The boom in industry traineeships has been exponential. What once used to be a hidden and seemingly inaccessible industry to break into is now advertised to aspiring filmmakers in cinemas. However…

• Putting young people straight on to the set of Star Wars or Indian Jones can be an amazing start to your career. But for some it can be too much too soon. 

• Our objective is to create a trainee scheme with more responsibility in an environment where it is safe to make mistakes, with the hopes of empowering and giving confidence to those who need a middle ground between education and going into the film industry. We want to help young people build interpersonal skills and reliance along side their media skills, in safe environment, therefore creating a better workforce for the creative industries. 

• Today's youth suffer from higher levels of anxiety and depression and the high pressured environment of the film industry can mean that amazing below the line talent falls through the tracks as they don't have enough support in busy working environments that aren’t always prepared to take them.  We aim to create a training environment where trainee’s do much more than make tea and coffee, we will be making films while also teaching useful onset skills which will prepare trainees to go and work in the UK film industry.

“SKE comes from working and teaching in film, I didn't have any family in the film industry and didn't have good enough grades to go to university, so worked my way up from the bottom, learning on the job. The film industry can be amazing but it is also very tough to navigate. Hearing the struggles my students had, being thrown straight on to a large set might not be the best thing for everyone and I started to think about how much I loved being a runner on small indie films when I started out.”

• Alex Shipman, Director of Silver Knight Entertainment