BUNS - Bristol Unscripted Network

30/09/2025

Last chance to apply - by the end of today! A good opportunity and they're keen for more regional applicants.

LAST CHANCE TO APPLY! We are super excited to be offering our Step up to PD training scheme, which includes an 8 week paid PD placement and is highly subsidised by ScreenSkills with further bursaries available too. The deadline closes at midnight on 30th Sept and we are keen for more regional Unscripted crew to apply. More info and the application form is here:

ScreenSkills

06/09/2025

A fantastic opportunity for free training here, thanks to Amazon and the NFTS. All Bristol and South West freelancers, make sure you get involved and state what you need!

I am delighted to be working with Donna Taberer from Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios and Rhiannon Forsyth from the National Film & Television School to offer Free Training for TV Freelancers. Please complete our quick survey to help us understand what training sessions you'd like as a TV freelancer...

10/06/2025

Please share the following as far and wide as you can:

Action for Freelancers Roundtable Invitation - Best date and time?
AfF is hosting a final roundtable on Zoom—open to all industry groups, volunteer bodies, and freelancers—to present its planned structure, working groups, and key priorities.

To help as many people attend as possible, please select your preferred time. The date and time will be set based on the most popular choice.
Vote for your preferred meeting time by 8:30am, Wednesday 11 June 2025.

https://forms.gle/rRkSur1YakboE3JM6

Can’t join live? A recording will be available for one week— details will be shared via social media in various industry groups or by request at [email protected]

You can also submit questions in advance below or by emailing AfF directly.

Thanks,
The TV Mindset, TV Switch Up, Telly Mums, We Are Doc Women, Bectu Unscripted Branch, SUSST, Platinum Collective, The 130+ Signatories and many other groups.

Action for Freelancers* Roundtable Invitation - Best date and time? AfF is hosting a final roundtable on Zoom—open to all industry groups, volunteer bodies, and freelancers—to present its planned structure, working groups, and key priorities. To help as many people attend as possible, please sel...

09/03/2025

Thursday 20th March, 7pm doors for 7.30pm start. The Square Club: 15 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1HB. Tickets Free - Link in Bio!

__________________________________________________________________________

BUNS will meet the teams of two brilliant Bristol productions - Imposter: Back From The Dead, and Earthsounds.

Imposter: Back From the Dead (Channel 4)
With Producer and Director Owen Phillips, for Five Mile Films
Hosted by Ben Luke

and

Earthsounds (Apple+)
With Producer Sam Hodgson and Director Tom Payne, for Offspring Films
Hosted by Stephanie Wessell.

There will also be the chance to chat with others in our Bristol creative community.

Tickets are free, and space is limited, so please hurry to grab a ticket!

18/12/2024

*BUNS End of Year Digest*

Bristol Unscripted Network is now just over a year old - and we couldn’t have begun our gatherings at a more important time for the industry.

There’s lots of stress and strife out there; we have personally suffered it too, and in solidarity we’ll be supporting our community again in the New Year.

In 2024, BUNS:

-Gathered almost 40 freelancer testimonials to create a 100 page document informing the then-Shadow Cabinet about the current crisis and creative freelancers’ working conditions

-Worked with Films at 59 to provide Masterclasses in Data Wrangling and Grading

-Hosted a John Yorke Story Documentary Masterclass at BBC Studios

-Represented freelancers’ concerns and tweeted live from the Creative Cities Convention

-Hosted an Expert Panel about the Industry Crisis and ways forward for Bristol, at the Watershed. Link here: https://youtu.be/Vzr33lZh6eU (many thanks to Helen Lancaster for filming the event)

-Supported TV Mindset’s Creative Freelancer Hubs in Bristol

-Gave a talk to the South West Talent Managers group

-Began BUNS Doc Club - which has now morphed into the exciting collaboration Bristol Doc Club, in partnership with the Doc Film Council, Doc West, Doc Yards and the Watershed.

We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has attended, volunteered, donated, hosted and supported our efforts this year. Thank you all - and a big YAY to Bristol’s brilliant and best creative community!

BUNS is looking forward to some exciting new plans for 2025… if you’d like to help us, please get in touch.

We hope you have a lovely Christmas break, and a Very Happy New Year!

With best wishes, the BUNS co-directors:

Benjamin Luke
Stephanie Wessell
Helen Waddell
Alice Crinnigan
Natalia Atkins

… with brilliant help from
Phoebe Sinclair
Maxine Trump

and many, many more… we love you all. THANK YOU.

19/11/2024

Reminder for our Doc Club tomorrow! Looking forward to seeing you there x

04/11/2024

DOC CLUB 20/11/24
Our second Doc Club event will take place at the Watershed. Book your tickets for 'No Other Land' for 20th November and then join us for a drink and chat/review afterwards all welcome x https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/12869/no-other-land

For updates please join our WhatsApp community group for the BUNs Doc club here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/FNEFMMRcP3aEJVa47muuAj

13/10/2024

Reminder for our Doc Club first event tomorrow! Looking forward to seeing you there xx

Hi BUNs Followers! We're beginning a Doc Club! Like a book club but for watching documentaries. We'll try meet either once a month or every 6 weeks, pick a documentary for people to watch in their own time and then get together to review, discuss and be inspired.

For updates please join our WhatsApp community group for the BUNs Doc club here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/FNEFMMRcP3aEJVa47muuAj

Kicking off our club will be a collective watch on 14th October at the Watershed to see the preview showing of Endurance and then a drink afterwards.
Get your tickets here: https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/12892/preview-endurance/

22/09/2024

Hi BUNs Followers! We're beginning a Doc Club! Like a book club but for watching documentaries. We'll try meet either once a month or every 6 weeks, pick a documentary for people to watch in their own time and then get together to review, discuss and be inspired.

For updates please join our WhatsApp community group for the BUNs Doc club here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/FNEFMMRcP3aEJVa47muuAj

Kicking off our club will be a collective watch on 14th October at the Watershed to see the preview showing of Endurance and then a drink afterwards.
Get your tickets here: https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/12892/preview-endurance/

01/08/2024

Hi all! We need your as your help!

We have the opportunity to feed into research about what would be the most useful training programmes for us freelancers in the Bristol media landscape.

As it's tough right now this could help release a big pot of funding, so could really do with your insight.

We need you to answer the question:
"What's your biggest need for freelance training right now?"

You can comment below, or message us.

Keep your answers brief and specific, so that we can pass them on as soon as possible!

Thanks all!

18/07/2024

A huge thank you to everyone who came along to our sold out panel on the future of Unscripted TV.
Special thanks go to our panelists Mel Rodrigues, Mark HIll, Thomasina Gibson, Dominic Pisani, Matthew Frank.

02/07/2024

Senior Producer Vic Procter came along to our panel last week and has kindly offered some takeaways for those who couldn't make it - thanks Vic! Her words are below. Meanwhile we will have some photos and a link to a video of the evening coming soon. Watch this space... Thanks to all the expert panelists for their time and sage words of wisdom, our brilliant volunteers, the Watershed events team and the 113 people who bought tickets and endured 2 hours of intense heat! Best wishes all, Steph. 🙂

Some Useful Takeout From Last Week’s BUNS Event

A huge thanks to Steph, all the panellists and the BUNS team for organising this event last week. It was thoroughly enjoyable and informative.

Here’s a bit of takeout from me for those who missed it:

There was much of the usual stuff i.e. The current state of play of the industry.
Chat about the mini pick up that we’re starting to see.
Lots of stuff about support, and support for underrepresented groups through the crisis.
But for me the most useful and interesting elements were discussions around the direction of travel of the industry - branded content/ digital content in general (which I have previously found quite off putting - as I don’t want to work in advertising! But I’m starting to see that brands are likely to start funding long form content/ more like the TV shows we’re used to making!!) and production companies turning to other forms of funding - i.e. collaborations between brands and channel (like Lidl & C4) to get shows fully funded and off the ground.
Lots of positivity here I reckon (even for someone who shudders at the thought of advertisers being too involved in program making!!)
The other big take out - from Mel Rodrigues, was that there is currently a £30 million pound investment, in ‘virtual production and immersive production’ currently happening in Bristol - with a huge virtual reality/ immersive film studio being built near Temple Meads, that is/ will be in need of experienced TV production talent. Particularly at Exec/ Prod Exec level. (Mel at Gritty Talent will know more). Where there’s big investment, lots of jobs follow. So worth investigating further for all those interested.
There also seems to be a funding body called WECA (others may already be aware of this, but it was the first time I’d heard of them!) who may well be bringing more funding for production to Bristol but that’s still coming down the line.

So all in all, some encouraging stuff!
Thanks again to Steph, Mark, Mel, Thomasina, Dominic, Matthew and all at the BUNs team.
I for one am feeling inspired. More of this please!

Vic Procter