Working in England/ London

[Matthew Buick]

A guy with over 4639 posts is not going to top himself because somebody disagreed with him or made a joke.

 

You don't even know the guy, gladly you don't seen to know depression either.

 

It's bad, believe me.

 

 

 

Yeah and here?s you with a brain the size of a planet? :D

 

Here's you with a brain the size of a peanut. :D

[Stephen Press]

You don't even know the guy, gladly you don't seen to know depression either.

 

It's bad, believe me.

Here's you with a brain the size of a peanut. :D

 

Matthew you don?t know me? or what close personal experience I might have with depression.

 

 

You obviously don?t know who Douglass Adams was either.

 

Share and enjoy

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

You w...

 

Sorry, I can't type for laughing.

 

You went to the bank with a business model, to... to... sorry, this really is just beyond hilarious. You took an actual business model to an actual bank with the idea that they might fund you a steadicam? And you presume to advise me on financial practice?

 

You couldn't make it up!

 

Just to put you out of your misery: the idea that any bank, ever, anywhere in the UK will have anything to do with finance that is even in the remotest sense connected to film or television is beyond preposterous; it's so utterly fatuous I'm torn between laughing and crying. Unusually, I am practically speechless. What on earth prescription medication were you on that day? There is no way in the seventh level of hell that will ever happen. Ever. Ever. How could this possibly not have been obvious to you?

 

Well, I'll give you full marks for antipodean spirit, but really.

 

Took a business model to Lloyds asking for a steadicam. Bwah! I'm going to be dining out on that one for a while...

 

Phil

[Guest]

I have to confess that as far as my wife is concerned the two days Steadicam I spent on Coronation street is the highlight of my career so far.

 

Really!! What happened on set that day, my wife and I are HUGE fans!!

 

 

Life?

 

Don't talk to me about life.

 

Yes it bloody is that bad. It's probably not quite so bad if you happened to trip over £50,000 on a street corner one day and bought a Steadicam.

 

I have in the past been asked to watch someone else for signs of suicidal intent. Believe me, I'm nowhere near. I am, however, realistic about this country and the opportunities it doesn't offer.

 

Phil

 

And yet Phil those dang immigrants from India and Pakistan keep arriving with nothing but the shirts on their backs, and end up owning homes and nice cars in 5-7 years. I guess if you are willing to work in a shop for 16 hours a day 365 days a year, you can make things happen.

 

I am not saying you are lazy by any means. But the UK, Canada, and the USA, are indeed lands of opportunity for those who arrive from poor countries with nothing more than their work ethics.

 

Many of these immigrants can work the native "white guys" right under the table.

 

R,

[Stephen Press]

Oh the hilarity.

Except Midlands Bank, the second bank I went to, did accept my business model and did fund me into my first rig.

I paid them of in three years, so I guess the business model was right. It?s amazing what can?t be done until someone does it.

 

 

 

On Coro. The Battersby?s had just bought a mobile home and I did a lot of following them shouting around the street.

It was just two days work as a tryout to see how I went and it worked out well but I was already booked to come back to NZ. I made a mistake not staying but then hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[Phil Rhodes]

If it was still called the Midland, that really was quite some time ago!

 

For what it's worth, I bought my camera with a bank loan. But I wasn't stupid enough to tell them what it was for. This has turned out to be an utter disaster because I now have a credit rating worth talking about with exactly one bank - the one that refused you the loan - which is abysmal and terrible, bugs me constantly regarding drivel I couldn't care less about and spends its time devising evermore intricate ways of making my life hell with credit cards I didn't ask for, don't want and don't use, which they then presume to charge me for underuse thereof. What an unmitigated bunch of tongue-chewing numbskulls - and from behind the sturdy protection of this particularly corpulent level of corporate slobbery, they presume to call me and occupy my time with the attempted sale of very poorly specified financial products. It would of course be a terrible abuse of my position to reveal that it is the Chelmsford branch of Lloyds TSB (the one that was just Lloyds before they became joined at the hip to TSB, and became, if that were possible, even less competent) wherein works my account manager, an enervatingly perky and shiny-smiled Manageress of the Neverending Upsell and her merry band of corporate drones.

 

And I do own a house, but it's an investment I can't nearly afford to live in - I'd need four more ENG days a month at proper rates to do that, and I'm afraid that's some distance removed from unlikely! No, no - it'll be sold in a few months to an upstart called Farquhar who needs to be close enough to the station to commute to London, where he'll spend his day in the square mile contributing to inflation before retiring to a wine bar and laughing like a drain at his cleverness. I'm going to have to stop myself burying a stiletto up to the hilt between the shoulder blades of anyone who comes to view the place, because they are guaranteed, and I mean platinum-credit-card guaranteed, to be obnoxious city glitterati with unlimited money and finely-teased cotton lint for a brain.

 

The feeling that I may be able to profit from this situation is tempered somewhat by the knowledge that no matter how fast I make money, I'll never be able to outstrip Farquhar, who already owns a crash pad (with his fiance Jemima) worth £800,000 in West India Quay and wants something to give the family (sons Tristram and Quentin) a little more room "in the country", because London property of that value accumulates four grand a month and the idea of out-earning that is almost as silly as getting a bank loan to buy film gear.

 

It's hard to shake the impression that this country is six to twelve months from imploding in a galactic-scale economic collapse which would make the great depression look like someone'd lost a quid down the back of the sofa, whereupon it will finally be made clear that Jemima and Farquhar weren't quite as clever as they thought. Still, they'll be OK - city broker handshakes tend to be golden in inverse proportion to the poop the rest of us are in, and long has it been so. The more important you are, the less blame sticks, and the richer you get - and of course, in the UK, your importance is modulated more or less directly by your wealth.

 

Aren't vicious circles delightful?

 

P

 

Oh, and, er, PS - Perhaps anyone doubting my willingness to put in the hours would care to compare the UK time this message was posted with the fact that I'm currently waiting for a render to finish.

[Stephen Press]

I?m sorry to hear that. I hope things pick up for you. I won?t offer any meaningless platitudes but try not to let any bitterness you feel affect your work. It?s ok to rant here but out in the field its death to a freelancer?s career.

Good luck.

[Guest]

Phil.

 

You are my favorite poster. Only you can use words like:

 

"corpulent", "enervatingly", "glitterati". Brilliant!!

 

As for: "and of course, in the UK, your importance is modulated more or less directly by your wealth."

 

Oh gee unlike, EVERY OTHER NATION ON PLANET EARTH.

 

Now back to the Oscars. Thankfully Canada did not win best foreign film for "Water". A gov't funded film about India, that is representing Canada at the Oscars. India is not Canada. I was spared the horror of seeing it win.

 

Thank-you academy.

 

R,

[Phil Rhodes]

Hoping that things "pick up" in this hell hole is rather like hoping you'll wake up tomorrow morning with several hundred thousand worth of gold bullion stacked neatly on your bedside table.

 

P

[Tony Brown]

Having had a fantastic 30 year career based out of London I can state that, having shot in over 60 countries I wouldn't live anywhere else (actually I'm 40 miles NW of The Smoke but.......)

 

Much of what Phil says has an element of truth. Read between the lines. It is tough, the thought of starting over makes me shudder. A lot of people I came through with and regard as top technicians are working in the industry part time now doing casul labour to fill the gaps. I work most weeks, always on quality productions, I'm very very lucky. 90% of what I shoot is for the UK market, BUT only 10% (if that) is shot in the UK. Its just too expensive. Around £80k a day for a very average script.

 

Wherever you go competence will win you nothing. If you have something different to offer than you will succeed anywhere, because people are DESPERATE to utilise your something different ....simple.

 

If you have that, give your reel to an agent and pay him an agreed 6 month fee to tout the reel. Its his job to knock on doors and he knows the ones to knock on. It will save you five years. Going to Arri Media or rental houses isn't going to get you anywhere IMO

 

Funny thread..... :)

[Daniel Smith]

Well... here's my plan:

 

Go to Ravensbourne, do an honours in broadcast operations

 

Get a job with the BBC, ITV or whatever. (In the past they've literally contacted Ravensbourne and stolen a class full of students for full time jobs)

 

Start work in TV. Make contacts, look out for good scripts, make my own scripts if need be, and collaborate with several other people in the TV industry and make a good film.

 

Find someway of distributing the film. (if it wasn't good enough for distribution I wouldn't attempt it in the first place)

 

And just do it over and over again until one day I've spread my name around enough and have got a load of credits on imdb.

 

Or failing that try and get a job at Ravensbourne and use the millions of pounds worth of equipment when I please.

Edited February 26, 2007 by Daniel Ashley-Smith

[Daniel Smith]

I don't think the problem is making these films. It's being able to make enough money to 'live' whils't you do them.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> If you have that, give your reel to an agent and pay him an agreed 6 month fee to tout the

 

Okay, but you're not going to have a reel worth showing anyone until you have the work anyway. As far as I've always been told, agents are for increasing your earnings when you're already successful.

 

> Going to Arri Media or rental houses isn't going to get you anywhere IMO

 

Couldn't agree more. If you get a job as a rental technician, five years later, you will still be a rental technician.

 

Phil

[Rupe Whiteman]

As most people over here work in the tv industry, the real problem at the moment is the type of programmes being made and the techniques being used to make them. Reality/cheap tv is so dominant now that proper crew days are shrinking as ap's run around with Z1's and a top mic. Production values are right down on how they were 2 years ago let alone 5. Flick the channels of a night and see how much badly shot, poorly recorded, badly cut and un-graded crap is being beamed into home across the land...

 

I've worked on programmes where a director hasn't known what a sand-bag is!!!... I've turned up on some shoots having not being told no recordist has been hired and asked if I 'mind recording sound too' - I can run a radio mic and attenuate the wedding mic but I would never dream to say I can record sound properly... Production company's are interested in profit whatever they say, and cheap productions make them money and there is a whole generation of producers and directors growing up with really really basic techincal and hence creative know how...

 

I've also found that it's harder now to develop relationships with directors and producers. You do a good job, get on well and expect/told that you'll work together again... 6 months down the line and you hear/read about a new job they've done and they've hired somebody else... And nobody ever returns any calls/emails...

 

If you're in the Uk and shoot purely commercials and drama then great, that's where it's at, but this is a small minority of the cameramen and women out there. It's all about contacts and who you know in the end...

 

I've done some great jobs, on all formats, won the odd award, and have travelled to the U.S around Europe on gig's but in tv I've found the jobs you really enjoyed, were allowed to be creative, got good money and had a good time on are getting rarer and rarer. And it is definitley become a part-time job, however well paid it can be...

 

I'm tryiing to concentrate on developing my drama work... it may be climbing a mountain (again and again) but there is always a chance of getting to the top - and the view is good up there...

 

We must all, as the old 'Injun says in 'Josey Whales' - "Endeavour to persevere..."

 

nb - regarding diary services in the Uk - they're now having to change the way they go about their business. Monthly subs have been on average around £100 a month but the DTI says this now means this classes them as employment agencies and will tax them differently so from now they'll have to charge much less/nothing for the subs and they'll now charge straight commission on work they bring in... It'll be interesting to see if what happens - it's a wake up call for these companies, and a welcome one at that!..