deadline.

Some people working in the media industry are hired to perform piece work. This is where their pay is not dictated by an hourly rate but instead to the amount and quality of the work produced.