Learn · The library
The industry already teaches this. Nobody put it in order.
Department guides, and the stage you are at. Every list is chosen by somebody who has done that job on a UK set, labelled free or paid before you click, and linked out to the person who made it.
The best of what already exists, put in order. Where the free material does not exist the page says so and stops. Where the best teaching is behind a subscription we send you there.
It is free and it stays up, which is what makes it useful between jobs. It is not a route to a qualification and does not pretend to be one.
By department
Department guides, each with a reading order.
Each guide opens with what to learn first and in what order, then the free list, then the short list of what is worth paying for, then the books, then the grades.
Camera
Loading, marking, slating and focus — weighted to the assistant grades, because that is where the work is.
Lighting and electrical
Load, distribution and safety first. The half of lighting that gets you hired.
Grip and rigging
The least documented department in the industry, and the easiest first day to get.
Art, costume, hair and make-up
The departments that build the world, and the making skills they hire on.
Post: editing, sound and grade
Free professional software and a free curriculum behind it. The best free offer in the industry.
Production and assistant directing
Breakdown, schedule, budget and call sheet, and the office where most people enter.
By where you are
Where people are standing when they arrive.
Careers are not linear and nobody is only one of these. Pick the one that describes this month.
01
Never been on a set
No kit, no contacts, no idea what the jobs are called. A fortnight’s work, in order, costing nothing.
02
You have a first day
Two hours of preparation so your first day is not spent apologising.
03
Building a career
You have a credit. You cannot get the third one. Rates, tax, and the grade above you.
04
Changing department
Crossing sideways with credits in the wrong craft, and how to write the application.
05
Running a department
Hiring, budgets, published rates, guild grades and the safety you now sign for.
Not sure
You do not know what the jobs are
Every grade on a UK unit, what it does at eight in the morning, and every route in.
The four platforms
Almost everything in this library sits on one of four platforms.
Three of them are free. The fourth is usually free if you have a library card, and few people check.
ScreenSkills (opens in a new tab) · Free · UK terminology · account needed for e-learning, not for profiles · 18+
The UK sector skills body. Job profiles, skills checklists and career maps open without an account; the e-learning modules need a free one. The only free material written to UK grades, which means it matches the call sheet you will be standing under.
British Cinematographer — CineSkills and CinePlayer (opens in a new tab) · Free · no login, no email, no paywall · camera and lighting
Craft videos, panels, masterclasses and film school showcases, completely ungated — including a large free rail of Filmmakers Academy material. The magazine’s own articles name the fixtures, the rig and the gaffer on real UK productions. It carries no glossary, so read it with ours open.
Blackmagic Design free training (opens in a new tab) · Free · books, videos and project files · post, grade, audio and VFX
Professional editing, colour, audio and compositing software given away complete, with a written curriculum and video courses behind it. A publisher would charge forty pounds a volume for these books. It is the best free offer in the industry and it is not close.
LinkedIn Learning (opens in a new tab) · Paid · usually free with a UK library card · software and business skills
Thin on set craft and largely American. Genuinely strong on editing and finishing software, 3D, and the self-employment side — invoicing, negotiation, project management. Check your library service before paying for it.
Filmmakers Academy is a paid American platform. A good deal of its craft material plays free on British Cinematographer’s video platform, without a card, which is worth knowing before you subscribe to anything.
How we treat other people’s work
We link out, we credit, and we never re-host.
This is the whole policy for every list on every page in this library, stated once here rather than repeated on all of them.
Where an owner allows embedding, a film plays through their own player, so the view and the credit are theirs. Everything else is a link out to their front door, in a new tab.
- Nothing in this library is re-hosted, re-cut or re-uploaded “for educational purposes”.
- Nobody listed is a partner, a sponsor, a client or an affiliate of ours, and nobody has paid to be here.
- We earn nothing whether a link is free or paid. There are no affiliate links anywhere on this site.
- Every list carries the date it was last checked, and the date moves only when somebody has opened the links. A dead link is a broken promise.
Filming in a classroom, history display on the wall
The other way round it
Or ordered the way a production happens.
Development, prep, shoot, post, delivery, with the departments underneath each one. That is the order the work arrives in on a real job, and it is the map to open if you are trying to understand the process rather than find a job in it.
Development
Before anybody books a camera
Script, rights, money, casting and the look. Most people trying to get in skip this stage, then find the decisions on set arbitrary.
Post
Where the film is actually made
Rushes, cutting room, sound post, VFX and the grade — the stage most people never see from the inside.
Delivery
The stage nobody teaches
Specs, QC, access versions, rights, credits and getting it seen. There is no guide for this yet because the free material barely exists.
Stage 01Development
| Under this stage | What you will find |
|---|---|
| Script and story | Structure, format, and why a correctly laid-out script matters to every department downstream. |
| Rights and development | Options, underlying rights, adaptation, and how an idea becomes something a financier can look at. |
| Finance and greenlight | Where the money comes from, who has to say yes, and what a greenlight is. |
| Producing | The difference between a producer, an executive producer, a line producer and a production manager. |
| Casting | How casting runs, what a self-tape is for, and what a casting director does with two hundred of them. |
| Design and the look | Concept work, references, and the conversation between director, DoP and production designer that sets everything else. |
Everything that decides what the film is before there is anything to photograph. Most people trying to get in skip this stage entirely, then wonder why the decisions on set feel arbitrary.
Screenwriting
Where to find produced British scripts, and why reading them beats every course.
Directing
The half of the job that is not shot design: actors, rehearsal and holding a tone.
Producing
Breakdown, schedule, budget and call sheet, and the office where most people enter.
Making films on a phone
No kit, no budget, no contacts. The guide that removes the excuse.
Stage 02Prep
| Under this stage | What you will find |
|---|---|
| Breakdown and scheduling | Pulling elements out of a script, building a stripboard, and why the schedule is never the story order. |
| Recces and locations | What a recce is for, who goes, and what gets decided standing in the room. |
| Camera and lens tests | Testing bodies, glass, filtration and stock before anybody commits to a look. |
| Prep days and kit lists | What happens in a rental house prep bay, and what a good kit list looks like. |
| Art department and construction | Drawings, build, dressing, and the lead times nobody allows for. |
| Costume, hair and make-up | Fittings, continuity, prosthetics and ageing, and why it all has to be planned in prep. |
| Health, safety and risk | Risk assessments, method statements, and who is responsible for what. |
| Insurance, contracts and clearance | Deal memos, releases, and the paperwork that protects people rather than the production. |
The stage that decides whether a shoot is calm or expensive. Prep is where most of the craft lives, and it is the least filmed part of the process.
Art, costume and make-up
The departments that build the world, and the craft skills they hire on.
Freelancing
Tax, rates, invoicing and getting paid — settled before your first day, not after it.
Stage 03Shoot
| Under this stage | What you will find |
|---|---|
| The shape of a day | Call, unit base, first positions, block and light, lunch, the martini shot and wrap. |
| Camera department | Loading, marking, focus, running the cart, camera reports, and shooting on 35mm. |
| Lighting and electrical | Distribution, rigging, colour temperature, and what the gaffer is deciding for. |
| Grip and rigging | Track, dollies, cranes, remote heads and stabilised systems. |
| Sound | Booms, radio mics, sound reports, and the eight things that quietly ruin a take. |
| Assistant directing | Call sheets, movement orders, how the floor is run, and who is allowed to shout. |
| Performance and the floor | Working with actors, intimacy coordination, stunts, and what “quiet please” is doing. |
| Special effects | Practical effects, water, wind and fire, and where practical stops and VFX begins. |
| Script supervision | Continuity across takes and days, and the notes the editor will be reading in three months. |
One day, every department at once. This is the largest part of the library because it is the part with the most language in it.
Your first day
Two hours of preparation so your first day is not spent apologising.
Camera
Loading, marking, slating and focus — weighted to the assistant grades, where the work is.
Lighting and electrical
Load, distribution and safety first. The half of lighting that gets you hired.
Grip and rigging
The least documented department in the industry, and the easiest first day to get.
Sound
Production sound and post sound, kept separate, because they are two different jobs.
Stage 04Post
| Under this stage | What you will find |
|---|---|
| Rushes and data | Offloading, checksums, the DIT cart, and why the dailies came back looking wrong. |
| Editing | Assembly, the cut, and what an assistant editor does all day. |
| Sound post | Dialogue edit, ADR, Foley, the mix, and the music and effects version. |
| VFX | Plates, tracking, what to shoot for it, and what not to promise on the floor. |
| Grade and finishing | Conform, colour, titles, and how a look survives from the lens to the master. |
| Music | Composers, temp scores, and what it takes to clear a track. |
Where the film is made, and the stage most people never see from the inside.
Editing and post
Free professional software and a free official curriculum. The best offer in the industry.
VFX and virtual production
Compositing, 3D and the volume, all of it learnable on free tools.
AI
What is landing in production pipelines, assessed rather than admired.
Stage 05Delivery
| Under this stage | What you will find |
|---|---|
| Delivery specs and QC | What a broadcaster or distributor asks for, and the reasons masters fail technical review. |
| Access versions | Subtitles, audio description, signed versions, and the regulation behind them. |
| Rights, credits and clearance | Who owns what, contributor consent, music and archive, and how credit order is settled. |
| Distribution and festivals | Sales, festivals, windows, and what a release plan looks like from the inside. |
| Archive and preservation | Masters, formats, storage, and keeping a film alive after everyone has moved on. |
The stage that decides whether the work is accepted, seen and still playable in ten years. Almost nobody teaches it.
The rest of it
What the grades are, what the words mean, and who else can help.
The library points at material. These four point at jobs, language, process and organisations, and they are the part people come back to.
Careers A–Z
Every grade on a UK unit: what you do, what you are good at, tools of the trade, who you work with, and every route in.
Glossary
What people on set are saying and what they mean. UK terminology, UK grades, and it is linked from every guide in this library.
How it all works
Six explainers: how a set works, how a film gets made, how crews are hired, how departments fit, how the money works, how to get in.
The directory
Guilds, unions, funders, training providers, screen agencies and support, with one line on each.
