Amber Connolly - First Post trainee
Amber Connolly had been working as a runner at Pepper Post for eight months when the opportunity to go on the First Post course came up.
"I thought it would just be so beneficial," she says. "I really wanted to move up to being a telecine assistant. Pepper was giving me the chance to do around a day's training every week and I felt that if I could do the Skillset course as well then I would be able to offer more.
"I didn't have a background in film or television when I joined Pepper so it was great to get into an environment where you could ask the most basic questions without feeling you were showing yourself up. The course gives you a really good overview of the industry from development through to post and teaches you about budgets and schedules, client handling and the importance of health and safety. It really made me understand the process of how things are shot and then come to us and where they go next. Really just how everything ties together.
"Probably the most important part of the course for me was the actual technical training side. We covered things like video and audio theory and VTR technology. It explained a lot of the terminology - which is a language in itself - and gave us the tools to understand the technology and not be afraid of it. So we were able to go back to your own post houses and say, 'Right, I know this, this and this about this piece of kit. Can I get in and sit with you and listen and learn and see what you do with it?'."
Shortly after completing the course in October 2005, Connolly was promoted to telecine assistant.
"I've been working as an assistant for around six months now," she says. "Ultimately I think the greatest benefit I got from doing the First Post course was confidence and the tools to undertake more of my own learning within my own company. I've still got lots to learn but I've already been asked to do client attended jobs on my own which is great."