“A different kind of creative”: How production managers in UK television experience creativity and meaningfulness in their work.

Abstract

Notwithstanding an extensive body of research addressing the nature and dynamics of television work, the experiences of production managers (PMs) have been largely neglected. Their near-invisibility from academic literature, ironically, reflects a tendency toward invisibility within the industry itself where the role is often underpaid, under-resourced and undervalued. Yet the PM is the linchpin of any UK television production, responsible for all logistical considerations involved in the realisation of a creative vision. In an industry that privileges a very particular definition of ‘creativity’, members of this highly feminised profession often find themselves relegated to a position in the workplace hierarchy that echoes that occupied by the many undervalued women in the early film industry who took care of what Erin Hill describes as the ‘details and non-creative work that swirled around creative endeavours’ (2016:.4). Yet in another context the level of dynamic, responsive problem-solving expected of PMs would be regarded as highly creative – and indeed many PMs see their own work in this way, with job satisfaction primarily dependent on creative interactions and outputs. Drawing on a recent BA-funded study of over 700 working PMs and ex-PMs, this chapter will explore how the experiences and responses of PMs reflect on our understanding of creative work, creative workers and hierarchies of creativity. References Hill, E., 2016. Never Done: A History of Women's Work in Media Production. New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press.