tellymole.com

When I say ‘you people’, I mean production managers. Years of mulling this over has recently brought me to the conclusion that I’ve got a massive issue with production managers. It’s something I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to get over… but then, I’m certain that my feelings are well founded. So who cares?

While trying to reverse-engineer my disdain for the PM and find out why I harbour such an apparently irrational feelings, I’ve come across, what I believe to be several fairly straightforward root causes.

I started by trying to figure out what characteristics the average PM displays which might have triggered this response in me. Well, for me, it’s just the overriding feeling that they don’t belong in the TV environment. They represent ‘health and safety’, ‘per diems’, ‘being careful’ and ‘checking to see if that’s in the budget’ - which, alone, makes me want to pull out my fingernails and use them to slice open my femoral artery.

Production managers always seem smug to me. I don’t know why. Maybe I see an evil within them that nobody else can see? It’s like… some girl who wanted to work in TV, to be able to say that they work in TV, but basically does an administrative job, but with a trendy fringe… kind of scenario. I get the feeling that the majority of PMs ‘gave up’ the TV idea when the tea-making got a bit too much, decided to bin-off any dream of creativity and just go for the one, solid, ‘officey’ role that exists in telly.

But WAIT!!! That’s not enough for the production manager, oh no! Production managers are given the illusion of power. A terrible, terrible thing. Firstly let’s re-cap what has happened to them so far; work experience, runner, (possibly a bit of junior researcher/PA/clapper loader/other dogsbody), then junior co-ordinator, production co-ordinator, junior production manager, production manager. So they’ve wound up in this weird role. A role that means they’re controlling a budget, making decisions on resources, ‘micro-managing’ little helper minions like junior co-ordinators, PAs and work experience peeps - but not really fitting into any sort of hierarchy of the production team. I can’t stand it!

A few weeks ago I heard a production manager lecturing an AP about arriving into the office 5 minutes late (on the back of about an 80-hour week). No!! Please don’t do that. Not your job. Your job is to schedule. Your job is to budget. Your job is to tell all your friends about the meeting you had with a certain ‘talent’ and post semi-cryptic comments about said ‘talent’ on your facebook status to lure your acquaintances into probing you for more details; ie ‘What a meeting today, my job really sucks. ps…FIT!!’.

Much of my anguish comes from a feeling that production managers simply haven’t experienced the highs and lows of telly. They haven’t spent those long hours on a set or location. They haven’t felt the creative demands of an unreasonable exec or commissioning editor. They haven’t lived their life in the depressing gloom of the edit suite, trying to knock 3 minutes off something that already feels too light… Yet they’re still around to hoover up the free drinks at the end with the rest of the team.

I would suggest the following changes be made across the TV industry.

1. I don’t think you should necessarily sit anywhere near the production team. We gain nothing from you being in close proximity. We have email. We have phones. I’d quite like you to be in a some centralised production manager call-centre, ideally in Bolton or somewhere else far away.

Me: “Hello is this my production manager?”

PM: “Yes, how can I help?”

Me: “I’d like some more stock for my production please. I’m also going to film next week, please prepare the call sheet.”

PM: “Of course. I’ll get right on it. I’ll give you £500 more float than you need, so under no circumstances will you need to use your own credit card for any production expenses.”

Me: “As it should be. Ta.”

2. Production managers should be specially trained from graduate level. They should have no aspirations to be part of the creative world of television whatsoever. They should be, quite simply;  competent organisers, properly drilled in the workings and processes of television production. If they own a pair of skinny jeans or signed up to the ‘Secret London’ facebook group just to feel a bit more cultured, arty and edgey - they should be ineligible for employment.

3. If a production manager begins to confuse the role of PM (ie managing the budget, resources and schedule of the production) with exec, series producer, producer or director (ie managing the creative aspects or creative staff of the production) - then they should be immediately reminded of their role (via the call-centre freephone number).

Well, look. Production managers, you’ll be glad to know that in writing this little article and exploring my annoyances a little more, it’s all proved quite cathartic for me. I don’t HATE you. I just find your role in the industry a little strange. That’s all. Why would ANYONE who spent the time and effort to break into the TV industry want to then just sit at a desk all day and feel important for slightly better money than an AP? Very strange. I mean, just go and work in the accounts department of a financial company. You’ll work less hours, have less stress, get an annual bonus and won’t be subjected to degrading internet rants. On the flipside, you won’t be able to impress your friends with ‘telly’ stories any more, or have a picture taken with the presenter at the wrap party…. tough call isn’t it?

The good news is that my rant here today has been inspired by only the worst of the worst. I just thought I’d poke a little fun while it was fresh in my mind. The majority of these girls do a very difficult job with increasingly smaller budgets and have to put up with a lot of shite from us creative types. Luckily the bad-eggs tend to move on to other jobs by their mid-thirties and the good ones move on to head-of-production roles or other suitably well-earned posts.

I’m now in two minds as to whether or not I should publish this post. I feel like I’ve been a bit cruel and pointless.

Sod it.

I’ll probably make a few enemies when I say this, but in my opinion the vast majority of UK dramas are completely shit. Sure, you might be able to pull out a few exceptions here and there, but the fact of the matter is… when it comes to getting our fix of edgy, original, well-written, gripping (insert remainder of wish-list here) dramas, then we turn to America. And let’s face it, they do it remarkably well.

For any of those who are in denial about this fact, let’s just see what we’re dealing with here. Not that all of these US-offerings are my cup of tea, but let’s put our Being Human next to Ghost Whisperer, The Bill next to, well - pick a US crime drama (Law & Order, CSI, Cold Case, Without a Trace). Okay, maybe not The Bill.. it’s more of a soap. Life on Mars then. We’d have to enter Dr Who up against the likes of any of the modern Star Trek incarnations or maybe Supernatural or Heroes. Look at any of our offerings in recent years; Primeval, Survivors, The Hustle… I really can’t be arsed to list any more. Safe to say, for me, none of them cut it. And that’s when you put them up against the more ’sausage-factory’-like American shows. Throw amazing pieces of work like The Wire and The Sopranos into the mix and what we’re churning out becomes a laughing stock.

What’s wrong with them, you might ask? Actually, I hope you’re not asking that. I hope you know yourself that a good, strong UK drama series is something rarely seen. But for those of you who can’t put your finger on it… PRODUCTION VALUES warrants block capitals because its the first thing I notice when I’m watching another rubbish UK drama. I notice it from the opening establishing shots, from the unoriginal Audio Networks stock music, set design, lighting… it all seems to have been done on the cheap.

The other problem with watching a homegrown drama is that you know that you’re never really going to be able to get your teeth into it. 6 or 8 episodes is all you’re going to get.. 10 and you’re laughing, but that’s rare. The characters are therefore shallow, you don’t engage with them - you don’t care about them and when they finally disappear, you’ve forgotten about them as soon as the Series Producer’s credit is up. This past decade has been a wonderful time for drama fans.. but only because David Chase and David Simon have had me lost in their respective worlds for literally hundreds of hours of some of the best drama I’ve ever seen.

So. Another rant by The Mole? No. Well, in part, yes - I had to have a little pop at UK drama before making my main point. Taking all of the above into account and knowing what I know and feel about this country’s position in the drama-making industry.. if you’d said to me about a year ago; “Hey, they’re making a UK version of ‘Law and Order’, Bradley Walsh is playing the lead role” - I would have said… wait.. I did say; ”Bollocks to that”.  However, that was a year ago and tonight I found myself infront of the TV when it came on. To say I’m a fan on the original franchise is probably going to far, but I ‘like’ it. It’s a good formula. I like the way it looks and the stories are decent enough to kill an hour. I was expecting the UK version to be a complete pile of horse shit.

Wrong.

I was actually extremely surprised. It looked great. Walsh was decent. The story was good. The London backdrop was nicely integrated with the episode. I really, really liked it. The little things impressed me, the geeky details. The camera work was true to the original, shakey - slightly desaturated colours with a nice shallow depth-of-field. Good lighting, good locations. Usually when London is shot this beautifully you have the annoyance of it being in a Hollywood movie where it’s all red phoneboxes, bobbies, shots of Big Ben with 80’s-style two-tone sirens in the background. Not here, this was a well shot, modern London.

Aside from the seemingly high produciton values, the script (which on further research is apparently a re-hash of some of the best US episodes converted to UK scenarios) was also true to the original franchise, allowing the main players’ characters to develop over time but still giving you a nice bite-size brodcast hour’s arc with which to get your teeth into. The one downside to this Dick Wolf creation is that the tight-arses over at ITV, in true British fashion, have limited it to 7 episodes for the first series, 6 for the second. So it’s not all good news.

But, as this post’s title suggests… I’m taking this series as a major positive. Chris Chibnall (Torchwood, Doctor Who, Life on Mars) has come good on this one, picking up Exec and Writer credits on the series (No doubt under the watchful gaze of his overlord, Dick Wolf). He has dragged with him a bunch of producer and director types from the desperately awful titles above, which goes to show that if you SHOW British drama producers how to do it, they can actually get on with it and churn out something pretty decent…

..Think I’m being harsh? Go and pick up a DVD of Doctor Who, which looks like it’s been shot on the cheapest HDCAM they could find, in a corner of TC2 with a set made entirely of cladded polystyrene before being edited by retarded chimps, graded by a 19-year old work experience boy and some cheap explosions whacked on with After Effects for good measure. The sad thing is… I’m not actually far off!

Then watch this: Not ground-breaking. Not necessarily your cuppa, but well-made British drama. Not too cheesy. Not too cheap. Let’s just hope someone notices and the quality of this ITV programme becomes a benchmark.

So first off, apologies must be made for the length of time inbetween blogs. 5 months or something like that? The obvious excuses would be that I’ve been super busy, which I have, but then there have been a couple of lazy weekends too. Suffice to say, the blog is alive and well, just slightly neglected.

So what’s been happening in TV in the past few months? Well the credit crunch still seems to have a firm grip on the industry… Even the BBC, who don’t have to worry about advertising revenues seem to be as sluggish as ever in their commission processing. There are fewer commissions in general and they’re harder to get than ever before. It goes without saying that budgets are looking about as grim as I’ve ever seen them, which sort of brings me around to what I wanted to talk about today; the cheapening of TV and poor pay and conditions as a result. I touched on elements of the issue in my rant on the Sony Z1 a few months ago. That was more about production values really, but you can certainly conclude that low production values quite often will be stuck over the top of a particularly shitty budget, like a manky old plaster clinging to the infected flesh surrounding a unsightly gaping wound. (Too strong? Nah, I’ll leave that analogy in for now).

But a bigger problem, I think, is that of freelancer wages. I don’t know about anyone else, but a couple of years ago when script writers in the US all simultaneously threw their pens down and shouted ‘NO MORE’, I couldn’t help but think ‘You bunch of absolute bastards’. Not because they disrupted a stream of awesome HBO Dramas..and ‘Heroes’ (well, maybe a little for this reason), but mainly because I instantly became furiously jealous of the strength of their union.

Its hard to imagine that happeneding within the UK television industry, isn’t it? Do we have just cause for such a revolution? Probably. As a whole we’re expected to take on  more work for less or equal pay. We’re working to tighter budgets, multi-tasking like never before and all while delivering programmes with supposedly the same level of quality. Is this fair? Its not uncommon to see jobs like this on productionbase; ‘Self-Shooting Producer/Director with fluent Japanese must have own FCP suite’.. Undoubtedly paying sub 1k a week.

Is it within our power to anything about it? Yeah, I think so. Now might not be the most appropriate time to begin a revolution, though. Even before the current financial crisis people were relieved to be in work in the freelance world. Now more than ever, there are hundreds of people would take a piss-poor weekly rate over unemployment. My worry is that even once the resession subsides, rates and conditions will continue along the same shitty path that they were long before we were talking about bankers bonuses and negative equity.

Think about how sickening it is when purchasing your Oyster card top-up, knowing that the driver of your tube train is enjoying a nice, steady 36k per annum, 38 days holiday a year, and a health plan to rival a top city executive…not to mention free travel across London. How do these jammy bastards do it? Union. And people need the tube. Well guess what, people need ‘the tube’ too!!

What on earth would happen if suddenly the freelance world went on strike? I’m pretty sure there would be suicides if suddenly there was no X-Factor. You can bet that even amongst a sea of tax-dodgers, benefit scammers and general lay-about scumbags… even the poorest of the poor would rather sell their children to some weird child circus (I’m assuming they exist) than ditch their subscription to Sky or Virgin. So how would the nation cope if suddenly their screens went blank? Would they JUST watch American TV? Here’s hoping that they’d miss out humble contributions.

In order for that to happen of course, we’d have to ensure widespread union membership throughout the industry. While there are still thousands of young-uns coming out of media courses willing to sell their kidneys to work in telly, it just aint gonna happen. The sad fact remains… If YOU don’t want that self-shooting-sound-recording-editing-japanese-speaking-trainee/junior-series producer role for £800 a week, some other cheeky fucker will. And the programme will be shit. But it’ll come in on budget and some mindless morons will love it and make a Facebook group about it too, while you’re at home gutted that someone else got your job because you got precious about how much money you were after….. ‘well not next time!’ you’ll tell yourself… ‘next time I’ll just take the bloody job!’

This is the world as the mole sees it at the moment. It needs to change, but I’m being completely hypocritical by spouting all of this nonsense without doing something about it myself. Maybe that’s the problem.. I find it ‘only just acceptable’ at the moment. In the same way that they seem to set train ticket prices ‘only just’ cheaper than if you drove to work, paid the congestion charge and parked. They know you’ll eat the shit sandwich because its almost too much hassle to complain. Rates are bad, but you can just about survive on them. Workload increases, but I’ll just end up staying in the office later. Crews keep getting smaller, but I’ll just do more of it myself. Programmes feel more and more like, ‘that wouldn’t have been acceptable 10 years ago’, but nobody cares now anyway. You see? A culture of acceptance has crept in! Will I ever be compelled to stand up and rally around support for a strong union? Maybe not. Maybe I’ll just pussy out and quit TV, bitter and miserable like so many others that just give up and start lecturing in a media faculty.

Quick show of hands then…who else is willing to stand up and fight?….

The Mole

There’s a recurring cycle in this business, whereby it seems a few weeks after you start a new contract – you’re on the lookout for a new one. If you’re lucky or extremely well-connected you’ll find yourself on a good run of back-to-back contracts, unless of course you’re one of those jammy gits who’s landed themselves a nice cushy ‘staff’ position (for those of you who actually believe these types of roles are cushy, staff doesn’t mean permanent, like a job for life… it purely means; ‘you’re employed here until our commissions dry up and then you’re out on your arse’). Anyway, all I’m assuming that you’re aware that a freelance TV world exists…

I want to talk about the conditions in that weird little void we all find ourselves in sometimes, that magical place in between contracts where something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong. Maybe that special commission which your friend told you was ‘just about to be green-lit’ didn’t happen, or you weren’t able to coincide your last finish date exactly with the start date of this new thing, or whatever… fact is, you’re now out of work and looking frantically for something worthwhile or at least something that pays ok. For those new to the industry, this can seem quite alien and strange. You life can draw parallels with that of a jobbing actor in Hollywood, you’re forced to wait tables and pull pints while looking around for work that might pay you a couple of hundred quid a week (assuming they’re paying you at all). For the more senior of us, we feel annoyed with ourselves that our supposedly extensive list of contacts have let us down on this occasion and we’re reduced to the lowly and embarrassing levels of sending out CV’s and cold-calling companies that we’ve not worked with before. The fact is, it can happen to anyone, because if you’ve been working in TV for any length of time, you will have realised by now that the ‘right place, right time’ element of getting any job in telly places a massive part.

But don’t worry! There are plenty of things in place to help you through this dark period. First off, we’ve got job ads in Media Guardian, Broadcast Freelancer, et al. Fine, if you’re going for a job at ‘the beeb’ and can afford to be out of work for another 3 months while they take you through a simple 7-part recruitment process, or if you’re after a job as an ‘in-house scheduler’ or ‘technical supervisor’. For those of us with dreams of more than a thankless £19k a year, we need to try and dig a little deeper.

So what else is on offer? Mandy.com? Productionbase? Well, you would have thought so. Mandy still seems to be the place to go if you fancy working for NO money whatsoever. I can’t believe they still have a function to search for ‘unpaid’ or ‘lo-paid’ jobs if you fancy it. Why the fuck would I fancy that? Oh yeah, I forgot, it looks good on my CV. Apparently. Productionbase actually take the biscuit as far as con-artists are concerned though. For months we received emails promising us brand new and exciting content, but when they launched their new site late last year – we found that it was exactly the same set of tools, set out in a different colour scheme with the inclusion of a new method of displaying showreels and media, although now you have to pay hundreds of pounds a year to display it. Thanks pb. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more when I’m looking for work  than spend more of my dwindling supply of cash on stupid productionbase things that I used to get for free with my subscription. Turds.

The answer is simple, save that money you’re about to chuck at productionbase or the premium bits of broadcast and put the money towards doing things your own way. Don’t be lazy, you can do it. How many jobs has pb ever got you anyway? Seriously. How many ? More than three? Were they good? Anyone calling you because they found your CV on productionbase is scraping the barrel, because they exhausted the list of people they actually want to work with and they’ve begrudgingly turned to a list of people they know nothing about. It really isn’t the best way to work. They’ll probably offer you a lower rate, too. That money you’re about to pay someone else to do the job for you, you might as well do yourself. Nobody is going to put as much effort in finding you a job than you are, seeing as, erm, you’re you. Do your research, find out who’s who at each indie you’re going to be contacting if you don’t already know. Contact them individually, address them by their name, show you know something about them – but not too much to seem creepy. Send HARD COPIES of your CV as well as emails, I can’t stress how important this is – you’ll be surprised how often they get picked up, even if its a year down the line.  If you’re desperate and you’re out of work, you need to plan a full-scale assault on the industry to make sure you get work.

Fancy online galleries of your showreels? Simple, that can be done yourself , you don’t need to pay productionbase to do it. If you insist on having a productionbase account – you can still link directly to your own website from you pb page and have all that nice shiny video content on there for a fraction of the price. A domain name will set you back from £3 a year, hosting on a really snazzy web host (which will make your content look awesome in a simple ‘drag-and-drop’ interface) will cost a comfortable £5 a month and there’s plenty of free software lying around on the internet that will turn your impressive showreel into a web-friendly video. There are snakes in the industry that are more interested in lining their own pockets than actually helping to find freelancers work.

Luckily most of us are able to find work, at least most of the time. I think if you’re finding it tough all year round – there’s probably something wrong. It’s tough, but it’s not that tough. As much as people like to moan that it’s getting harder and harder, I’ve actually found it easier as my career has progressed. I guess if I was a cameraman and I had shooting APs snatching up all my jobs, then I might have something to grumble about – but thankfully, I’m not. I guess maybe it’s karma, for all those grumbling cameramen who like to whinge if a shoot overruns by half an hour and moan if there’s not enough rocket in their ‘Pret’ sandwiches.

I’ve normally reached the end of post, fairly happy that I’ve driven home something I think is particularly to-the-point – but today, I’m not sure exactly what it is I’ve written about. Erm, okay – how to handle things when you’re out of work? Career advice?…

..okay, I’ve just read back through. This post doesn’t really seem to have much point to it at all, it’s been a bit of a ramble. Good job I’m not getting paid to blog, eh? Well hopefully you’ve at least identified with some of the points I’ve made today and maybe I’ve given you some food for thought regarding chucking your money down the drain in between contracts.

That’s all for today. Something better to talk about soon, I’m sure.

The Mole

TV’s a funny old place. It’s often quite disappointing for kids turning up into the industry to discover how gnarled and bitter the freelancing world is under that layer of sugary niceness that everyone puts on. The truth of it is, there’s hundreds of people in the industry that are consistently made miserable by the industries ways and are desperate to get the hell out of it. Don’t get me wrong, on the flip-side, there are thousands of us that are content with the way things are and are happy to put up with the down-sides.

Anyway, every now and then you’re given a stark reminder of how nasty things can get, ie the catalyst for this particular post. A couple of weeks ago I was given one such reminder when a friend of mine received one of those “I’m going to make sure you never work in this town again” emails from a disgruntled exec. who he hadn’t seen eye to eye with. I don’t want to go into too much detail, as it’d end up identifying the poor chap, but safe to say he didn’t deserve it. 

Every now and then I trick myself into thinking telly is a lovely place to be, a soft Tellytubby-esque grassy landscape where it’s safe to run around with no shoes on. Usually it’s while running around in this velvety-smooth grassy landscape, frolicking gaily without a care, that one usually ends up treading on a tetanus-ridden nine inch nail. That’s how I’m feeling today. I’m lying on the grass, prying a rusty old nail out of my blood-spattered foot while wondering why I tried to kid myself into thinking that telly was a lovely, harmless place to be.

Weak, melodramatic analogies aside - that’s the way TV makes me feel sometimes. You settle in to a nice run of getting back-to-back contracts, working with lovely MD’s, execs, etc and then a couple of times a year you meet some absolute c**t that poisons it all for you. Why do people feel the need to be so wanky? I remember going through a run of trying to find work as a runner (a few years back now) and after sending out hundreds of letters, finally securing myself a few weeks work experience at a couple of indies. My first stint at Leopard Films was a dream. Lovely people, not at all pretentious, very down to earth and I was made to feel immediately at home.

After a couple of weeks there, I went on to another indie during which time I’d landed myself an interview for an ‘internship’ at a third company. Wow! An internship!? Bloody brilliant! They were going to train me up to be a director, or a producer, or something impressive like that. Their website said so… “All of our interns get to work with celebrities and go on to be important people’.. or something like that. All I had to do was write down three proposals for programme ideas (which would be hoovered up by some lazy development prick, if half-good) and a begging letter telling them why I wanted to work in telly and why I’d be suitable. After a few weeks I’d been called for an interview. Walking in to that office nearly made me puke. The rumours were true! Telly WAS a pretencious, filthy place after all! The horror! Dozens of boys and girls with trendy haircuts busily scuttled around the office, not forgetting to keep that ‘pleasant demeanor’ plastered across their cutesy faces at all times. Seriously, everyone in this office was good-looking and gunning for next presenter’s opening. I was made to wait an extraordinarily long time for the big interview, by which time I’d already decided that I wanted to exit by the nearest 4th-story window. I was eventually greeted by one of the minions, and taken to a cold-looking corner office with a big conference table in it. Holy shit… my guard was really down after the friendly, informal nature of those other indies, what the hell was going to happen here? I was eventually met by one of the MD’s, Connie and later another important-looking person, Scott, who grilled me on why I wanted to be in telly for a few minutes and told me what a damn good opportunity it was to be in this interview before getting me to come up with some more programme ideas. I was given 10 minutes to scribble these down on a piece of A4 before being told ‘thanks’ and ushered out.

I never heard from that company again - but since sitting in that boardroom, being made to feel like an insignificant little urchin all those years ago - I’ve heard nothing but bad things about the place and some shockingly ‘TV prentencious’ tales about the people that run it. I’d put my feelings at the time down to naivety on my part, and nerves on the day - but so many dozens of people have reinforced my initial feelings when walking in to that office that it now remains the only production company in the world that I wouldn’t EVER consider working - purely because of who they are and what they represent. It’s funny that in a world where people are sometimes very wary of criticising a production company, for fear of never getting work there or because they’re worried about the sway the bigwigs there may have in TV circles…. this company always gets slated, usually putting a smile on my face, because I know I’m not alone.

Safe to say, if you’ve worked at this company, think you know who I’m talking about and don’t agree with me.. you’re probably also exactly the kind of person that this article is written about. ‘TV pretentious’, egotistical, two-faced, wanker(ette)… or you’ve been lucky and had a pleasant experience there.

Thankfully, the production companies that I want to work for aren’t so generously sprinkled with arseholes, which is lucky for me. You generally find there’s maybe one or two at a good-sized indie, sometimes none at all. But how is it that these narcissistic cretins are still in operation? Who’s employing them? Why are they still here? How can we destroy them? Well, hopefully at some point, they will die. But other than that, it takes a lot of bottle to step to someone who’s prepared to discredit you or try and make sure that ‘you’ll never work in this town again’ if you cross them. It’s hard to imagine that anybody in TV has enough power (certainly in the indie world) to invoke a blanket ban on rendering your services - and making such bold statements are just as likely to make them look like an idiot. However we’re always very careful about what we say about who, allowing ourselves to be swept along with the two-faced nature of TV. Be warned though, if there’s negative stuff to be said about you, it’ll generally happen behind your back, after they’ve smiled in your face. There also still remains networks of people who don’t actually really like each other, but recommend each other for work because they have a mutual fear of being slated themselves; a self-perpetuating little gang of wankers that are all about reputation, will refer to their TV programmes as ‘films’ and meet at TV industry functions to tongue each others anuses. Ah yes, the two-faced nature of TV takes on many guises. 

The comforting thoughts to take away are these: The people that sit you down in an office and make you feel small, talk to you like shit when the coffee isn’t good, or the research isn’t right, or the offline is running behind, or the budget is over…. those people could one day be coming to you to have a programme commissioned or be asking for a exec position when their indie goes under. But stay humble please…don’t turn in to one of them. 

The Mole

..The Mole is still here. But just been on a grueling shoot which has rendered my typing paws useless for a few days, due to laziness.

More TV stuff to come.

I’ve got a problem with Dawn Porter, in that I’m not entirely sure what I think about her. Usually, I’m able to make my mind up about new TV faces pretty quickly - but the self-styled ‘Hot Patootie’ has me at a bit of a loss. Is she the ditzy, cutely-curious, ‘ooh all this stuff that I’m finding out is freaking me out’, playful investigator that she plays so well? Or is she trying to mask some of her intelligence with an added bit of sexuality? OR is it all a big mess and Dawn is in fact, tottering around unable to decide if she’s trying to be a ‘cutting-edge’ investigative journo or the girl that didn’t quite make it as an actress, but still quite fancies the idea that she can still be a sex symbol on some level?

I’m not entirely sure that Dawn knows herself, which is why I’m finding it hard to make a judgement on it. On a number of levels, I really enjoy watching Dawn. In autumn last year her offering of 4 x 60 ‘light-docs’ for Channel 4 (which I’ve just caught up on, prompting this post) loosely explored a common theme of ‘girls finding love in different ways across the world’, which looked at free love in San Diego and remote German community ‘Zegg’, Geisha girls in Japan, mail order brides in Eastern Europe and polygamists in the US. 

In each episode, I didn’t really feel like Dawn was truly immersing herself. While she seemed to be getting the opportunity to stay with these people, I never felt like she was doing more than scratching the surface. There seemed to be no arc to her stay with these ‘weird and wonderful’ contributors, certainly no jeopardy with any of them. The fact that these all seemed to be shot on at least two cameras gave me the sense that a larger-than-necessary crew was following Dawn around, giving her more help than she needed (possibly with one of those directors that is so anal about shooting they decide to actually film some themselves, but end up fucking the cross-shooting up and replicating the shots that the first camera was picking up anyway). I wanted Dawn to surprise me - wading in with some of the questions that might have made her slightly more unpopular. Challenging her contributors to face up to their underlying fears and insecurities. 

Having said that, Dawn Porter quite clearly loves what she does - which is slightly paradoxical seeing as she generally bricks it when it comes to a potential story crescendo. There’s still something which made me sit through four hours of her most recent docs after already seeing her BBC 3 work. It HAS to be more than her flirty giggles, come-to-bed eyes and slightly over-whitened teeth. Don’t get me wrong, Dawn Porter has huge sex appeal, she’s civilised enough that you wouldn’t be embarrassed taking her home to your parents to talk about ‘that piece on the Today programme’. And at the same time, well, as she says herself… she is/has a ‘hot patootie’, depending on your understand of the phrase. She also has a slightly trendy ‘come on girls, we’re going to find out the truth about this..’ kind of attitude to her programmes. Aiming at the forward-thinking ladies of the country who might be watching that slot. You know the ones I mean, the ones that want to be reading Heat but read Gracia instead because they care what people might think about their celeb-infatuation. The same ones that end up marrying chaps at least 20 years older than them, because although they still flirt with hot young men, they need to go home to a Range Rover Sport, decent childcare options and a house near the Common. Yep… you know who I’m talking about.

But I’m not going to offend Dawn by suggesting that all she’s got going for her is a nice tan, white teeth and a trendy fringe. I think she has the potential to be a great reporter. She boasts the enthusiasm and drive to form relationships with a good cross-section of interesting characters and in some cases she does venture out of her comfort zone (although she does seem to get her kit off in pretty much everything she takes part in). I just wish she’d trade in those scenes where she’s tottering away from her contributors in 5-inch heels, a big pink suitcase full of shoes and flashing her ‘LA smile’, proclaiming; “Whoa! Those lot were proper mental!”, for a decent closing reflection on her ordeal. I’m certain that if she toned down her attempts to be seen as a glamourous, sexy style icon and concentrated on her journalism - her contributors would take her more seriously and she might get more of that jeopardy her programmes are crying out for. We get it, Dawn. You’re hot. And you think you’re hot. And you want people to think you’re hot. And oooh, that slightly-60’s-style thing you’ve got going on is very individual, isn’t it? But… this is a documentary!? What are you doing??

I’d like to see Dawn take something on without the ‘look at me’ factor and make a documentary which isn’t playing up to her Gracia-reading peers. I’m more interested in the characters she can prize out of the woodwork, because I think she’s got it in her to make great connections with people. Don’t think I’ve got a problem with Dawn’s personality for one second, I haven’t, she’s seems like the kind of girl I’d try and buy a drink for down my local (only to be spurned because she likes them 45, with a Porsche.)

But this bizarre fashion-show with the plasticky pieces to camera need to go and sometimes when I watch her I wonder if deep inside, she’d be happier presenting Dancing On Ice where she’d get to where a pretty frock and bat her eyelids all night. Go to her website right now; www.dawnporter.net . This isn’t the website of a serious documentary maker. This is ‘Dawn’s World’, with loads of ‘pwitty pickchas’ of Dawn in various states of undress, close-ups of white teeth and a link to her ‘STYLE BLOG’ discussing things such as fake tans, underwear, makeup and Gucci handbags - yet on her twitter page describes herself as a journalist. 

Bottom line? I’m going to keep watching Dawn Porter, because I think her best is yet to come and despite the impression I may have given in this post - I think she’s pretty talented. I just hope she figures out whether she’s cute, clever, investigative or ditzy.. or maybe her plan was just to throw all of those into the mix from the start. In which case - I’ve just spunked away 1000 words for nothing!

The Mole

(If The Mole has given the impression in this last post that he doesn’t find cute women with a nice skin tone, white teeth and an interest in fashion attractive, he wishes to assure you that is not the case. He does. A great deal.)

 Just look at them! These urchins, with their skinny jeans and floppy, wild hair - are the future of television. Runners are easy to spot; They take their fashion cues from the cast of Hollyoaks, annoyingly haven’t hit that level of unfitness that you put down to ‘metabolism’, and still gallop around the office unaware of glass ceilings, two-faced industry politics and the fact that freelancer rates haven’t even increased with inflation in the past 10 years.

But we all have days when we’re very pleased that there’s a runner around to help, whether its a coffee at the right moment, release forms being sorted, talent being attended to, etc etc - a good runner is often a blessing. But I have a theory about runners that I want to share with you. I think they’re going to save the industry. I think they’re going to take it over and revolutionise the bastard. I think a change is coming and I think we’re all going to benefit, they’re coming and they’re shouting “Yes we can. YES WE CAN!!”  Ahem…

For those who are wondering what the frig I’m talking about, I’ll expand a little on my theory of televisual evolution that I believe will one day benefit us all…

Firstly, I started in the industry as a runner. I can’t imagine ever looking as alien or freakish as the ones depicted at the top of this post, I’m pretty sure I was a little better turned out than these fools. Nevertheless, I was inducted into the TV industry at the bottom of the food-chain, eager to work my way to the top - yet not really knowing what the top was or how I was going to get there.

There were plenty of observations that I made in my new environment as I entered the business. First off, I was made fully aware of my status. Before I could even be a runner, I must start my life as a kind of primordial slime puddle, slowly oozing my way into paid employment. This was work experience, and it lasted for fucking months. Initially I was working for an indie making a BBC daytime programme, working for the princely sum of £2.50 a day towards my travelcard. £2.50 a day was almost worse than getting paid nothing, because it acknowledged that I was having to buy a travelcard (the pre-Oyster equivalent of being to ride on the tube for a day) yet refused to even cover half of the daily cost of one. I looked on it affectionately as kind of a daily “Fuck you, worm.” from the indie.

But the single most disturbing thing that I began to notice throughout my time as ‘work experience person’ and later, runner.. was the number of people in the upper echelons of the TV hierarchy that had never done the job I was currently doing. How was this possible? I’d been told at every turn that there was only one way to get into telly; the hard way. Was I to now assume that the dog-shit ridden path that I was currently treading was in fact a meandering trek to the dole queue, rather than the fast-track to becoming a TV deity as I’d once thought? Bollocks.

A few more months into the industry and I’d made more discoveries. I started spotting certain similarities between the arseholes in the industry. (Let me point out quickly, that I think I’ve been quite lucky. I’ve experienced a relatively low number of arseholes in the industry, compared to non-arseholes.) The majority of arseholes were either parasites who were able to hold out for non-runner type jobs because of a rich Mummy and Daddy and/or a pre-existing London base which allowed them to live in the Big Smoke rent-free, or, people who had ‘proper degrees’ from red-brick universities who had either been BBC trained and nurtured or had stepped into the industry sideways from journalism. Either way, if I ever met a really disgustingly pompous wanker (or wankerette) they’d be from one of these backgrounds. 

The problem for these arseholes, is the rise in popularity of Media Studies degrees. They don’t like the idea at all. They see them as ‘Mickey Mouse’ qualifications, easily completed and of no academic worth whatsoever. The result? Thousands of classless oafs leaving crap universities and looking for glamourous jobs in TV. The reality is, a large number of those looking for a ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree, don’t follow through with looking for a job in TV after getting their media degree and of those that do, they’re put off by processes involved in making it into the TV industry and give up after a few months when the rejection emails are too much to bear or the credit card reaches its limit.

The truth behind the matter is this - only the most talented or determined young people are making it into the industry now. Being a runner is the initiation test. 

I’m pleased to say those ‘upper echelons’ of TV are changing now. Many of the elitist, pompous, ex-BBC idiots that held the positions as exec, creative director, head of development and used to mock the ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree posse are now being replaced by the very same group that they used to lambast. As I’ve grown into the industry I’m seeing more and more people who have trudged the modern path of runner to become directors, producers, execs, series producers. The people who will shape the future of television are now the people who came up through the media studies degrees of the mid-to-late nineties and onwards. I’m glad there’s more ‘real’ people in positions of power now. The new generation of producers/directors is more humble, more personable, more reasonable and it’s because they’ve had to endure things that many of the previous generation skipped. 

Many of the people I work with now say they’d never dream of raising their voice to a runner or sending them on pointless runs to ‘Pret’ just because they can’t be arsed to go and pick up a crayfish sandwich by themselves. Thank God there are also people like Benetta Adamson around who are willing to speak up about pay and conditions for people breaking into the industry now, which is also making things easier. I’m not saying that everyone that comes through a modern media degree and makes their way into TV through being a runner will be brilliant, I’m just glad that the ones that are, are now being given a chance to shine and the ‘old boy network’ of TV appears to be dissipating.

Be nice to your runners. Please.

Okay, sensational title aside, I’ll clarify before I end up with a lawsuit from Sony. This camera isn’t killing the industry all by itself. That’d be silly. It’s more to do with who ends up using this camera. I’m not going to get all technical in this post. I could write a long, boring missive about the downfalls of this piece of kit - but that doesn’t really hit the nail on the head.

For those of you who don’t know or don’t care, this is the Z1 - or to be more precise, the Sony HVR-Z1E. It’s what this camera represents that I’ve got a major issue with, not the camera itself. This camera is the ‘poster-boy’ for the TV industry’s widespread abandonment of decent production values over the past few years, a signal that we no longer give a shit about the quality of programmes we’re churning out.. it’s the foreman in the television sausage factory and it has a lot to answer for.

Sony created this contraption, I suppose as a halfway house between the affluent amateur and low-cost broadcasting markets. The problem is, the industry has now adopted this, the runt of the camera world, as its own little baby. It’s easy to use, it’s light, it’s small, it looks fairly impressive with it’s black finish and little blue light which fools the unsuspecting operator into thinking it means business. The truth is, I’m being a little harsh.. it’s not a bad camera - it achieves what it sets out to do, it’s just that what it sets out to do is not good enough for broadcast.

“Can you shoot?” is becoming an increasingly used phrase in the informal world of ‘telly’ interviews, where everyone from the junior researcher to the producer/director is expected to be a master cinematographer. The response to this question is often so laced with bullshit that it really should never be asked at all. In place of it should be; “let me see your showreel so I can check you can do more than point a Z1 at someone and press record.”

Here lies the core of the problem. Because now, more than ever, the view seems to be that TV can be made cheaply and still look good. To a certain extend true, it can, if you’re very very careful about who you’re hiring.  But these days it seems that those basic initial inspections on a person’s skill set either aren’t being made or are being completely ignored. The result? Shit telly. Researchers and Assistant Producers are being sent out to film with their trusty Z1’s and returning to the production office with some shocking looking rushes. Producers then scratch their heads; “I don’t understand, he’s done a ‘DV Talent’ course”… Behave yourselves. I could go on a Manchester United course, it wouldn’t make me Cristiano Ronaldo.

Who am I aiming this rant at? Who can be my scapegoat, other than the poor old Sony Z1? Is it the execs and MD’s who are pitching programme ideas with using the Z1 and under-qualified AP’s in mind? Is it the commissioners who seem rub their chins for two seconds before saying “And you’re shooting this on Z1?…”  before a wry smile spreads across their greedy fat lips and the realisation that they’ll have to fork over thousands less in budget for this potential ratings-winner to be made, activates a million pleasure receptors in their ratings-driven brains? Probably both.

Questions from the same egotistical commissioning editors arise when they skip merrily down to their trusty Indie to have their first viewing in the edit. “Why is it so shaky?” “Why does the light from those windows look so blue?” “Is that focus soft?” “I’m not sure about that eye-line” “Didn’t you get cutaways? “  ..and many more. The answer is, and surely has to have always been, YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING-WELL PAY FOR!

In America for example, take a bog-standard ‘Factual Entertainment’ series. First and foremost, it’ll be shot on HD. No questions asked. I’m talking; all singing, all dancing, 1080p - big, bold, looks amazing - HIGH DEFINITION. It’ll be shot by numerous seasoned camera-operators. they’ll have at least one camera assistant. There will be a sound recordist - he’ll have an assistant. You’ll also find a producer AND a director, not a diluted version of the two, squashed into one floundering body. PA’s, AP’s, runners, drivers, grips, caterers… you get my point.

Yes, I know, I know, I can hear you all squealing already, “But all of that costs money!” I know it does and I realise that my little example above illustrates the other end of the scale, how the other half live. But we must actually be getting laughed at. I’ve worked all over the world and had foreign TV crews scratching their heads looking at our kit and crew, asking pretty much “What the fuck?”  And I’m right there with them. We need to change our attitudes to making TV. I’m aware that not all TV in this country is made cheaply and nastily, but too much of it is. Why should it just be a handful of primetime shows that look anywhere near decent?

Why the hell can’t we just raise the bar a little bit and take some pride in our work? There needs to be an effort from both producers and commissioners. First and foremost, can we all agree NOT to use the Sony Z1 any more? There’s no point in your production manager gleefully bounding up to you in the last week of post proclaiming; “We’re going to come in £6k under!”  if what you’ve just churned out looks like it’s been shot by a drunk adolescent on a HandyCam. Let’s start thinking about production values again - surely it wasn’t that long since people cared about what our programmes looked like. It makes SUCH a difference. And while I know that we don’t have the commercial prowess of the US networks, which boast $1million per episode on programmes like Wifeswap and Hell’s Kitchen, but we can at least try our best and give our audiences something decent to watch.

Make sure your shooters can actually shoot. Make sure they’ve got a decent camera in their hands while they’re doing it. Tracks, jibs, lights, grades and decent onlines are all things you shouldn’t be doing without.

First rant over.

The Mole

Up until the age of about 14, I knew exactly what I wanted to do in life. There was no doubt about it, I had a clear and well-planned route I was going to take and I wasn’t going to be stopped. But once I developed a slightly more realistic outlook on life and began to listen to the people around me that pointed out that joining the US Armed Forces as a Naval Aviator, following in the footsteps of fictional hero; ‘Maverick’ wasn’t a particularly obtainable goal (especially seeing as I was British).. I started thinking a little more low-key.

I knew that whatever career I ended up would have to offer several important attributes. It’d have to be exciting enough to keep me entertained, varied enough to keep me from becoming bored, pay well enough to put a decent roof over my head and it’d have to have clear, definable goals… no never-ending daily grind that leads nowhere.

I thought for a long time about journalism, but in the end - it didn’t excite me enough. Before university I worked in hospital radio and thought for a long time that I was destined to be a radio presenter. But it wasn’t until I turned up for my first week of lectures for my wonderful, ex-polytechnic (in the ‘Top 10 of New Uni’s as voted for by reluctant Guardian writers through gritted teeth) that my head was turned by the prospect of working in television.

Of course! It made perfect sense! Why the hell had I not thought of it before? Everything seemed right about this. A different challenge everyday, cool people to work with, all full of artistic and exciting ideas, real working TV studios and cameras to play with - I could even add in some English modules in there too, to make people taking real degrees think I was almost clever enough to talk to!

The degree was fantastic, at least from my perspective it was. I felt like I was learning a lot and it didn’t feel like I was getting an easy ride - it was actually pretty hard work! But three years later when it was all over and I trotted down to London with a spangly new BA (Hons) in hand - I could have been forgiven for feeling a little pissed off with what I found when I arrived. 

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting - maybe at least an industry where hard work, determination, intelligence and loyalty are rewarded with career progression, fair pay and plaudits for excellence. What I was faced with was something quite different. Don’t worry - this isn’t going to be a gloomy first post and I’m assuming that if you also work in TV, you know what’s coming anyway.. so bear with me. 

Firstly, I was made aware very early on that my degree counted for absolutely bugger all. Nobody asked about it, nobody wanted to hear about it, nobody wanted to know what skills I had displayed or interests I had developed during my three years studying. It appeared that the only useful nuggets of knowledge that seemed to be transferable into the world of telly were being able to tell the difference between a DVCAM and a DigiBeta and knowing that ‘TC’ means timecode. The rest of it I was going to have to start from scratch, because nobody cared if I’d shot a short film, mastered 3-camera gallery directing or taught myself to use Avid. What mattered was being able to follow orders, having enough common sense to get around problems and also not collapsing through sleep-deprivation or exhaustion. 

My journey through TV had begun and I’m still here today, working my way through. It’s been an interesting ride so far and thankfully it has to be said that I’ve met far more ‘good eggs’ than arseholes. Although, there are a lot of the latter, which you’ll be hearing about in great detail. I’m not quite sure of the purpose of this blog just yet, or if anyone will ever read it… but maybe some of my stories will ring true to a few fellow TV workers and maybe give people thinking of getting into TV a bit more of an insight before they do.

No stone will be unturned in this blog. You’re going to get the highs, the lows and the very lows. I’m also probably going to comment on any topical media-related subject which take my fancy - which again, may not interest anyone at all… but I’ll enjoy doing.

I hope you enjoy the blog… I’m looking forward to reading your comments.

The Mole