North East Screen with Screen Alliance partners have once again this year supported the North of England Cohort of the prestigious Women in Film and TV Four Nations Mentoring Scheme. Last year’s cohort successfully completed the programme with rave reviews saying it was transformational and an invaluable experience.
Designed for mid-career women working in film, television, and creative media, the scheme offers unparalleled opportunities to accelerate careers in an industry where women remain underrepresented in leadership roles.
We spoke to writer Sam Neale from the North East to find out about her experience of taking part this year.
What made you want to take part in the WFTV Mentoring Scheme?
After 17 years as a professional actor and a successful transition into screenwriting, including a show in development with Channel 4 and a residency at Tyneside Cinema, I recognised a glass ceiling in my career.
While I have built a solid reputation as an artist in the North East, my professional network remained confined to my region. I lacked a writing agent and the high-level industry shorthand required to pivot from ’emerging’ to a full-time, sustainable career as a screenwriter.
Although I love the North East and how supportive our creative scene is, it can often feel like we’re cut off from the rest of the country.
The scheme sounded amazing but I was hesitant – I hadn’t considered myself “mid-career” despite the years I’d spent professionally acting on stage and screen and my many writing achievements. I had a tendency to attribute my successes to “luck” and not an indicator of my skills.
I decided to apply to the mentorship scheme to dismantle my own ‘imposter syndrome’ and to give myself the confidence to stand proudly alongside established peers, share my knowledge, pitch my work and take the next step in my career.
What has your involvement been like so far?
Our launch at Somerset House in London was a pretty transformative experience. Being in a room with highly accomplished women from all four regions immediately reframed my perspective on what ‘mid-career’ looks like. I got the chance to mingle with the mentees from all four regions and spent some focused time workshopping and getting to know my own cohort.
I met my mentor, award winning writer and director Chloe English, over Zoom and we created a plan of how our time together would work. Chloe has already shared some amazing insights into current industry landscape and I’m excited to develop our relationship as the scheme progresses.
A key highlight of the scheme are the peer-to-peer seminars. All mentees deliver a 30-minute seminar on their area of expertise. These are delivered both in person to your regional cohort and over Zoom to everyone else. Seeing the sheer variety of talent within my cohort and beyond, from all areas of production, is not only inspiring but it has helped demystify the process of making a feature film or hit television show.
How do you feel taking part in the programme will impact your career?
I believe this scheme will be the bridge between my regional success and a national presence which will hopefully lead to more creative opportunities further afield. I am currently unrepresented and I plan to build the confidence needed to approach agents and secure representation. Through Chloe’s mentorship and the knowledge garnered from attending seminars, I aim to develop the technical ‘know-how’ to take my current projects, like my short film Bean and my feature Baby Boy, to the next stage in development.
By the end of the scheme, I hope to return to my North East creative community with a broad network that allows for cross-border collaboration, ending the feeling of being ‘cut off’ from the rest of the country.
It’s hard to survive in this industry at the best of times, and I’ve definitely faced barriers as a working-class artist, juggling parenthood and the instability of work in the North East arts scene. I am incredibly grateful for this support.
