Showrunners - Training Gaps Analysis - Cultural Human Resources ...

Showrunners Training Gap Analysis
7.2 Ensure that every training program integrates alumni communications, annual refresher
opportunities and methods for measuring outcomes.
Training Gap 8: Experienced Showrunners are needed to instruct and mentor the emerging
group of Showrunners.
Recommendations:
8.1 Invest in the best possible trainers to develop new Showrunner talent. Be prepared to pay
professional rates to attract excellence in trainers.
8.2 Develop a cohort system whereby the first cohort trained is recruited to train subsequent
cohorts.
8.3 Train the trainers. Mentors and trainers need to understand the curriculum, the methods
and the expected outcomes in order to teach effectively.
8.4 Ensure that training institutions, including those at the entry level, understand what
competencies are required of a Showrunner so that students can receive appropriate
counselling.
Financing Training Programs
Although, as noted, the current pool of Showrunners needs to double, the total numbers are not
large. Sustainability is the key requirement in funding. During the course of interviews for this
study, there was a recognition of the need in the film and television industry for a national and
permanent source of funding for training. Some possibilities for funding in Canada include:
• Adapting the Québec 1% law to other provinces
• Producer and broadcaster supported training fund as per the Skillset model in the U.K.
funds could be transferred to a trainer, or put back in production budgets to support onthe-job
opportunities
• CTF funding could integrate a requirement for at least one above-the-line apprentice or
intern on a production budget, to receive the normal treatment for labour-based tax
credits
• Guild-managed training funds (as per WGA) could be negotiated in the context of
industrial agreements
• Tuition is another source of funding.
Conclusions
Through this Training Gap Analysis, we have determined that there is a very small pool of
approximately two dozen Showrunners working in Canada today whose skills have been
developed on-the-job. Possibly half of these are inexperienced and therefore not fully trained; and
others are on the verge of retirement. There is a clear need to develop a new cohort of
Showrunners who have all the necessary creative and producer competencies.
Hand-in-hand with training, we need to ensure that the industry in Canada is attractive enough to
retain a new cohort of Showrunners in this country. One producer suggested a possible incentive:
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Deborah Carver and Benoit Dubois, January 2009