tv1TV’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