Where you are · 01
Nobody is born knowing what a clapper loader does.
If you have never been on a set, the problem is not talent and it is not contacts. It is that nobody has told you what the jobs are called, who does what, or which of the fifty things on the internet are worth an evening.
This is a fortnight’s work, in order, and it costs nothing. At the end of it you will be able to name twenty jobs on a unit, say what each one does at eight in the morning, and have made something with equipment you already own.
The order
Three things, in this order.
01
Learn the shape of the industry
A quarter of an hour of the sector skills body’s introduction, then two and a half hours of Crash Course. Everything else you watch assumes you have done this and none of it says so.
02
Then learn what the jobs are called
Read the job profiles and print a career map. Most people chase the two jobs they have heard of and walk past the eighteen that were hiring.
03
Then make something this week
With the phone in your pocket and a microphone that costs a few pounds. Not to show anybody — to find out which part of it you actually enjoy, which is the only question this fortnight is really asking.
The list
Eight things, and then stop.
A person at the start of this does not need forty links. They need the next one.
ScreenSkills — Introduction to working in the screen industries (opens in a new tab) · Free · free account · 18+ · about a quarter of an hour
Production processes across film, high-end television, unscripted, animation, VFX and games, the roles, and the contracts you may be offered. Do this first.
ScreenSkills — job profiles (opens in a new tab) · Free · no account · anyone who cannot yet name five jobs on a unit
A free public library of role-by-role profiles: what the job is, what a day looks like, how people get in. A reality check before you commit a year to chasing a department.
ScreenSkills — career maps (opens in a new tab) · Free · printable · anyone who thinks visually
Diagrams showing how the roles in film, television, unscripted, animation, VFX and games connect to each other. Print one and put it on a wall. It is the clearest single object either of the big UK reference sites publishes.
Crash Course Film Production (opens in a new tab) · Free · 15 episodes, about 10 minutes each
The whole machine, explained once, properly. Two and a half hours and you will understand what everybody on a set is doing and why.
DaVinci Resolve, free edition (opens in a new tab) · Free · no watermark, no time limit · no kit and no money
Professional editing, grading and audio software, given away complete, with a full free curriculum behind it. You can learn a paid skill this week, on a laptop, for nothing.
Blackmagic Design — free training (opens in a new tab) · Free · books, videos and project files
The written and filmed course to go with the free software. A publisher would charge forty pounds a volume for these books.
Into Film (opens in a new tab) · Free · UK · young people and educators
A UK film education charity with free resources and screenings. The right first step for under-18s, who cannot use most of this list. Our own site is 18 and over throughout, so this is a signpost rather than a service.
The Film and TV Charity support line — 0800 054 0000 (opens in a new tab) · Free · confidential · 24 hours · no membership needed
Open to anybody who has worked behind the scenes, including trainees. Put the number in your phone today rather than on the bad day. An independent organisation, unconnected to us.
Every link here goes to the owner’s own page, in a new tab. How we treat other people’s work · Last checked September 2026.
What to buy
Three cheap things, in this order.
Your phone is a camera. The thing it is bad at is sound, and sound is what an audience actually leaves over.
| Buy this | Why, and in what order |
|---|---|
| A wired microphone that plugs into the phone | First, and by a distance. Fix the sound before the picture. A few pounds of cable and a lapel microphone will do more for your work than any lens attachment. |
| A clamp or a small tripod | Second. A locked-off frame reads as deliberate; a wobbling one reads as an accident, whatever is in it. |
| A manual camera app | Third, and only once the first two are working. Locking exposure, focus and white balance stops the phone quietly changing its mind mid-take. |
Things that are not true
Five of them, and they stop more people than anything else.
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Then what
Where to go when the fortnight is up.
Careers A–Z
Every grade on a UK unit: what you do, what you are good at, who you work with, and every route in.