Jobs in Commercials
There are three main areas of work in the commercials sector, and there are different types of people, different skills, different training routes demanded and different career paths for each.
Production (Content)
Roles include: Account Executive, Advertising Executive, Commissioner, Client Executive (who may be someone such as Head of Marketing or Head of Communications), Producer, Director, Journalist, Researcher, Writer. Producers, directors, script writers and art designers are the key roles in this area.
Obtaining work is difficult. Job adverts are rare to non-existent. Career paths are forged through resilience or luck or contacts. People need to work in other areas - television, corporate, film (if possible), indeed any sector - and keep trying to obtain work in Commercials through approaches by letter and phone, keeping up with developments in Commercials and cultivating contacts to become an observer or work experience person or assistant if at all possible. It often is a case of how much you want it, or how lucky you are.
Production (Technical)
Here career paths may be simpler than in the Content Production area. Specific technical skills and technical problem solving are key; if you do not have such abilities to a high level, you will not work. (Here, the roles match very closely those of the film industry - Camera, Sound, Lighting, Editing, Art, SFX, and so on - and it is here that the majority of movement between commercials and other sectors occurs. Traditionally one trained on the job in television or corporate - as assistant camera, or assistant sound or assistant editor for instance - and then people went freelance, or found work as the principal themselves.
Video and digital technology has meant that “assistant” is no longer a common role, so more and more people have to train for technical roles at Film Schools or in University Departments, or with equipment manufacturers or facilities houses. But Commercials still use Assistants! There are opportunities for reliable Assistants to most technical roles in Commercials, and this may be the best route for people interested in this area of work to target. In addition to the technical skills, employers and producers who employ camera, sound, editors etc. will look for flexibility, a friendly personality, a “can do” attitude and the ability to be friendly or totally silent when with or near clients!
Admin, support, general roles
Like all industries, commercials relies on a body of highly skilled support staff such as Production Managers, Production Accountants, Lawyers, PAs and so on. This area of work is relatively conventional for most roles, as Commercials companies operate in the same way as most other forms of business. Whether secretary or lawyer, accountant or personnel manager, you train in the normal way.
Got a question?
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