So you've joined Filmbase! It’s a great start and being listed on the directory and receiving job alerts will give you a massive advantage. However, it’s a tremendously difficult industry to get in to so we recommend being as proactive as possible. Read on to see what else you can do to maximise your chances of getting the jobs you want.

Your profile should mark you out as someone that a set decorator or supervising art director would want to hire. Employers will be looking for details in your profile that tell them that you have the required skills or experience for the job. You can add information to the notes section to mention any relevant points. For example, if you want to work as a petty cash buyer, then you need to demonstrate that you have some experience of buying, and also knowledge of the prop houses. If you’re looking for work as an Art Department trainee, then you don’t necessarily need professional experience, as it is a starter role, but you should mention that you have the relevant skills for the Art Department, such as white card model making or technical drawing.

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A CV is also extremely important when you are starting out. If you haven’t uploaded a CV to your profile, then employers will pass your listing by. Employers regularly complain to us that not all the New to the Industry members have CVs available to view. A single page CV is best at this stage, clearly laid out without being too fancy. Check there are no spelling mistakes and list the productions you have worked on, along with the HoD you worked for, and the dates of employment.

Lastly, if you do have any professional experience, then make sure you have an IMDB listing with any credits added to it. IMDB is almost as important as a CV as employers will immediately go there to check what you’ve worked on when you get more experienced.

You can find more information on creating an IMDB listing on the Filmbase FAQ pages.

Portfolios are particularly important for Art Department roles. You will eventually be expected to draft and you have a higher chance of getting hired for a junior role if you can show that you have technical drafting skills, or at least an aptitude for drawing, even if you won’t draw in the role you are applying for. You should also try and demonstrate some white card model skills, as that is often a task allocated to junior roles. For Set Decoration members, it’s not so necessary to demonstrate any technical skills such as drafting, however if you want to make yourself stand out, you can still show that you understand how to do a floor plan, produce a mood board and sketch out concepts for dressing. You can also put in examples of any student productions that you may have dressed. Personal projects that show all of these skills are absolutely fine when you’re starting out.

When you select the job roles that you are interested in as part of your Filmbase portfolio, choose positions that match your level of experience. You may have worked on numerous student films as a set decorator, but that won’t mean much to anyone hiring you for anything with a substantial budget. Unless you’re aiming to work on low budget features (shorts or online content) then you will most likely need to start in a junior role. It does vary across the different budgets, so have a look further down the page to understand the different budget bands.

Be prepared for job alerts! Crew members are usually hired within a few days of a job alert going out, so time is of the essence. You may also receive job alerts at all times of the day. So make sure you have an up to date CV and cover email ready to go. If you want until after the weekend, when you’ve had time to update your CV and think about what you want to say, you will most likely have missed the job. Have a look at the job alert page to see examples of recent job alerts come in. There is also further information on what kind of job alerts to expect on that page.

It’s entirely possible to get into film and TV without a higher education, although most employers will expect it if you’re entering the industry as a junior, and it will certainly give you an advantage when employers are comparing CVs. If you do have a university degree or equivalent, then many employers will not expect any additional education after that, as long as you can demonstrate that you can do the job. When you get more experienced, your credits can be enough to prove this. But when you are starting out, the easiest way to do this is with a portfolio. You don’t have to spend thousands on an expensive masters course, or short courses, but if doing a course helps you fill a portfolio with examples of concepts, drafting or white card models then it may be worth doing one.

You can find a selection of the most relevant courses for the Art Department on the Training and Support pages.

Until the launch of Filmbase in 2020, jobs for the Art Department had never been regularly advertised before, so Job Alerts are a relatively new concept. This is great for those who are starting out today and it gives you an advantage that previous juniors never had. However, you can’t rely on the perfect job alert coming in and you will need to do a lot of leg work yourself to make contacts in order to maximise your chances.

In order to make the best kind of contacts, it helps to have a clear idea as to which part of the Art Department you want to get into. Art Department? Set Decoration? Concept illustration? Model making? You should also ask yourself, which genres of films / TV are you most interested in. From there, by looking at the directories, pick a small selection of Supervising Art Directors, Set Decorators or Production Designers who have worked on productions that interest you. Focus on forming a relationship with these select few rather than email blasting everybody.

If you target specific employers, then you can write a genuine email to those people, telling them that you love their work and want to work for them. They will get many emails like this each week, so you will need to persevere and find a way to stand out from the rest. It’s a difficult balance between persevering to the right level without being annoying, but it has to be done! Don’t bulk email everyone on the directory indiscriminately as all the crew members talk to each other and you will get a name for spamming.

The ideal situation is to make contact with a few specific employers and maintain that contact regularly until at some point, they will find themselves starting on a job and in need of a junior. If they’ve talked to you a few times, they will be much more likely to hire you.

Not all productions are equal. A feature film can have a budget of anything between a few million to over £250M. TV episodes for the larger streaming services are also reaching ever higher budgets. At the same time, there are still dramas and comedies made on a shoestring, for the terrestrial channels.
There are many different 'budget bands' used to divide the productions up by budget. For job alerts, Filmbase uses the following basic bands to give members an indication of what kind of budget the production they are applying for comes under:

• Major Film (£30M+) or Major TV (Bectu TV band 4)
• Medium Film (£5M - £30M) or Medium TV (Bectu TV bands 2 & 3)
• Small Film (<£5m) or Small TV (Bectu TV band 1)

You will see different budget bands on the Bectu Art Department rate card, and also on your contracts for TV Dramas. When applying for jobs, you should always ask what budget band the production falls under so you can negotiate the appropriate rate.

This difference in budgets accross productions is reflected in the rates that the crew are paid. Greater technical skills are needed for draughting a medieval castle with vaulting and buttresses for a fantasy feature, compared to a living room for a sitcom. As a result, if you have the experience necessary to work on the larger budget features, then you can command a higher rate. You can see the different recommended rates by budget band on the latest Bectu Rate card. Have a look at the Rates section for more details on rates.

The budget also has an effect on the size of the Art Department. You will find many more crew members employed on the larger budgets, whereas the Art Department on a small £5M feature might consist of just a Production Designer, Art Director, Set Decorator and a few assistants. As a result, your experience on these different budget sizes will be hugely different. It may be your ambition to work on the large features or TV series, but don’t dismiss the smaller budgets. On a big budget, you may find yourself consigned to the print room, folding drawings for much of the job. But on a smaller budget, the positions are much more fluid and you may find yourself helping the set decorator dress the set, or the painters finish some sign writing, or doing some draughting because there is no one else to do it.

It can be complicated working out who you should contact for jobs, because on the different budgets, you may find different crew members doing the hiring. Ultimately, in the Art Department, the Supervising Art Director will be in charge of the labour budget. However, he may delegate hiring of the junior positions to the Art Department Coordinator, so it can sometimes be beneficial to get in touch with some coordinators if you are looking for Assistant roles. In the Set Decoration Department, the Set Decorator has control of the Set Decoration labour budget, so if you know you want to go into Set Decoration, then they would be your port of call. On a smaller production, the Production Designer is often more involved in the crewing. Art Directors on the bigger jobs rarely get involved in crewing as that is all taken care of by the Supervising Art Director.

Work experience is no longer allowed as an unpaid position and has to be paid at at least the minimum wage rate. An exception for this would be a student on a placement, as part of a course. Job shadowing can be an unpaid position, but the crew member should just be observing and not actually doing any work. Before Covid, most of the larger production companies were open to providing paid work experience placements. This has slowed down somewhat since social distancing and testing has meant productions have encouraged as few crew members on site as possible. However, we hope that we can encourage more instances of work experience for our New to the Industry members over the coming months, as covid precautions reduce.

You may also have contact with very low budget productions who ask you to take a very low rate in return for ‘the experience’. It’s a difficult decision to make, and often these lower budgets are under funded and the crew work long hours without the appropriate fees. We would caution against doing too many of these, as it’s very easy to get trapped in the cycle of going from one low budget job to the next because these are the contacts you now have. It also doesn’t necessarily act as a stepping stone to the bigger budgets as the working environments are very different. We would recommend that if you find yourself stuck on low budget jobs, refocus your efforts into making contacts with employers who work on productions that will pay the Bectu Rates. It may take some time, but the individuals who persevere the most are the ones who get the jobs in the end. Also have a look at the Training pages as there are details of some mentoring schemes and bursaries that may help.

As mentioned above, you should respond to job alerts that match your level of experience. If you have no professional experience, it is unlikely that you will be hired above the level of an Art or Set Dec Assistant (or perhaps Petty Cash buyer) on the majority of medium to big budget productions. It can always be worth trying your luck on the very low budget productions but you should bear in mind that working on a production in a position that you have no experience of can be a very difficult and stressful experience. Your reputation is probably the most valuable asset you have once you start getting regular work, and it’s important to keep it intact. It’s a small industry where people talk to each other about crew. If you're wondering which roles to tick in your Filmbase profile, as a recent graduate we'd recommend you tick 'Runner', 'Assistant' and 'Trainee'. If you're not sure about which department to choose yet, you can tick those three roles in both Set Decoration and Art Department. Note that the job of Reseacher is a more experienced position in film and TV than it is in many other industries, so we'd not recommend ticking Researcher if you're new to the industry.

This is entirely dependent on what kind of experience you have and in what area. If you are a very experienced architect, you will still need to acquire some knowledge of drafting for film before you can jump straight into drawing up a set. It may be enough to do one of the short courses that we have listed on the Training and support pages. Similarly, if you are an interior designer, you may have a proven eye for interiors, but you may not have the necessary knowledge of period design or the prop houses and antique markets to jump straight in as a Set Decorator. Film is very fast paced and there is little time for training on the job so it’s necessary to know how to do the job before you step in.

Because of this, we would generally recommend that however senior you are in the world outside of film, it’s always beneficial to take a step down for your first job in film. Films are short contracts and you’re not committing to that position long term, but it will give you time to fully understand how the industry works before taking charge yourself. For example, if you are an interior designer, or buyer, then you will find it much easier to get work as a petty cash buyer first.
If you do want to leap straight in at the top, then you should target the lower budget productions and shorts. However, most of the job alerts on Filmbase are for larger budget productions.

It’s important to be aware that the film and TV industry is seasonal. There are more productions running in the summer months when the weather is better for location filming. This means that from September onwards, there will be less jobs and therefore less job alerts. Things normally get busier again in early spring.

In your first year or so of working in the industry, until you make solid contacts, you will definitely want to have a backup source of income, or be able to cover your expenses for at least 3-6 months. This is true even when you do gain more contacts and get steadier work. The film industry has its ups and downs, and as a freelancer you should always be prepared for the downs.

There are lots of pages on the Filmbase website with information that you will find useful.

Have a look at the following pages:

Art Department Guidance documents
Art Department Training & Support pages

We will also be running free webinars every now and again with experienced crew members to give advice on the best approach on getting started.

Good luck!

Filmbase

To upgrade your New to the Industry membership to Accredited, please fill in this form. The Accredited membership is £40 for the year.

We ask that in order to join the Accredited membership, you have at least 2 credits on your IMDB profile. The credits must be for the department for which you are applying for. (ie, if you wish to join the Art Department Accredited membership, then you must have at least two credits in the Art Department.) The credits must also be for productions that have either had a cinematic, streaming or broadcast service release or that have been shown at an international festival, as listed on IMDB.

Please note that for the Prop Modelling membership, you will need to provide details of two referees who are able to confirm that you have 6 months paid experience in a prop modelling workshop. If you are able to provide this information, then you will not need to provide and IMDB listing.

If you need help setting up your IMDB listing, please look at the Credits & IMDB section on the FAQ page, or send us an email us if you have any questions.