Lewis Frain

The Network was a massive highlight of my year, being an incredible opportunity for personal growth and career development. Participating in the Festival gave me the self-confidence and industry insight to launch a freelance career in the industry. Since attending the Festival I have gained friends from across the country and the support of 49 others at a similar stage in their career to me. We lean on each other for support, share opportunities, read over applications and scripts and champion each other following a mindset of ‘come with me, don’t chase after me’ instilled in us all from our experience with The Network. With the support of my TV mentor, a Shooting-AP working in documentary, alongside CV clinics set up with talent managers from Studio Lambert and Wonderhood Studios, I have gained roles within TV working as a Runner on a number of shows such as Britain’s Got Talent, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!. Without The Network I would not have had the confidence or ability to successfully seek out these opportunities and start my career in TV.

 

The 4 days I spent at the Edinburgh TV Festival were extremely fun, validating and enriching. With my fellow 49 Networkers alongside the support of the team at the TV Foundation we participated in engaging hands-on workshops with industry professionals from CNN, Channel 4.0 and Eastenders gaining experience in journalism, pitching, digital content creation and scriptwriting. Taking part in the CNN Mobile Journalism Lab I had the opportunity to create a news report which was broadcast live from the festival, following it from story development to a finished edited broadcast within 48 hours. I attended large networking drinks events every night of the festival meeting industry professionals from across the industry in particular talent managers alongside representatives of the Netflix Doc Fund. I also attended a number of seminars at the festival including James Graham’s MacTaggart Lecture.

 

A highlight of The Network was the CNN Mobile Journalism Workshop. Under the supportive tutelage of Emmy Award winner Adam Dunnakey, Glen Mulcahy and Li-Lian Ahlskog Hou, in a small team I developed, pitched, produced and edited a 2 minute news report in 48 hours. This was a dynamic hands-on crash course on the lightning speed nature of journalism and afforded us with the opportunity to meet talented individuals from across the industry and capture their interviews on-camera. The workshop with my fellow networkers had an incredibly positive, welcoming atmosphere where we all grew closer, exchanged ideas and forged strong bonds which have lasted to this day. We presented our reports at a large seminar at the end of the festival with industry figures and Networkers in the audience, this was an extremely wholesome experience championing and supporting each other on-stage. I speak to friends I made through this workshop all the time and hope to continue working with them in industry across the country for years to come.