FeelingtheRhythmofaTVSet:WilliamWebb’sInspireExperience
Having already seen his short films earn accolades at BAFTA-qualifying festivals, William Webb was eager to take the next step in his career towards directing for TV. For him, this meant building confidence and strengthening his connection to the industry.
We caught up with William to hear how his experience on Directors UK Inspire 2024–25, being mentored by Ed Bazalgette, gave him the chance to follow a production all the way from pre-production into the edit, and helped him gain a clear sense of the craft and rhythm of professional TV directing.
Read about his experience on Directors UK Inspire, below.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’ve always loved jumping between genres, and over the years my short films have found their way to BAFTA-qualifying festivals, picking up Best Comedy nominations at Aesthetica and selections from LSFF and PÖFF Shorts. Back in 2015, I was honoured to receive the BFI Future Film Award for Fiction.
I also run a company that makes branded content, so when I applied for Inspire I felt confident in my directing, but thought I needed to work on my integration with the industry. I’d say I was at the middle of the middle of the pile: I’d actually made lots of things, but not yet been paid for enough of them!
Why did you apply for Directors UK Inspire?
To take the next step in my career I really wanted to focus on building my confidence and pushing past that imposter syndrome. Part of that meant getting on a professional TV set.
Most importantly I wanted to see what the life of a TV director was like in more detail, to learn what skills I needed to work on and which were already good enough to be working at that level.
How did you meet your mentor?
I happened to meet Ed Bazalgette at one of Directors UK’s AGMs. I’m a huge fan of one of his very early credits, The Sewer King, which was a favourite of my Year 10 History class—and of course plenty of really impressive work since, like Doctor Who and The Witcher.
Later on we had a follow-up chat about what I was doing with my career and where I was aiming to go, and from there I asked him to be my mentor on Inspire.
What did your mentorship consist of?
At the beginning of our mentorship Ed was in pre-production on Lynley, so we were able to meet regularly online and have some conversations about my career development—how I was presenting myself online, how I could network more effectively, and so on.
These online meets also gave me the opportunity to get to know Ed and his process better. Eventually I was able to join Ed on set in Dublin for a week of shadowing, which was a really valuable experience for me in terms of seeing the rhythm of a working TV set, seeing ’the machine at work’.
What did you learn from joining Ed on set? Anything you’ll take into your directing work from now on?
A useful exercise we did was developing parallel shotlists—I took the next day’s sides away every night and worked up my own list, then compared with Ed as we went through the day. It was a great way to see how he made the shooting process more efficient without compromising the creative, and also really drove home the importance of blocking in developing the scenes.
You were also able to join Ed in post, what did you take away from that?
I was able to sit in on edit for all three of the Lynley episodes Ed directed, which was an incredibly useful experience. Being able to see the different elements of the show slot together and how any necessary adjustments were made was really helpful.
Like the other parts of the mentoring process, it was also just a great opportunity to see how a director interacts with the other creatives in the filmmaking process at a professional level, not just in the edit but also with ADR, VFX and plenty of other processes that tend to be less present in short films.
What’s next for you? Anything you’re currently working on?
I’ve got a short comedy called Bruiser doing the festival circuit, with the lovely Heider Ali and Luke Rollason starring. And another short, GGG which I made with the fab Ruth Codd (who was unjustly robbed in The Celebrity Traitors this year!), is currently nearing the end of post. Ed was involved in feeding back on edits for both, and it was great to have that extra perspective. After the shorts, it’s head-down on a new feature I’m developing, a comedy based on a videogame IP.