tellymole.com

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

 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.

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