Charity Videos...The Mancunian Way

At the start of March I was working on a promo video for a local charity, Forever Manchester which was directed by Transmission Creative and produced by Visual Collective. The reasoning behind the video was to show that the charity uses a much more fun and original approach to fundraising rather than sending a load of chuggers* onto the streets to guilt trip passers by out of their money whilst they're on their lunch break.

It was an amazingly fun shoot to be involved in, we took over half of Piccadilly Gardens in the centre of Manchester and started our own flash mob by the fountains. Check out the video below and keep your eyes open for the little lad with the amazing Oscar the Grouch hat because he was a pretty awesome kid and he certainly had the best head wear I've ever seen!


*a chugger is an abbreviation of 'charity mugger', you know the people who follow you down the street trying to carry on the conversation after you've told them that you're not going to sign up to a monthly direct debit scheme in the middle of a public place without finding out more about the charity first. A chugger is not to be confused with one of Keith Chegwin's lesser known relatives.

To find out more about the charity and how you can get involved in fundraising with them, visit their website at http://www.forevermanchester.com/

PSHE Videos Never Looked This Good When I Was at School

At the beginning of the year I did a two week work experience placement at Red Production Company. I was helping out with a variety of different programmes that were in production at the time, mainly doing office based work but I also managed to get on set for a day. They were producing a series of short films for BBC Learning entitled Life Stories to highlight a variety of relationship and friendship issues which will be shown in schools as part of PSHE lessons and I was helping out as a floor runner.

My job on the day was to make sure all the children, chaperones and crew were happy and to ensure the cast were at the right place at the right time (make up/wardrobe/set etc). It was also my job to queue the children onto the set at the right time and generally help out with whatever needed doing. It was really great to be working on children's based content again and all the kids were absolutely fantastic and the crew were bloomin lovely. I was also highly impressed with the fact they had a catering van on location, which when you've been working on low budget indie films, you tend to get very excited about things like that and believe it to be the highest form of luxury. Not only did the catering van provide hot lunches and snacks throughout the day but when I arrived at 7am on the Saturday that we were filming, I was informed that breakfast was also included, a pick n mix hot breakfast butty with all the trimmings to be precise...heaven!

Anyway here is the finished video, it's a lovely little story about two school friends and it's a great feeling to watch it back and know that I played a part in creating it.



To watch the other videos in the Life Stories series visit the BBC Learning Zone website.

New Business Cards Please

I got home yesterday evening after working with the Dickinson's Real Deal crew (which is always a pleasure and so much fun) to find an exciting looking package waiting for me. I ripped it open and tipped out a little box containing my new business cards. The images are slightly darker than I would have liked them to be but on the whole I'm very impressed with the overall everythingness of the cards. Bring on the job offers!

Spring Rebrand - Fiona Style!

A few weeks ago I was at a creative industries networking event in Manchester and met a lovely little lady called Christine Charnock who has done some very exciting graphic designing (go and browse her website at  http://www.christinecharnock.co.uk/). She was my drinking buddy for the evening and we exchanged business cards at the end of the evening as you do at these things. I was very impressed with the card she handed me, it was so smooth and pretty and it certainly put my crappy free Vistaprint cards to great shame.

At the same event I also met some rather...shall we say, interesting characters who had ideas for TV programmes and with my existing knowledge of the industry, were keen to keep in touch. It was then that I became very aware of the fact that when I ordered my business cards many moons ago, I thought it would be a good idea to include my home address on them. Now normally I wouldn't think twice about this but as it's really not necessary in this day and age to keep in touch by post I would rather not be handing out my home address to random people who I've only just met. Also I seem to have a natural ability to attract the nutters (birds of a feather and all that...) and seeing as I have only just recently managed to shake off all the crazies that I seem to have collected in Chester over the years I'm not really keen on the idea of brand new crazy people potentially showing up at my front door without warning. So it was then that I decided the time was right for me to upgrade my business cards and  not include my address on the new ones. 

The next day I was sitting behind a reception desk at my non industry related temping job and the only thing I was required to do all day was to sit there, smile and say "hello" to people as they walked past. The company also had a no internet policy so I started brain storming ideas for my business card design on a scrap of paper. I needed it to be something television related obviously but I also wanted it to be fun and completely different to everybody else's. By the end of the working day I had put down my crayons (and by crayons I mean an archaic version of Microsoft Paint) and I had completed phase one of my grand business card design and this is how it looked...

And thus Test Card Fiona was spawned into existence! If you hadn't guessed already phase two included a photo shoot of myself playing noughts and crosses with a freaky looking clown. Firstly I needed to take a trip to Abakhan and get my sewing kit out to create the clown. After fiddling about for ages trying to remember which bits to turn inside to stitch the damn thing up properly  (it's been a while since I've attempted to sew something together which didn't have clear step by step instructions at the end of a knitting pattern) I finally ended up with this truly terrifying thing....

Finding a blackboard proved most difficult as no stationary or office supply shop seem to stock them. Of course I could have ordered one online but wasn't really willing to pay a lot of money for it and didn't really want to wait a week for it to show up. Luckily for me, my flatmate is an Apply fanboy and recently purchased an iPad so in order to keep him happy (he likes trying to justify his purchase by telling me how useful it is) I decided to put his new toy to a genuine and almost practical use for the day. I found a very nice looking blackboard app to download and then it was all steam ahead for the photo shoot.

Now there's a very good reason why I like to work behind the camera and that's so I don't have to have a mass of cameras in my face. I'm not a very photogenic person and all the family photo albums are filled with me either trying to hide from the person taking the photo or pulling the most ridiculous faces because I can't actually arrange my face in a normal fashion when there is a camera pointing at me. As such, it took me from the time Neighbours finished at lunchtime to half way through Pointless (about three and a half hours all told) before I managed to get a semi decent shot of myself.

Rumour has it that the girl who features on Test Card F was actually using her left hand in the photo and it was flipped around afterwards. I'm not quite sure why this happened, possibly because suppressed left handed school children up and down the country would complain that if the girl in the Test Card was allowed to use her left hand then they should be as well. Whatever the reason I was quite glad to discover this news as I am exclusively left handed, as in I don't use my right hand ever (except for holding shopping bags), so flipping the photo in post was always going to happen but it was nice to know that at least I was being authentic to the original  as much as I possibly could.

This is the finished article, my exciting new business cards are being printed off and should be arriving sometime next week. I can't wait to start handing them out to people, the back is also pretty exciting but I will wait until I receive them before unveiling them properly. Until then, sleep well, don't have nightmares and if you are afraid of clowns, hope to god that you don't bump into me and ask for my contact details!

Life's a Treat With Shaun the Sheep

I've been told off in the past by friends and parents for doing voluntary work in the industry. However, as I have only recently moved to Manchester, giving a day or two of my time every now and again to a worthy cause can be good for my soul, it gets me out of the flat and gives me an opportunity to work with people in the industry.

As soon as I moved to Manchester at the start of November I was constantly badgering the BBC to help out with Children In Need until eventually I was pointed in the right direction and added to the list of volunteers. When the day came around, my designated job was chaperoning Pudsey Bear around MediaCity and also helping out with a teddy bear's picnic event put on for two sets of pre school kiddies. This however was over by 11am (and Pudsey had been whisked away by someone else) so I set about finding other things to do. The guys from Aardman Animations had some rather exciting games going on outside on the Plazza including Welly Wangling and  Championsheep competitions which involved running around an obstacle course rolling a sheep that was a metre and half in diameter and a coconut shy type welly throwing thing. It was all crazy fun and although they had designated people working on the games I helped out here and there  inbetween selling Children in Need merchandise. At the end of the day I helped them pack up all their gear and just happened to be there when the lady in charge passed round a piece of paper so we could write down our email addresses for any other future Aardman events and thought nothing more of it.

Fast forward four months and out of the blue, in amongst all the spam that Linkedin send me on a daily basis, I found an email in my inbox from the very same lady from Aardman who was looking for people to work on an event for a week over the summer down near Luton. My initial thought was "it's too far away" and then remembered that one of my best friends lives not so far away from there who hopefully wouldn't mind putting me up for a week and a bit. Then I read to the bottom of the email and saw how much they were willing to pay for me to stand in a field and have and awesome amount of fun (with extra money for travel expenses) and I thought that I needed to do it no matter if I have to live in a tent for the duration . Basically, with my really pathetic temping wage I would get the same amount for nine days work as I would sitting behind a reception desk for a month so it's a no brainer really. It has only taken me four years of working really low paid jobs whilst trying to fit it around slightly more secure mind numbing temping jobs and trying to scrape together enough pennies to pay rent and bills but this is my first paid job that I can comfortably afford to live off that will last longer than a day. I know it might not seem like much (after all it is only going to be for nine days) but I feel it's one huge giant leap in the right direction towards an actual career for me and it's a very exciting thought.

Scan Girl's Proudest Moment

Love Life starts tonight, Thursday 15th March, 9pm on ITV1

For almost two years of my life I was temping for a company where my entire day consisted of scanning an endless amount of paperwork and saving it onto the company's network drive. It was a rather pitiful existance at the time and the only variety in my day was hanging out in the smoking hut, eating lunch and a whole hour of bliss where I sat on reception and flirted outrageously with contractors. I soon developed the nick name of Scan Girl, the lamest super hero the world has ever seen but one who will smoothly and efficiently rid your office of excess crap. I was the fastest scanner in the west, so much so that I developed a most ingenious way of pulling out staples really fast by spreading a huge pile of paperwork out like a fan and then wizzing over it with the staple muncher. It was so effective that I gave myself repetitive strain injury as a result which was highly ammusing to the rest of the team but then they all got quite jealous when I ended up with a beautiful technicoloured electronic stapler and ergonomic staple remover after making a stand for my rights.
I worked there for a year then they got rid of all their temps including me and then they begged me to come back to them nine months later because nobody else was prepared to do the scanning in my absence. I then stayed on there for another eight months until the next round of redundancies happened. After that I decided to stop wasting my life away in Chester and move to Salford to be more proactive with infiltrating the television industry. I admit that another big reason for me moving was so that this company (lovely as all the people in my department were) couldn't come crawling back to me for a third time. I had nightmares of being in that role for years and years and then one day realising that I had scanned my soul away.
I moved to Salford in November so that I could better my chances at making a successful career for myself in the television industry. Outside of London, Greater Manchester is the place to be. With the BBC moving a load of departments up here this has attracted other broadcasting companies into the city and strengthened the ones that were already based here. Besides which, the people are friendlier, renting a flat is a lot cheaper and you  can actually use your mobile phone on all public transportation systems.

At the start of the year I was offered a couple of weeks work experience with Red Production Company. They are a very highly renowned independent production company and make some amazing television dramas. During my time there, I was asked if I could scan a copy of all the actor agreements (along with some other bits and pieces) for a drama called Love Life which was in its last stages of post production at the time. I found it quite ironic that I had moved to pastures new only to be faced with the thing I was running away from. However just to put it into some sort of perspective, this scanning took half a day rather than 20 months.

I soon discovered that Love Life had some very exciting cast members, Alexander Armstrong and Rob James-Collier (aka Thomas, "the bastard" footman from Downton Abbey) to name but a few. I discovered that scanning in moderation and in the right environment can be quite pleasant and exciting...also it helps if you are as easily amused as I am. I went home that night, switched on Pointless and got quite excited knowing that I had been working for a drama that contained an actor that was there on the telly right in front of my eyes.

Love Life starts tonight, Thursday 15th March at 9pm on ITV1 and I promise you that it will be amazing. It's a three part drama and you can always record Glee and watch that later. I know my part in it wasn't even really a part at all but I will still be watching and getting highly excited thinking to myself that I contributed at least four hours of my life to the programme but hey, this is the industry that I love and even the menial tasks that under any other conditions I would consider gouging my eyes out as a better alternative can give me the greatest satisfaction. As Mary Poppins famously once said, in every job that must be done there is an element of fun...luckily for me I find the fun in practically everything I do within this industry because it's all awesome.

How to Fail a BBC Interview - part 2

I spent most of yesterday filling out an application form for a Floor Runner position on Russell T Davies' new CBBC drama called Wizards Vs Aliens which will be shot in Cardiff. Whilst I was in the midst of writers block it gave me the perfect opportunity to reminisce about the last time I went down to the capital of Wales for an interview with the BBC back in December 2009. Although it wasn't as horrible and daunting as my first interview experience with the Beeb in Glasgow (you can read about that here), I still didn't get the job and I thought it would only be right to recount the experience to you all.

Since the interview in Glasgow where I completely failed to come across as a normal, rational and competent human being in every way possible, I had been applying for any kind of job within the the industry that I felt I was capable to do. I was still living in Chester but had found some regular work experience with a retired BBC cameraman who lives in the city and covers a whole range of corporate and council run events. I was doing a lot of boom and sound work with him and he was a good laugh to be around. With every job I helped out on, my confidence was growing so I felt more justified to apply for jobs at the BBC, ITV and other larger broadcasting companies. I also have a lot of admin, customer service and reception experience under my belt which helped broaden the range of jobs I felt confident applying for.

Luckily I only had to wait a couple of months for my next BBC interview. This one was for an Information Archive Assistant down in Cardiff and I would be lying if I said I didn't have visions of spending most of my working days being paid to watch Doctor Who.

On the day of my interview it was really cold and there was snow on the platform when I got off the train at Cardiff Central. I was cursing the fact that I had listened to the advice of my friends and colleagues who after much persuasion convinced me that turning up for an interview at BBC Wales wearing a 20-foot-long hand knitted Tom Baker scarf would not be a good idea. I had left myself plenty of time to figure out where the hell I was going and to navigate buses and as such I ended up getting there a whole hour early. Normally this wouldn't be a problem because I would just find myself a nice little cafe to sit in and compose myself whilst drinking my entire body weight in mochas. On arrival however, I soon discovered that the headquarters for BBC Wales was situated right on top of a hill with nothing else in the near vicinity other than some residential bungalow type buildings. Luckily though, the chap on the front desk took pity on me and directed me to the canteen where I could sit and stress in comfort whilst hugging a huge vat of tea.

When it was finally time for someone to collect me I wasn't actually feeling too nervous which took me completely by surprise as I normally turn into a blundering mess at even the most basic of interviews. The panel was made up of two lovely women and the atmosphere in the room was quite relaxed. We had a bit of banter going on between the three of us, they told me about their brief encounters with David Tennant in the corridors and we all had a little collective wishful sigh at the end of that conversation. They didn't ask me any really horrible questions apart from one (give us an example of a deadline that you failed to meet) and I calmly delivered a witty response about trying to knit Christmas presents for my family in time.  I realised I was actually enjoying being there and talking to these women rather than wishing it would all be over as soon as possible and hoping the ground would swallow me up.

I went away from the experience feeling that I probably could have answered the questions slightly better but I didn't really care because my overall emotions from that day were of extreme happiness and joy due to  remembering to take my confidence into the interview room with me rather than leaving it in the foyer, asking it to be good while I'm away and picking it up on my way out. At the time I felt that even if I didn't get offered the job (I found out a week afterwards that I was unsuccessful) I knew that I actually had the power within myself to refrain from turning into a blundering mess as soon as I sat down in front of an interview panel and I didn't have to be the cowardly lion any more.

Read about my first BBC interview experience in Glasgow

Coming up in part 3 - I revisit Television Centre for probably the last time.