Names proposed, not settled
The named programmes
Four things we run or are opening, and the names we propose for them. The work is real. The names are drafts, printed here so they can be argued with.
Read this first: every name below is a proposal
These are working titles, put up for Rizwan Wadan to confirm, change or throw out. Nothing on this page is settled and none of it has been adopted. Until a name is confirmed, each programme is referred to by what it is, exactly as it is on the rest of the site.
One rule applied throughout: no programme is named after a real person. That needs the written agreement of the person, their family or their estate, and we have asked nobody.
Why bother naming them at all
Because a name is what travels without us in the room.
A funder can report against a named programme. A head of department can recommend one to a runner over a coffee. A woman who came through it can put it on a CV and have it mean something to whoever reads it. "The advanced technical strand" does none of that.
The names below come from the language of a working unit rather than the language of training, because that is the register participants are being taught to speak in.
The four, and the names proposed for them
Each card links to the page that describes the actual work, which is unchanged.
First Unit · proposed
The Studio Simulation. A working unit on a stage, every department named, and for most of the women on it the first unit they have ever stood on. Alternate: Turnover.
The Bench · proposed
Advanced technical training. Camera, grip, stabilisation, lighting, sound, DIT (digital imaging technician), remote head, multi-camera and post, taught at the grade. The prep bench is where kit is built and where the craft is actually learned. Alternate: Grade Up.
The Break · proposed
The Lab's writers room. Breaking a story is what the room does, and the word is already the industry's. Alternate: Story Break.
Standby · proposed
The mentoring route. On a unit, standby is the person who is there the moment you need them and not before. That is the job a mentor is being asked to do. Alternate: Shadow.
What we would need to settle before any of these go into use
Whether each name survives being said out loud by somebody who does not work here. Whether it reads the same to a woman applying, a funder reading a report and a line producer taking a call. Whether anything close is already in use elsewhere, which is a search rather than an opinion.
Once a name is confirmed it is used everywhere at once, and this page becomes the record of what the programmes are called rather than a list of suggestions.