A locations trainee from Dorset is swapping life behind the camera for a starring role in a new campaign designed to inspire new recruits to the film and television industries.

Ziggy Gray, 29, of Bridport, is one of seven film industry workers featured in the campaign which will open in cinemas UK-wide this month and run online and in social media.

Find Your Future in Film and TV is an initiative from ScreenSkills, the skills body for the UK’s screen industries – film, television, visual effects (VFX), animation and video games. It is supported by the BFI, awarding National Lottery funds as part of its Future Film Skills strategy.

The aim is to highlight the range of jobs behind the camera, many of which people may never have heard of, and encourage a greater diversity of talent to consider a career in the industry.

Ziggy is a locations trainee whose most recent work was on home turf with the new movie Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet as the Lyme Regis-born fossils collector and palaeontologist Mary Anning. Saoirse Ronan and Fiona Shaw also star.

She originally studied creative and performing arts at Portsmouth University and worked in a variety of roles after graduation including duty manager of a theatre and cinema, film festival coordinator and on various events as a production runner.

But it was when she was moved to New Zealand because she was fascinated by Lord of the Rings and ran a motel that she got her lucky break in film. “A guest there was a locations manager scouting for Alien. I asked her if there was any way I could help out on set. She hired me for three weeks,” she said. “It was amazing; I thought to myself, ‘Now I know what I want to do.’ “

She returned to the UK and discovered the skills body ScreenSkills. She applied for a place as a locations trainee on its trainee placement programme called Trainee Finder and was successful. “It’s a great opening door to the industry. If you haven’t got any contacts or can’t see any way of getting in, they’ll help you,” she said.

“It was really great to learn that not everyone on Trainee Finder had been to film school. Some had just graduated and others had graduated and become teachers or something and then decided to get back to film. And then there were people like me. I couldn’t believe I made the course. I was so happy. I love my role as I’ve always enjoyed travelling and being outside. But without ScreenSkills, I don’t think I would have had the courage to get the contacts I needed or find a way in.”

She has worked on films including How to Build a Girl and describes what she does like this: “I’m always the first on set and the last one to leave. The job requires coordination, management and being a people person; with the crew and the public. I have to be polite, stopping people in the street and asking them if they mind waiting while we shoot etc. I’d say there is a lot of public relations, whether it’s with the public or property-owners. Everyone needs to know who you are and get on with you.

“People say the locations department is the backbone of the film industry. But most people don’t know locations exists. I didn’t know it existed until I found myself in it on my first job and realised it was everything I had wanted.”

The campaign also features trainees from across the UK in areas including camera, visual effects, film exhibition, hair and make-up, lighting and assistant directing.