Alright?

Cheers for turning up. I'm a round headed, squat, beardy TV AP based in London and wanted to start this blog to generally moan. Some people have said they like reading what I have written in the past so thought I would put it all here from now on - I'll probably give up soon. All posts/articles are intended to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Have a glass of wine as well if you like. And some cheese. Camembert, with a baguette. Stick some rosemary in the top and shove it in the oven for 10 minutes. Bit of balsamic as well (not the 1 cal spray). In fact, go to France; rent a gite - you probably deserve a break.

 

All views are my own. Any similarlities between any people or organisations here are purely coincidental. ProdSecs - love you really.

 

 

Also, I occasionally, when aggrieved, write complaint letters to different companies. Some people have found these amusing to read also, so thought I'd publish them here. If you care, they are in the BLOG section of this website. Tab at the top.

 

 

LIKE FLIES TO A GLISTENING TURD...

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EVERYONE WHO WORKS IN TV IS SHIT...

 

Cringe Worthy Tele Type Status Update:

 

What a great day: firstly hung out with Rhianna in the canteen before actually sitting in on the ACTUAL judge’s desk for a sound check! After a quick lunch I was shooting rehearsals on the 305 so now I can actually put that I shoot on my CV – Shooting AP here I come. BOOM! 14 hours is tough but I LOVE my Job!  

 

Like / Comment - 20 minutes ago at TVC near White City, London. 

 

Your Mum and 7 others like this.

 

 

How many times have you read status updates like this?

It makes my toes cringe to the point of cramp when tele types post comments glorifying their celebrity affiliation. Well, whilst some of your non-tele mates might buy it, no one in the industry will believe for a second that your vague proximity to Rhianna in the canteen equates to supping Mai Tai’s with Riri in Mahiki later that evening.

 

Secondly - shooting some rehearsals on a wide does not mean you can shoot. And blagging a feather boa for free does not give you the right to EXPECT promotion.

 

Whilst I appreciate the pressure and desire to move up quickly in order to earn enough money to survive as a freelancer in this industry - £350 per 65 hour week isn't exactly far above the breadline for an eager media graduate - it won't do anyone any favours in the long run by believing you can Series Produce Strictly before you can, well, actually get a job on Strictly. Work Experience doesn't count. 

 

Let me further extrapolate by way of recent example; I was sat at my desk one morning, when my PM came over and introduced Garth - our new Junior Researcher.

 

Garth was wearing flip flops, a vest, ‘twisted’ chinos and he had a latte attached to his face. He was available to help with casting for the day.

 

This was welcome news indeed! We had 2 days to find about 8 contributors and needed all the help we could get. It was a very fast turnaround, low budget reality show about stay at home mums and with that in mind, I asked if he had any phone – bashing experience. With a snort of contempt and a raised eyebrow he assured me that indeed he did. Great.

 

I duly handed him a print out of hairdressers to call in the Yorkshire town of Dewsbury and asked if he could start working on that area – we needed a northerner in the mix, preferably Asian, disability an advantage.

                                     

After about half an hour he came back and said that he'd pretty much exhausted hairdressers in Dewsbury and the surrounding area - that's 15 pages on yell.com and at least a days’ worth of calls - and did I think it was '...time to start thinking outside the box?' 

 

Ballsy. But then again, he had produced at least THREE different student music videos. So…

 

Whilst his suggestion of advertising for contributors on TV related Facebook groups would probably yield some success, we were the ones being paid to find these contributors, not the rest of the industry community.

 

After a certain amount of eye rolling, arm folding and glances at the wall clock, Garth eventually conceded that calling 60 hairdressers would probably yield more results than 10, which was good of him.

 

That night as I walked to the tube, the rain pelting against my face, my own chinos a sodden, sorry state; I wondered how poor Garth must be faring in this wet and windy weather and thought back over the day. Whilst the scale of his wanton, brash arrogance was only matched by the size of the hole in his knowledge; I realised that he, and others like him (I.E. me) are not completely at fault.

 

At least partially to blame is an industry that is cannibalising itself by providing just two possible ways of entering into it:

 

One option is limited grassroots training at super indies, ITV or the Beeb, which is actually more difficult to get on to than it is to join MI5, and which upon completion entitles you to 15 years as a runner before finally being made a junior researcher aged 35.

 

The only other option for everyone that isn’t James Bond is to beg, stowaway or blag your way on to a production ahead of everyone else, hope you don’t mess anything up and learn on the job. And you quickly realise the person above you knows about as little as you do because they've not had proper training either.  

Either way, you enter into an industry that operates a very liberal promotion policy which appears to reward self-promotion and self-delusion and very little to do with meritocracy.

 

But what do I know? I’m just a jumped up AP on the way to a night out in Brixton – but I did just receive a friend request from Garth.

 

Ignored.

 

On second thoughts, better accept – he’ll probably be my next boss.

 

 

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/comment/diary-of-an-ap-getting-ahead/5050858.article?blocktitle=Comment&contentID=2489

 

 

 

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FIRST DAY DISTRCTIONS

 

 

In my opinion, the best thing about working in TV is the unpredictability.

One minute you’re jobless and, the next, you could be on a plane with a bunch of strangers, off to film some drunken revellers debauching their way around a Greek Island. And then asking them how they feel about it. And then telling them their girlfriend was watching the entire time. And then asking them how they feel about that.

No two weeks are ever the same and no two contracts are alike. It’s exciting. The one exception to that rule, however, is the first day.  

It is a constant source of amusement to me that no matter which company you’re at; however long they have had to prepare for your arrival; whether you’ve sent back your “new starter” form or forgotten your P45 and passport; the first day will ALWAYS be identical.

Let me explain by way of a recent example. It was 9.15am and I was rushing out of the Tube, maps out on the phone as I desperately tried to shield the screen from the rain as I typed in the new office postcode.  My converse had split at the midpoint and my chinos had a sodden hem. The one saving grace was that my recently purchased North Face jacket (classic winter shoot attire) was keeping my denim shirt dry.

Eventually finding the entrance to the office through an unmarked black door down an unnamed alley, I made my way up a rickety fire escape and into the office via the upstairs of a coffee shop. As you do.

Inside I was greeted with the familiar sight of banks of computer desks crammed into a tiny space, kit strewn about and the kitchen sink was already full of dirty dishes, despite the carefully crafted note explaining that “the [picture of the] cute puppy gets it if you don’t do your own dishes”.  Will it though?

While looking around for someone vaguely administrative, I was approached by the very flustered Office Administrator who, beaming, shook my hand and whisked me away to the other side of the office where my production - The Great British Doggy Date Off’ (ITV2 – don’t ask) - was located. No one else was in yet so I settled down and turned on my computer.

Obviously, the log-in that was scribbled on a Post-It on my screen didn’t work and the one remaining arm on my swivel chair was essentially obsolete. I psyched myself up for the next couple of hours and called IT.

After some initial surprise over my failure to log-in, many long pauses and some kind of tech spirit taking control of my computer remotely, it was decided that there must be something wrong with ‘the drive’. This meant that I had to be re-located to the hot desk on the other side of the office from my production - right next to the toilets.

My login worked fine on the ancient computer that was there so got set up on email and read the bible (or some of it).

After a brief meet and greet with the rest of the team, it was back to the desk to start making some calls. Unsurprisingly, the phone at the hot desk didn’t work so I had to go back over to my original desk to call IT again:

‘Sure, I’ll log it and get someone over ASAP.’

‘OK thanks – are you sure there is nothing you can do from there? The thing is Ashraf, we’re pretty up against it and I need to call people all the time, so if you could just…’

Fortunately, at this point it transpired my original computer was up and running. Login? Check. Phone? Check. Shared drive? Definitely not.

“Don’t worry, it’s lunch now then there’s a health and safety, and compliance meeting at 2pm so it’ll be sorted by the time you’re back.”

“OK perfect – where’s good for lunch?”

“Pret?”

“Naturally.” Heaven forbid we try somewhere else.

By 3pm I was back at my desk, suitably full of Hoisin duck wrap and sweet ‘n’ salty popcorn, not to mention relieved that thanks to health and safety, I now knew that approaching a salivating Doberman whilst on shoots was not a good idea.

The rest of the day passed without much consequence: a couple of calls to some councils before they all knocked off at 4.30pm, and then a call or two to impatient news desks to see if they’d be interested in featuring our press release. They were, obviously. Nothing else happens in rural Lincolnshire.

Fortunately, it was one of those indies where the MD has kids and so leaves the office at six o’clock on the dot. This means the execs follow suit and everyone else is out the door by seven at the latest; staying late one-upmanship nowhere in sight.

Home for 7.30, I whacked the kettle on and collapsed on the sofa to enjoy the last few hours of normality before the inevitable return of the unpredictable which, in all honesty, I was pretty excited about.

After all, there’s nothing like a cheeky Travelodge and a crew car full of stale sandwiches and dog hair to make the winter months fly.

 

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/comment/in-my-view/diary-of-an-ap-first-day-blues/5048487.article?blocktitle=Comment&contentID=2489 

 

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THE QUEST FOR WORK

 

Drastic Productions need BRILLIANT Researcher / AP ASAP for AMAZING new reality /fact ent documentary for C4.

Candidates must be fluent in SWAHILI and be available IMMEDIATELY for a two hour shoot in ALASKA. Ability to shoot on all known cameras an advantage.

This person should be highly motivated, able to hit the ground running and set up multiple shoots simultaneously. This is not an entry level job. There are no other jobs. There is no money.

 

Of course there isn’t. But if I don’t do it, someone else will.

Unfortunately, this has become an all too common phrase among aspiring lower level freelancers in recent years. Following people’s quest for the all-important first credit in this tumultuous and volcanic industry is like watching an exhibition of natural selection on a time lapse. It truly is survival of the fittest.

Whilst that job post may sound like a lot of effort for little reward, one must pay the rent, and make connections with people in the business, so it’s worth taking a hit with a shorter contract. Swahili can’t be that hard to pick up and who doesn’t want to spend a cheeky couple of hours hugging a polar bear anyway? Do they even have polar bears in Alaska? Note to self: check natural habitat of polar bears.

Two days have passed and I’ve heard nothing, assuming they chose some multilingual, pan-continental AP (probably from Bristol) with a dearth of experience far superior to my six meagre credits. Then my phone rings with an ‘Unknown’ number. Which either means I’ve forgotten to pay a bill, or there’s a glimmer of hope I’ll be able to afford the next one.

Drastic interview

It’s Carol from the Drastic talent team who invites me for an interview later that day, at 1600. It’ll take me about 40 minutes to get there so I leave at 1200. Just in case.

The interview is essentially a fast-paced monologue from the exec about the show. “So originally we had this hair brained scheme to set up an African tribal village in Alaska to see how they coped in a totally different environment with new natural adversaries – polar bears and the like.” (Aha!)

He adds, however: “The channel soon became wary of this idea however thinking it might rub human rights activists up the wrong way so we’ve scrapped that. Now we are thinking of doing two series’ back to back using the same initial ingredients. We take a handful of urban city dwellers from the UK and dump them in Alaska or Kenya with a survival expert. They have to live there, in the wilderness with nothing. Each week the survival expert kicks one of them out of the camp. So it’s a revitalisation of a much tried and tested concept. But we’ll shoot it all on a 5D or C300 to give it that modern feel. It’s story driven too in a constructed reality kind of way, so think TOWIE in Alaska. Or Kenya.”

“OK brilliant, it sounds really exciting. I was just wondering if, once we’re out on location, I’ll be shooting – I noticed it said shooting an advantage in the original ad.”

“Can you shoot?”

(He hasn’t read my CV.)

“Yeah absolutely, done lots with the 5D, Canon 305 and all the big DV names from Sony.”

“Well then I don’t see why not. Anyway, great to meet you and hopefully see you in Alaska! Or Kenya.”

“Lovely to meet you, thanks.”

Alaska to Kenya

A couple of days pass and whilst I remain fairly confident I continue to apply for other jobs anyway. The phone rings around 1400 and it’s the Production Manager from Drastic.

‘Hello, it’s Margaret, the Production Manager on Survival of the Fittest – Alaska, and Kenya. I’m doing both at the moment to be honest!”

“Oh poor you, must be tricky!”

“Yes well that’s another matter, anyway, we’d love you to come and join us as a Shooting AP, if you’re still interested?”

“Absolutely.”

“Great, well I think initially you’ll be casting, both shows, then you’ll either go out to Alaska or Kenya depending on how it goes. Can I just check your rate?”

“Right. It’s £850 per week.”

“Oh, blimey, wow. That’s quite a bit more than I had in the budget. Urm, we were looking at something like £250 for our Shooing APs….”

And on it goes. After some time ‘aspiring low-level freelancers’ like me reach a happy medium where both sides are happy.

Like me, you might call your Mum and tell her all about it, at which point she asks when you’re going to get a permanent contract and you explain, again, that isn’t how it works and that in all likelihood will never happen. She starts telling you about mortgages and pensions and the importance of starting to think about such things. After five minutes you’ve had enough, hang up and start wondering what it’s going to be like in Alaska.

Or Kenya.

 

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/comment/diary-of-an-ap-from-alaska-to-kenya/5047219.article

 

 

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REALITY ON A BUDGET