6 posts tagged “tv”

Would it not be reasonable for a director to consult with me, or at least give me some advance warning, before turning off all the lights in this part of the office, plunging my working environment into pitch darkness (almost), then turning on a huge, mega-watt lighting rig which is shining directly into my eyes and conducting an interview with their presenter at my desk cluster?

Would normal people not, as a bare minimum, acknowledge that they were about to start filming at my desk cluster, or perhaps apologise for the pitch dark/horrendous migraine-inducing blast of light combo, if they can't actually bring themselves to ask if I am happy, nay, able to work in these conditions?

They might, I would hazard a guess, at least grimace a sorry kind of face in my direction.

But no! This is television! Where manners and convenience and regard for others do not apply!

I cannot see my notebook! I cannot see the numbers on my phone! All I can see is aforementioned blinding light in my face.

Am tempted to do a silly dance in the background of their shot. Or pop up periodically yelling "hi mum!" or alternatively "I'm blind!".

This does not befit my status! I demand a recount! My head will explode! My eyes! My eeeeeyeees!

* I feel they are warranted!

My university experience was pretty generic. I went to a good university in a big Northern city. I studied English and Art History. I lived in a string of mediocre houses, in a fairly high level of squalor. I loved learning, and was more studious than any of my friends, because that's just me. But aside from the geekiness, I whiled away the three years in much the same way as my peers. I got intoxicated, I smoked too much, I had nights out which started at the kind of hour at which I start thinking of my bed, these days. I made lifelong friendships, some of which are in need of rekindling. We were silly, and young. We made up games to pass the time, and huddled in hungover lumps under duvets watching MTV. I lost far too much weight, and money, and had fun.

Now, five years later oh my god,  I think I am where I hoped I would be, career-wise. I took the gruelling route into television: starting out as a trainee researcher/runner/dogsbody at a small independent company, and I am working my way very slowly and steadily through the different levels of production. I'm not going to be one of these whizzkid young producers who are younger than the team they manage. Maybe by the time I'm 30 I'll be a producer. Maybe. Assistant producer is fine by me for now. I've never really questioned the path I took to get here, apart from wishing I had had some time off at some point, instead of crashing from school to uni to work with nary a breathing space betwixt them.

Then I went filming in Cambridge this week. I applied to Cambridge University whilst at sixth form college, purely because I thought I should, and because I was "encouraged" to do so by my teachers and family; it was expected of me. In myself, I was vehemently opposed to actually going to the university. Everything about it seemed dull and elitist. I didn't want to mix with loads of other geeks- for the first time in my life I wanted to perhaps be cool, or at least, I didn't want to perpetuate my swot status.  I went to an interview at Clare College, and I was way out of my depth, and I didn't get a place, and I didn't care, and I went to Leeds, and had fun, and got my degree, and that was that.

I remember the night before my interview at Cambridge, I stayed with a friend's sister who was in her first year there. I slept in the student accomodation in the beautiful, historic college building. Like living in a stately home. Stuffy, I thought. We drank pints in the union bar, where students wore scarves to declare their college allegiance, and talked about drama productions which were sponsored by top London theatres, and student journalists who had placements at the Times over the summer. The conversation flew over my head at some points, and the people I was mixing with clearly revelled in their Oxbridge status. At one point, a glossy-haired, pashmina-swathed Sloaney type declared: "Isn't it hilarious? These people, in this bar, will one day be the top editors, and politicians, and executives, in the world!". I rolled my eyes and drank my beer, and got it over and done with.

Whilst filming in Cambridge this week, I saw this world of undeniable privelege through different eyes. The older eyes of someone who has worked damn hard over the last five years, who has left their university days far behind them and can't get them back. I saw the students whizzing down old, ornate streets on bicycles, so many bicycles, like swarms of insects buzzing through the city. I watched them strolling through the famous lawns of the grand colleges and disappearing through huge oak doors into their leaded-windowed accomodation where somebody would make their bed each day. Most of them seemed animated, talking and gesturing to their friends, or alone, their gigantic brains whirring with some conceptual notion; and not with the logistics of getting a TV crew from one location to the next, and how to feed them. I felt sneery, and kind of jealous, and weird inside.

I'm not saying that I wish I had got into Cambridge. Undoubtedly I wouldn't have gone anyway, so the fact that I was rejected has saved me a potential regret in turning down a place. And I still think it's elitist, and probably a lot of the people there are unbearable. Probably I would have suffered under the pressure of the workload, and the academic demands.

But on the other hand, perhaps I would have pursued my love of academia (and I do love it), and now I might be a rosy-cheeked postgrad living in a turreted listed building, riding my bike over the cobbles wearing a woollen skirt and a vintage brooch and the open smile of someone living in a bubble of privelege. Not that I am not priveleged- I know that I am. But.

Or, I might have swanned into a trainee post at the BBC upon graduating, instead of being turned down when I applied in my final year of university. I may have been in the same job now, but perhaps I could have worked less hard to get here and taken a faster route, and perhaps my Oxbridge connections would mean that ten years from now, I could be several layers higher than I will be, having not been to Cambridge. Maybe I'll hit a glass ceiling which I wouldn't hit as an Oxbridge alumni.

Most of all, my time in Cambridge this week showed me, in the brief time I was there, that Oxbridge is at the very least a very unique university experience, with more beauty and tradition than most of us find at our "normal" universities. And it opens doors. Who can deny that?

Writing this down, getting it out of my system, I realise that I still feel dubious about the whole Oxbridge thing. It's a double-edged sword, perhaps. On balance, it did me good to dodge firework-throwing youths during the dark winter walk from university to my student house in a run-down part of Leeds. My childhood was sheltered in many ways- we didn't have tons of money but we were comfortable, protected, encouraged, stimulated, and steered down a safe path by our parents. I'm sure if I had been to Cambridge, I would not have let loose to quite the extent that I did at Leeds. I needed those all-nighters and experimentation, and to live off spaghetti hoops when I ran out of money. Dinner ladies serving me dinner in grand halls would not have done me good. Mixing with people even more sheltered and priveleged than myself would probably not have been a good thing.

I felt envious this week, I suppose, of the idealised picture that I saw/created in my head. I am just so tired at the moment, I am working so hard and what's more, I've got some kind of virus so I'm under the weather.  I think I just found it galling to see carefree, cossetted genius children who really will be the top editors, politicians, writers in the country, swanning around a world far removed from the grind of "real life". A world which, somewhere in a parrallel universe far far away, a different version of me inhabits. Perhaps she's happy; perhaps she's depressed and insane and wishes she could have just been normal. Perhaps she's a wildly successful published author and world-reknowned Genius Queen of the World. Perhaps she caved under the pressure and dropped out of university, and went to Goa, and lives in a tent. Perhaps she never got a job in TV because the producers she came across made assumptions about Oxbridge types. Perhaps she lost all her social skills and only talks to books.

On balance, I don't regret the fateful moment in my interview at Clare College, which surely sealed my fate, when the professor asked me to paraphrase a passage of Chaucer, and I had to admit that I didn't know what "paraphrase" means.

On balance, perhaps it wasn't for me after all.

For someone who "wants to be a writer", I'm doing a great job of neglecting the only two outlets I have: this blog, and The Novel.

I have thoughts and themes, sentences and paragraphs and excessive punctuation marks, and a quip or two, swilling around in my head. I will bash them out soon. I promise (myself).

In the mean time I'm back in that state of being and doing which knocks me off my feet every couple of months: it's filming time again. Life has been a whirl of freezing my toes off in Northern cities; understanding the meaning of wanting the ground to swallow one up whilst being bawled out by an angry mid-tantrum presenter; feeling like I might throw up with the hilarity at the comic talents of another presenter; shoving my way through nightclubs, camera in hand; fending off pissed Geordies shrieking "TV! TV!" and diving into shot; lying prone on couches in hotel bars, shell-shocked from 13 hour filming days; running on adrenaline and also copious amounts of unsuitable food which I have crammed into my gob whilst on the run between shooting locations.

And across in the more meaningful spectrum of life, I've been missing my boyfriend, family and friends as I dash all over the country (and kind of forgetting what they look like); rejoicing at news of a new baby in the extended family- news which I haven't officially been told yet; and feeling like chucking bricks through the windows of a large organisation which has, outrageously, not given a graduate job to my fantastically talented, interpersonally gifted genius of a sister. I shouldn't feel like crying about this- but I do, goddamit! I feel like wringing their necks- have they no sense?!

And worst, worst of all! I am away filming next week and will miss the first rehearsal of "Whiter Shade of Pale" at the gay chorus! I ask you, is there NO JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD?

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(Obviously that last thing is not actually worse than the bastards turning down my brilliant sister, or indeed worse than me not seeing anyone I love for days on end. Just in case my totally unsubtle sarcasm passed you by...)

I really need a haircut. That is all.

Obviously that is a lie and as usual, I have an awful lot of waffling to get through. So let's get cracking.

I need a haircut, for a start. I have been feeling pretty crap about my physical appearance really. The Aguilera/Von Teese Look that I planned to showcase this winter has been so far scuppered by copious filming days/weeks which require great big parkas and no hair grooming and trainers, to enable me to scamper from the scenes of despair and trauma extra quickly at the end of the day (I am still working on the terrifically depressing project, because it never ends, and it never will, seemingly). I have bought a lovely soft caramel sweater dress from H&M, and of course the mary janes, and a very cute winter coat which a waitress has just thrown coffee over, perhaps in a pique of jealousy over its loveliness, or perhaps not. But goddamit I am just not working the ladylike vibe I am aiming for. Next week, next week....

I am decidedly squidgy, also. The aformentioned depressing nature of the project I am working on requires plentiful glasses of wine and many comforting and fatty snacks to be consumed. I don't pretend that I am saying anything new when I acknowledge that I am a totally emotional eater. ie, I feel an emotion, any old emotion will do, and I eat.
And there is no time for yoga in these days of hard work filming. So I am in Not the Zone, still. And larger than usual.

AND I just look tired and sallow; and one DIY pedicure six weeks ago does not a pretty pair of feet make; and please don't ask me about the nails on my fingers because I haven't done them properly since I got a full set of falsies in New York in January (see, I told you I was hard done by); and  feeling crap about work stuff does not give a girl a glow.

Jesus. Get your violins out, please. Is there no end to my wallowing?

So it was with great relief that I went to get my colours done this morning (my birthday present from Mum). For those who aren't familiar with the magical world of Colour me Beautiful, it's basically a service which tells you which colours suit you, and which look like crap. The nice lady took all my make-up off, and once she had come round from the shock, starting brandishing colour swatches next to my face. Admittedly, some of the colours made me look as though I was actually dead, and some sucked the colour from my face and brought out my dark circles beautifully. The self-deprection poured awkwardly from my mouth in an almost constant steam- neither funny nor comfortable for those around me. But ultimately I have come away with a whole palette of colours which do suit me. And I now know that I am deep (not light), clear (not soft) and warm (not cool), apparently. So I can and should wear lots of bright, vivid colours in contrasting shades, because "Clears" have contrasting eyes, hair and skin. This is exciting indeed. Truly it would be rude not to shop, now I am armed with this new information. Especially as I have a leather wallet of colour swatches which I can whip out and hold up against prospective purchases in Shopping Boofus fashion.
The lady did my make-up too, and I have ordered a very bright lipstick called Strawberry (I tried to eat it but it didn't taste like strawberries...).

I have an image of myself taking the whole experience a little too literally, and turning up to work wearing an item of clothing in every colour in my CMB palette, or a huge sweeping technicolour dream coat with multi-coloured scarves swathed round my head. But they said these colours would suit me.....

The Colour Me Beautiful experience made me feel a little better about myself and spurred me into taking steps to make myself more presentable to the general public instead of being a repugnant old tramp. The first step was eating an enormous lunch of steak, eton mess and Irish coffee (much of which is on my new coat now) and lots more wine, with mum. It was lovely.

Now I am at home and no longer drunk, and chomping on a piece of Big Red chewing gum, which The G got me for my birthday (it's only available in the States), which I love. The G is painting the spare room, and I have just watched an episode of SATC, and am tempted to watch another. Honestly, it's like smoking, is SATC. Once you get the itch you just have to scratch.

Work is making me feel sick at the moment, and I truly dread Monday. I'm on the point of exploding and just backing out of the whole thing. I had a massive bawl last night because H's birthday is approaching fast too. But between the people I love, the Colour Me Beautiful lady, and the fact it is only Saturday, I'm feeling OK at this moment.

Also, some lovely friends from uni are coming over for lunch tomorrow. I haven't seen them for yonks so I am really looking forward to it.

And we had a really fun evening with S and M last night (ew, not that kind of S&M... pervert), who made a gorgeous dinner and were most entertaining as usual.

Mmm, and we're having squid for dinner. And chilling out with a DVD or something tonight. Or maybe X Factor. Mwah ha ha, if I get my way.

And best of all, according to Colour Me Beautiful, I can still wear black.

Hurrah!

I was watching Hollyoaks today, of all things, and a scene stopped me in my tracks. The acting in Hollyoaks is never great, and neither is the writing (and I only watch the omnibus sometimes, on a Sunday morning, honest), but occassionally I think, somebody writing that programme has been through something so that they know. They know what it is like to lose someone that you love, and just occasionally this shows, and it cuts through from their heart (whoever they are) to mine, in that secret part which is sorrow.

The scene was three kids, teenagers, who had lost their mum (accidentally killed, it would seem, by another character who was in a drink-driving rage because his wife was having an affair with her sixteen-year-old pupil. Of course) . They were looking through a box of things that belonged to her, and the camera zoomed in on a hairbrush that the daughter was holding, and the shot only lasted a second but I saw the hairs on the hairbrush and I felt it: whoever put that into the script, they know how loud the silence is and how heavy an empty space can be when someone is gone.

I've held a hairbrush that my sister used, and wondered how her hairs could be tangled in its prongs and yet she is not here; I've run my fingers over her jars of cleanser and body lotion, I've stared at the grooves left in a pot of lip balm by her own fingers, and I haven't dared to destroy those markings; once, I even took cotton wool from her bedroom bin and traced my hand over the smudges of mascara where she took her make-up off once. The trail of little things that a sixteen-year-old leaves behind them- this is what she left behind.

But is this all we leave behind? Traces of the physical person we once were on the material things we can longer use? Can my sister in her loveliness and vitality, really be reduced to a few strands of hair in a brush,  a fingerprint on a mirror, a pair of glasses bent in the middle that she'll never wear again? Does the fact that she was beautiful mean anything now that she "is" not?

To other people it seems macabre, maybe even pathetic, to cling to these remnants. But sometimes the memories, the love and the thought of a smile aren't enough. For those left  behind when someone goes, every artefect, every fingernail left on the side of a sink, the home video with the only five seconds of their voice that you will ever hear again- those tiny material things are important.

Once I sat on my bed crying with my sister's woolly scarf wrapped around my head so I  could breathe in  her perfume that  was fading as the months went by. I looked ridiculous, and I felt her laughing at me, and I smiled. And for a second she hadn't gone.

The remnants matter.

I don't know whether this is too personal of a subject to post about in a blog; I don't even really know what a blog is for, really... But I can't write about what's in my head without writing about what's in my head all the time, every day. And this is what is in there.

I went filming today, for the documentary series I'm working on. I haven't been out filming for a few months as I've been working in "development" - thinking up TV programme ideas for a living (sounds like nice work? Actually it kills your soul).

I had forgotten how much I enjoy the rituals of filming: gathering together all the kit the day before; putting together a Rainman-tastic call sheet; testing out tripods and charging batteries; juggling far too many tasks into an overcrowded schedule; the road trip with whichever director I'm working with (I have a league table of my top road trip companions); meeting people and learning things I would never have access to in the "real world".

Today, my director and I spent the entire return leg of the 5 1/2 hour road trip talking about Japan. I love Japan and so does he. He's inching up the league table.

The filming itself was fascinating and heartbreaking. Part of it was with the police, which was very interesting (tip: they know everything about you).

But there's something else I forgot about filming. I missed the Question of the Day yesterday, the one about local dialects. Let me give you a few words from the British vernacular: knackered; shattered; zonked.

I am all of the above.