When you decided you wanted to get into television or film, you probably imagined yourself working on hard-hitting documentaries, Hollywood blockbusters, whimsical children’s TV shows or Match of the Day.
Wait a second though, have you ever considered a graduate job in an area of television production that’s not for public consumption, but pays you a better wage? No? Well, keep on reading and find out more about corporate production.
What do corporate production companies do?
All kinds of corporate businesses and organisations are in the market for high-quality media products, such as universities, transnational corporations, charities, local authorities and smaller companies.
They might need them for marketing, sales, PR, internal communications or even training purposes. A company with its own TV channel, DVDs or training videos has a strong brand identity and looks authoritative to clients. Furthermore, for businesses in the digital age, new ways of communicating important messages are of paramount importance.
Corporate production companies are on hand to give businesses the multimedia edge they are looking for. They might provide their clients with corporate videos, business TV channels (either within an office, or broadcast to other companies via satellite), training DVDs, web-based videos, coverage of live events and interactive media (e.g. CD-ROMs and DVDs).
Corporate production can sometimes be viewed as inferior to traditional broadcasting by industry purists; but when it comes down to it: production values are still the same, the projects you could be working can be just as exciting, and corporate production is big, big business; contributing billions of pounds a year to the UK economy.
What can I do in a corporate production career?
Corporate production companies tend to be smaller or mid-sized enterprises that cater for a broad range of clients with a very particular audience. On the whole, corporate production companies employ permanent members of staff, but a large amount of freelancers also tend to work on corporate production projects and make up a significant portion of the workforce in this industry.
Corporate production employs people in the same kinds of roles that public broadcasting companies do. They will hire people on the content production side of things, such as producers, assistant producers, directors, researchers, scriptwriters and client liaison executives.
What’s different about corporate production compared to traditional broadcast production?
Corporate clients tend to have very specific requests and a particular vision for the product they are commissioning. Consequently, the content production team need to develop a really insightful understanding of their client’s needs and work really hard to refine the product to meet the standards of the client.
These production companies also employ people on the technical production side of things, such as camera operators, lighting technicians, editors and event organisers.
However, the technical teams will not be quite as comprehensive in this environment. For instance, it’s unlikely that you will have a 2nd AC, a 1st AC and a camera trainee to assist the camera operator.
What if I don’t want a technical role in corporate production?
You might also be able to secure an administrative or support role within these organisations. They will need runners, personal assistants, general admin staff, production managers, budget controllers and HR professionals. This can be a really good way to learn about the business side of corporate production.
There is a lot of money in corporate production and in whatever kind of role you undertake, you may well earn a higher salary than if you were working for a traditional broadcasting company (especially at an entry-level!).
If you like what you’ve read so far then put your production skills to good use (and for good money!) with a career in corporate production.