TRC Shorts
Making AI Work For You: Development Toolkit
Applications for the 6th October session will close on Monday 21st September.
Applications for the 21st October session will close on Monday 5th October.
You can apply by completing this application form on the ScreenSkills website.
Upcoming TRC Shorts
Making AI Work For You: Development Toolkit
A ScreenSkills course delivered by TRC
Working with Development Executive and AI consultant Jenny Springett, this practical two-hour session aims to help unscripted development freelancers move beyond generic AI outputs and use tools in a more purposeful, personalised way.
Rather than focusing on one specific AI platform, the course teaches practical techniques you can apply across a range of tools and development workflows: generating and stress-testing ideas, shaping treatments, and building pitch materials that actually sound like you. You’ll work hands-on with AI tools comparing to draw your own conclusions on chatbots, image generators and video generators that work for you. You’ll try techniques live on your own projects, and most crucially of all learn how to personalise AI tools to your voice, your slate, and the kind of work you want to be making.
Expect practical demos, live experimentation, and honest conversation about where AI genuinely helps development, where it gets in the way, and how to use it without compromising editorial integrity.
If you have any questions, accessibility requirements, or if you would like to submit your application in a different format, please contact projectmanager@trcmedia.org
This programme is supported by the ScreenSkills Unscripted TV Skills Fund which invests in training for the unscripted workforce thanks to contributions from BBC, Channel 4, Sky, Hearst Networks UK, Discovery UK, Channel 5, Netflix, ITV, Amazon, UKTV and S4C matched by production companies.
The course will cover a range of topics including:
- The current AI landscape: what the major AI tools do well and where they differ.
- Build-along: your own personalised assistant: participants create a Custom GPT, Gem or Claude Project live alongside the trainer, configured to their voice and current slate, to take away and keep using
- Applying AI to development work: idea furthering and treatment shaping using the assistant you’ve just built
- A look at image generation for pitch materials: what’s possible, how the landscape is changing, and how to achieve consistency across images and video (demo rather than hands-on, as most tools require paid accounts)
- Practical limits: hallucinations, rights and IP, and safe usage within editorial guidelines
This course is aimed at anyone working in unscripted development: the focus here is on levelling up how you use these tools, regardless of your job title.
If you have had some AI exposure and want to move beyond generic outputs, this is the perfect course for you. No technical background required.
Participants will get the most out of the session by bringing a live project they’re currently developing.
Jenny Springett is a Development Executive and AI Strategy Consultant with over 15 years of experience delivering unscripted TV hits across Entertainment, Factual Entertainment, Reality and Quiz & Game for broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and MTV. She operates a unique 50/50 split between active format development – currently at Electric Violet (Zinc Media Group) – and her AI consultancy Spring Generation, which delivers upskilling for BBC Studios (UK and international), the BBC Academy, Love Productions, Lime Pictures, the Channel 4 Business Boost Scheme and many more. Jenny is a primary AI trainer for TRC (Scotland) and Northern Ireland Screen, a guest lecturer at the NFTS, and authored some of the first practical AI training courses for the BBC Academy. She is a speaker at the MPTS and the 2026 Celtic Media Festival speaker on Sovereign AI and maintaining identity in the face of AI.
The training will take place three times this year, once in July and twice in October. You can select your preferred date on the ScreenSkills website.
Format: 1 x 2h training module online
Training dates: 14th July 2026 OR 6th October 2026 OR 21st October 2026
This course is free to attend.
