Skills and Training for Commercials
People from all kinds of educational and cultural backgrounds work in Commercials. Once in the sector, people do tend to work for one or a few agencies but they can move around and the majority find work through contacts and word of mouth. The majority are freelance, casual workers on a job duration, or daily, or weekly contract. Many take short-term courses to maintain their high skill level, in an industry where the technology and thinking is ever advancing.
The one overriding rule on Careers in Commercials is: there is no absolute rule. If you can do the job well, you will often get to do the job, no matter what your background or training.
This situation will never entirely disappear, but it is changing somewhat. For certain job roles, the UK is beginning to follow the American route of people training to work in Film and Television, whether in UK Film Schools or Universities. People are graduating with the bedrock of knowledge and skills, so that they then need only a break to get a job. There they gain a modicum of actual experience in Commercials and then get work on an on-going basis.
Above all things, reputation really counts. This is a small industry, and word goes round - fast!
TRANSFERABLE SKILLS IN COMMERCIALS
It is not all doom and gloom for the commercials industry: those employed in it are highly qualified and experienced and often get work in other sectors. Once trained, and with some experience, commercials practitioners in all areas of the business have the skills and experience to work in other areas of media production that demand and need the same mix of skills. The ability to develop and deliver ideas on screen to budget and specification and deadline, often under real if not brutal stress conditions; the production, direction or technical skills to achieve this; the skills to support this process in administrative, legal, financial and logistical aspects - all can be applied to television, corporate production, pop promos, interactive media, and even print journalism and photography.
Many people use working in commercials as a way of building up experience, and contacts, before moving into film. Telling a story in only 20 or 30 seconds, with pictures and sound but often little or no dialogue, challenges and hones the skills of writers, producers, directors, camera people and editors. They are then ready to move on to produce a 100 such sharply focussed mini-stories that make up the scenes of feature films. Commercials also have a reputation for developing and using specialist techniques and effects, providing a valuable training ground for would-be feature filmmakers. The film industry also watches commercials assiduously in order to spot high quality filmmaking talent early and recruit it.
