In June 2023, BCE held its first-ever Employer Steering Group conference – hosted at Big Creative Academy – to ensure that industry practice and future trends are influencing course design at BCE across all of our creative programmes.
To help launch the first annual Employer Steering Group, it was very positive that some of the major employers that BCE works with were in attendance, including Universal Music, Leland Music, Sadlers Wells, and Soho Theatre.
The conference launched with an introduction from Academy Principal Sacha Corcoran and BCE founder Alexis Michaelides, highlighting:
- the importance of partnership in education, co-designing curriculum
- ensuring that there is a talent pipeline into industry that meets future skills needs
- how employers can support education and young talent and the business advantages for them in doing so
Industry Keynotes
The conference then featured three keynote speeches that focused on the main creative industry sectors that BCE delivers courses for. The keynote speakers included:
- Dom Davenport – future trends in digital production, animation & VFX
- Dewayne Ector – future trends in the music industry
- Victoria Spence – future trends in arts & media
The keynotes explored skills gaps in these sectors, current ways of working, high-valued skills by employers, and future trends. They also included discussions around the importance of understanding how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact the creative process and the importance of utilising all forms of social media and online platforms to promote creativity and creative services.
Dom highlighted that there are now directors working on producing full-length feature films solely through the use of AI. Dewayne highlighted the importance of young producers and music artists developing the skills to manage their own day-to-day promotion and networking through all forms of social media and how to ‘feed the algorithm’.
Roundtables
The conference finished with roundtable discussions with BCE academic leads and tutors and employers from their own course subjects including Bark PR, Mayamada, Electric Theatre, Mango Studios, Fiesse Foreva, Fully Focused, Wood Street Walls, and Purple Moon Drama.
The round tables focused on the soft skills that young people need to be able to demonstrate to be taken seriously by employers and the type of junior roles and first steps to access the creative industries – including freelance work and apprenticeships.
The hugely dominant theme at the top of most conversations was the development of behaviours – more specifically attitudes and professionalism – by young people as a key element of their education programme.
Other useful themes discussed included:
- Knowledge of cutting-edge tech developments, online access to selling your work online, from how customers can virtually try on fashion items, cutting-edge social media used to sell and spread your name as a freelancer, the constant need to maintain an online presence, through to how AI and VFX are incorporated into live performance and events, for example, the ABBA avatars as an extreme example!
- The need for young people to be adaptable is to be able to work in different roles in their chosen industry, as opposed to picking a role and sticking to it. Also, to be fully aware of the context of the wider industry, how their own role fits into the network of other roles within which the employee works
- Need for proficiency in basic computing skills, word processing, spreadsheets, well-composed emails and the ability to handle and manipulate/interpret and respond to data in their industry context
- The need to develop a portfolio of professional work in the time on the course, as opposed to focusing on providing evidence for exam boards
- An ability to collaborate with different people in different contexts – for example, huge supply chains with lots of small companies and freelancers working on a major game in development or the production of a feature film or primetime series for a major studio is now standard industry practice.
All in all, it was an extremely insightful event and we thank all of our employer partners that contributed to the employer steering group conference.
At the end of the event our guest employers were treated to a drinks reception, awards show, and a showcase of the best learner work at our new Digital Future campus from this year’s digital skills courses at BCE including;
- a photographic exhibition
- music sync work in our new Dolby Atmos suite
- animated / VFX shorts
- short documentaries
