Trade Talks: Summer School for Screen Businesses Starts This August

Why Attend?

Building a successful screen career today requires more than creative talent alone. Understanding how to identify audiences, position IP, secure financing and develop long-term commercial strategies is increasingly essential for creatives and producers looking to thrive in a competitive and rapidly evolving industry.

Through this year's Summer School, participants will gain practical tools and actionable insights that can be applied directly to their projects and businesses.

The Programme

5 August: Building a Resilient Screen Career: Audience, IP and Commercial Strategy with Alex Stolz

This 60-minute online masterclass addresses a key challenge for early–mid career screen professionals: how to build commercial resilience in a project-dependent industry.

As funding tightens, platforms fragment and audience behaviour shifts, creative careers can no longer rely solely on moving from commission to commission. Resilience increasingly depends on developing clearer audience relationships, stronger IP positioning and a better understanding of where long-term value is being created.

The session introduces the Story Founder methodology: a practical framework for thinking about creative work through three lenses — Story, Audience and Ownership.

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12 August: Packaging Meets Financing: A Producer's 60-Minute Toolkit with Neil Chordia

A practical one-hour Zoom masterclass for emerging indie film producers, writer-director-producers and early-career film founders on how to make a project feel more credible and financeable.

The session will look at how packaging and financing work together, covering what makes up a strong package (logline, genre, comps, audience, attachments, rights/IP, momentum and realistic talent targets), how to think about budget level, the main types of finance available to indie films, and how to explain a simple recoupment story without overcomplicating it.

The session will be advice-led and experience-led, with short examples, a simple packaging map, a basic finance snapshot, light Zoom interaction through chat/Q&A, and 20-25 minutes for attendee questions. The aim is for participants to leave with a clearer understanding of what financiers, sales agents and partners are looking for, and with practical next steps to strengthen their own projects.

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19 August: From Idea to IP: Building a Screen Brand in a Multi-Platform World with Georgina Hurcombe MBE and George Caton Coult

Together, Georgina and George will deliver From Ideas to IP: Building a Screen Brand for a Multiplatform World, a 90 minute online session exploring how an original idea can evolve into a sustainable entertainment brand.

Using Pop Paper City as a real world case study, they will share the journey from concept to global distribution, covering pitching, financing, production, brand building, multiplatform thinking, licensing, publishing, education and emerging opportunities in digital and interactive media. The session combines practical advice with honest reflections on the challenges and opportunities of creating original intellectual property in today’s rapidly evolving creative industries.

This workshop is aimed at emerging and established creatives looking to develop original IP into commercially viable screen brands. It is particularly relevant for producers, writers, directors, animators, game developers, designers, entrepreneurs and creative founders, as well as those working across television, film, games and digital media.

Register Here

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26 August: How I Raised £550k from Friends, Family, Angels & Crowd with Gabriel Isserlis

A deep dive into processes & systems I've used to successfully raise £500,000 from friends, angels, and an oversubscribed crowd investment round. Starting with some tips, and then an open Q&A where you can ask me anything and I'll answer to the best of my ability.

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Spotlight on Creative Enterprise Alumni

A key feature of this year's Summer School is that every session is delivered by a Creative Enterprise alumnus, highlighting the depth of knowledge, expertise and entrepreneurial success within our alumni network. By sharing their experiences and lessons learned, our speakers offer attendees direct access to practical industry knowledge from professionals who are actively building and growing screen businesses.