RTS NEWS

The BBC’s New Broadcasting House in Cardiff was the venue for a January panel discussion presented by ScreenSkills and RTS Cymru Wales on freelance working in TV. It was part of an afternoon of sessions produced by the BBC Academy’s Production Unlocked initiative.

Rebecca Meredith, ScreenSkills training liaison manager for Wales, was joined by freelancers Ella Stockton, an assistant director, and two members of the RTS Cymru Wales Committee: script editor Edward Russell (Chair) and Joe Towns, a media lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, who is also a freelance sports documentary producer.

Stockton described how, after training with Screen Alliance Cymru, she worked as a freelance assistant director on Casualty, which she described as a generally positive experience – “I liked the freedom and the chance to develop other interests” – such as, in her case, working on Season 2 of the Netflix youth comedy Heartstopper, during a summer break.

A sports TV production career appealed to Towns