Balancing demanding production schedules with family life can be difficult for film and television professionals. Does job sharing offer a solution?
ReelTime Media was set up by Michelle Reynolds and Rowan Aust, two friends who share a background as television producers – the former in factual entertainment and the latter in arts news. All-consuming jobs, which allowed little time for anything else, least of all parenting. They first met while working together as co-directors at Share My Telly Job, a community interest company founded by Louise Patel in 2015.
Over its eight-year run, they helped establish job sharing as a viable practice and a significant benefit to both crew and productions.
Reynolds and Aust continued the ethos of flexibility and fair pay for fair hours by founding ReelTime Media in September 2023 (www.reeltimemedia.co.uk/about/).
From strain to solution
A brave move, considering the writers and SAG-AFTRA strikes of the same year, preceded by the pandemic, had resulted in a sharp commissioning downturn. Widespread unemployment, financial insecurity and a long-hours culture made the film and television industry a much less attractive prospect.
Happily, ReelTime Media offers a solution supported by ScreenSkills, Bectu, Ofcom, Channel 4, Channel 5, Netflix and the DCMS. Central to this is flexible working, along with longer lead times to allow better scheduling.
It also includes management training to improve understanding across roles, alongside a more inclusive workplace culture built on strong HR policies.
The benefits for employers include retaining experienced crew who can pass on their skills to the next generation. ScreenSkills also offers up to £8,000 to offset job-sharing costs, such as a handover day.
Michelle has organised successful job shares across roles including first and second ACs, script supervisors, art department crew, stills photographers, locations, make-up, costume, second ADs and Warner Bros.
Michelle’s YouTube presentation supplies all the salient facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DupaBtdVPMY
Precision through partnership
Shared technology is a great tool and script supervisors Julia Chiavetta and Roxy Cuenca used it to create a seamless system for their job share on the first unit of a VFX-heavy superhero MMP. The director and main unit script supervisor were supportive from the start, which helped persuade the producers and the editor that their method of dividing the sequences between them and allotting the days accordingly would work smoothly.
Their proposal highlighted the advantage that when second unit split, their department would be the only one able to offer a consistent HOD to additional units. Never having to pay them a sixth day may also have been a consideration! Negotiations started in October 2024 and they began prep in March 2025.
Everything worked perfectly with shared templates specially adapted for them by Peter Skarratt, multiple voice notes at the end of each working day, a hero master script/bible with continuity notes accessible to them both and, most importantly, their stalwart oracle – assistant script supervisor Olivia Mikulla, who was there throughout and was pivotal to the success of their job share.
Chiavetta and Cuenca both have young children and their collaboration provided a good work/life balance with no hindrance to the production. They also noted that by the end of their seven-month schedule, they were significantly more perky than their fellow crew. Having been friends and colleagues for many years, their brilliant working relationship brought accolades from both the director and production manager, which made their experience even more positive.
Pioneering initiatives
The camera department has also been pioneering job sharing. First AC Ilaria Fulvio GBCT shared a role last year, starting when her son was only seven months old, job-sharing on B camera with Sarah Rollason, who has teenagers. Sleepless nights one way or another! They’d both worked regularly with DP Catherine Derry BSC, who was very encouraging and their work was so seamless that the editors had no idea two first ACs were responsible.
Clare Connor GBCT is another success story. She worked on the first Wolf Hall in 2014 as a second AC when she was child-free. By the second series in 2023, she was a first AC with two sons, mostly doing dailies while juggling availability with her partner.
She regularly worked with DP Gavin Finney BSC GBCT and both he and director Peter Kosminsky wanted the original team back. Connor, still feeding her seven-month-old baby, had doubts — until Finney suggested she job share with Laura Booth, who had also worked on the first series.
He had first learnt about job sharing on the back of a camera truck, when he overheard a conversation between two first ACs discussing the difficulties of combining working in the film industry with family life. Finney’s view is: “Having been in the industry for 35 years, I’ve observed how brutal it can be in terms of family life and the great loss of women once they have children. It’s unacceptable in this day and age and the normalisation of job sharing would redress the balance and encourage 50% representation.”
Finney was hugely supportive and advocated for Clare and Laura throughout the production, which went without a hitch. As a further bonus, Sam Taylor, second AC, added ferrying and bottling expressed milk to his skillset.
Most recently Connor has job shared on Black Mirror with Mairead Albiston and Mathieu Treacy GBCT. As the father of a three-year-old, Mathieu understands the problems of a freelancer when one’s child is inconsiderately ill, as well as the joys of spending more time at home answering random questions starting with “Why…?”. The answer’s job sharing!
