Stepping up Line Producing!!

Is 2021 I made the jump from Coordinator to Production Manager, taking on responsibilities of budgets, crew contract negotiations and having a greater impact on productions. I took pride in the Line Producers and Production Managers I had worked with in the past and their great experience and skills. Line Producer such as Gary Matsell and Richard Godfrey and Production Managers such as Ian Locker and Caro Mellor. Aspiring to follow in their footsteps is what has driven me to make the move into Production Manager and Line Producing, but it comes with even greater envoy for them. 

My first production was with True North Productions as a Production Manager on Devon and Cornwall at Christmas.  Operating a team remotely has its challenges but for the first time, even greater so.  Trying to earn the respect of a team of Producer / Directors and camera operators who have worked on the series multiple times before and know the job inside out.  Upon successfully completing the job, I had a great sense of pride that my first production came in on budget and was a success on the TV.

However, the celebrations were on hold.  I was quickly snapped up for another show this time with SPA Media on a hostile environment project in Belize.  Whilst Belize is not majorly dangerous to UK nationals on holiday, this show was about a police office shot dead which brought out the Police in force fearing that we were trying to produce a show that showed her innocents.  Production Managing this one was going to test all my abilities as I was also operating as the Hostile Environment Officer for Safety.  SPA Media executive team was amazing with helping me through this and checking in.  I was demonstrating my skills to them on a grand scale to the point they asked me to also PM a Dispatches show for Channel 4 at the same time.

I started to look to gain more knowledge in post-production and became a post-production manager for Zinc Media, Red Sauce on Bargain Loving Brits.  Again, working remotely during the Pandemic finale.  Cutting this job sort for a family trip away just before the end of 2022 which led me to work with DSP on Britain by Steam which was amazingly challenging.  With a small budget and lots of travel we embarked on a shoot spanning London to Scotland via the Northeast using only steam engines.

2023 came around so quickly, and on it came a slight break…