BAFTA Business Nicky Sargent

BAFTA BUSINESS

Nicky Sargent left NHEHS in 1981 to read English at the University of Bristol. After an initial career in advertising and magazine publishing in the early 1990s, Nicky moved into the burgeoning television post production sector. In 1998, after several years as MD of a leading company in the sector, Nicky and her business partner Vikki Dunn co-founded The Farm Group, a multi-award winning broadcast post-production company that has grown to over 350 employees in the UK and US, delivering creative editing and sound post production to the international TV industry.

The Farm has contributed to many hundreds of thousands of primetime programming hours both in the UK and USA, with an Emmy, nine RTS awards, seven BAFTA TV Craft Awards and four Broadcast Awards for Best Post Production House for its high calibre of work.

Nicky’s huge success led to a BAFTA Special Award, one of the Academy’s highest honours, in the summer of 2020, in recognition of her exceptional career and dedication to the field of television post production across a wide range of genres.

What are your favourite memories of your time at NHEHS?

The Boars’ Head Carol was absolutely magical. It was only the Upper Sixth who were involved and I remember the excited feeling and the link to tradition. It is a special memory totally unique to school. And I remember having a lot of fun and playing.

I also clearly remember the feeling the school gave that girls could do anything. Unfortunately, forty years on I don’t think the world has got much better in terms of the progression of women in the workplace, but forty years ago I was as passionate about having a proper career as any girl would be leaving school now. However, I think it is much harder for girls leaving school now as they are expected to be Instagram stars plus surgeons plus everything, and we didn’t have that pressure.

Did you have a favourite teacher or subject at NHEHS?

I remember being imbued with a great love of literature and politics. I loved our English teacher Mrs Hamlyn, she was Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, and she had a huge, massive effect on my self-belief and that I could go on and study English. I am still in irregular touch with her now and I think very, very highly of her. She was so inspirational.

I was part of the Magazine Committee and our year started BLOT (Books, Literature or Talk) with Mrs Hamlyn. I was also in school plays, on stage, as there wasn’t really any backstage, nothing like the facilities there are now at NHEHS.

I also remember Mrs Smith for Politics and Mrs Sergant (no relation!) for French who were both great.

How do you feel NHEHS instilled a ‘girls can achieve anything’ mindset during your time at school?

I think the best thing was that it was not explicit, we were just treated as people as there was no comparison in the classroom to boys. I did not know that some people thought then, and some still do now, that women aren’t quite as good as men for certain jobs. I literally did not know that until I left the school, which was good as it was empowering.

We did have one year of sewing lessons but we were mercilessly unkind to that poor teacher and she had a bit of a breakdown and left the school. There were no more sewing lessons after that. There wasn’t cookery or anything, you went straight into a physics lab or politics session or whatever. There was no concept of subjects being ‘female’ or ‘male’.

How did you start your career in post-production?

After university I worked in an advertising agency which was part of Saatchi & Saatchi in Bristol for a year and

then I wanted to move back to London. In London I got my first job in a magazine and ended up launching a business-to-business magazine called Television Week where I got to know a few people in the TV industry. After that I wanted a change so I applied for a job as Sales & Marketing Manager at a company that was very well known at the time, but had a few issues, called Molinare. I got the job despite knowing nothing and noone in the industry, I think because no-one else would have worked there at that time which I realised when I arrived!

I also met my business partner, Vikki Dunn, at Molinare and we loathed each other on sight! We were also initially pitted against each other by the powers that be, as can happen to women. But after 3 weeks or so of staying very much to our own corners we decided to go out for a quick drink to see if we could get on. And after admittedly more than one drink, we decided to join forces. We learnt a very interesting life lesson! We then stayed at Molinare for seven or eight years and built it up to be the biggest company of its type. However, the ownership kept changing and we didn’t like the ethos of the new owners so we decided to set up our own business. It was a great decision as it gave us more control, we had more fun and we got to work with the people we wanted to work with.

I would say to anyone out there looking for their field, if you find a field you love you will be good at it. I ended up being extraordinarily lucky as I was in an environment that suited me and I loved it. When people come to me for career advice now, I often say it is not about what you do, as many jobs require us to do similar things, but choosing the environment that suits you and that you enjoy is really important. I knew I didn't want to wear a suit, work nine-to-five or work in a very hierarchical environment. I love being with creative people, I am not creative but I really enjoy being with creative people and, therefore, I know how to get the best from them.

What is your favourite part of your job?

Personally, I get the most pleasure from seeing the name of someone on screen I remember from when they were seventeen and we gave them the opportunity to literally make a cup of tea or coffee! Whether they were straight out of school or out of university with a First class degree, it didn’t matter as long as they had the right attitude. To see them go on to have a career, to be able to afford a mortgage, start a family and win a BAFTA or an Oscar themselves is fantastic. That is what motivates me more than anything else.

The Farm has an alumni network of nearly 3000 former employees that we keep in touch with and they now populate the TV industry. They are heads of departments at Netflix, the BBC etc and they have won their own awards. They permeate the TV industry and I am overwhelmingly proud of that because I hope our ethos as a company has always been that we do not see gender, race, sexuality, disability, or class but we do see attitude.

How did you feel receiving your BAFTA Special Award?

I felt truly, truly honoured. We had no idea it was coming. We knew that as a company the Farm and our people win awards, but for Vikki and I as individuals we had no concept that we would win a BAFTA.

There aren’t that many awards for what we do in the industry. We had won a Women in Film and Television award previously but the BAFTA was so unexpected. At the BAFTAs there are performance awards and craft awards for editors and sound mixers for example, but no category for management or people who start companies, which is why it was a ‘special’ award that was presented to us and, therefore, we had no idea it was coming.

What has been your toughest moment to date?

One of my toughest moments was many years ago when we used to transmit satellite channels and one of our contracts was for the Sci-Fi Channel. I had just bought a brand new convertible MGF car and I was driving up and down the Kings Road feeling really great when I got a call from the office saying there had been a power cut for the whole area and there was no power. The UPS back-up batteries had also failed. So I spoke to an engineer and asked 'what is a UPS and where can we get another one?' I found out a UPS battery is essentially a car battery, so I said ‘Hang on!’ and drove straight to the office and the channel was kept on air by my MGF car battery! The car was never quite the same again.

What are your top tips for anyone considering a career in your field?

Definitely do it! There are lots of jobs for lots of different types of people that will give you a decent career, friends for life and if you don’t want to work nine to five it could well be for you.

It is worth noting that London especially, and also Bristol and Manchester, are huge areas of expertise in this field and have international reputations, so you can easily access this huge pool of talent and learn from the best. I would say though you do have to start at the bottom, but if you engage well with people, you work hard and you can think outside the box, you can move on really quickly.

Nicky is happy for any other NHEHS Alumnae thinking of a career in television post-production to get in touch either directly, or via the Alumnae Relations Officer.