Teaching Production Management in Practice: Listening

Listening is a key skill, whether it’s in every day life, or in the workplace.

Actively listening in the classroom ensures a teacher that they are being understood and that learning is taking place. In day-to-day life, actively listening helps others feel seen and appreciated.

However on a film or television set – where there might be complex stunts or set pieces – good listening is a health and safety matter. For new entrants, it can also make the difference between being asked back to work again or the opportunities drying up.

A useful skill to develop to be ‘set ready’ is the ability to follow several strands of communications simultaneously. In production roles in particular, this involves listening to important information through a radio while also keeping track of what is happening around them physically, and then being able to relay this to the right crew members.

Our resources this week provide a listening task to introduce students to the realities of listening while listening: listening to information from two sources at once. Combining this with our previous resources on Radio Lingo and Using Radios gives students a true sense of the on-set experience.

The network would like to thank Poppy Coggins, Head of Production Management at London Screen Academy with TV credits including Channel 5’s Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother, ITV’s The All New Monty, and BBC One’s Pointless, for sharing original teaching sessions to inspire this blog series.