Jump to content

Freya Black

Recommended Posts

Freya,

 

Considering the cost and availability of equipment in the UK, it may be cheaper to export yourself to the US or Canada. ;) If you saw the rental prices for Wooden Nickle in LA your jaw would hit the floor pretty fast.

 

S.

 

Yup I just saw the "stuff we are getting rid of" / "Old Junk" section and even that was mindblowing!

 

Freya

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having spent most of my career working in the UK, I have to say that Phil and Freya are exaggerating the poor state of the industry there. Just about any lighting and grip gear that is available in the US is also available in the UK. There may not be as many vendors, and some of the more esoteric items may be be hard to find, but it's all available.

 

Many years ago, when I was shooting music videos, I used to rent from Lee Lighting (now Panalux) at very reasonable prices. Even when the budgets were just a couple of thousand pounds, we'd still be able to put together a decent G&E package.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stuart you do know what happened to the world of music video's don't you?! :o

I think some things changed since you were last involved in stuff over here.

 

In any case, If London is so fantastic, then what took you to L.A.? ;)

 

Both myself and Phil have said that this stuff exists. There are even c-stands out there at the rental houses.

What doesn't exist is a lot of work outside of the major studio movies that come here. There are the government sponsored TV movies which are something of a closed shop, and tend to be very strange films about families usually, where someone is having an extra marital affair (not sure why they made so many of those) Beyond that there isn't that much but to be honest for me its find, we get by and I'm looking forward to doing more things within the restrictions we have here. It's just a matter of getting more creative about things.

 

Freya

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Freya,

 

You're painting a picture of the UK as a barren wasteland for film makers, where every piece of equipment is home made and held together with gaffer tape. That is completely at odds with the industry I worked in. You say there's no work outside of major pictures, well, what about TV work? BBC Wales by itself has been responsible for Doctor Who, Torchwood, Casualty, Sherlock, Merlin, Being Human and many others in the last few years. There is even more work in London. All of these productions require crew. What's stopping you from getting a job on one of those shows?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
You're painting a picture of the UK as a barren wasteland for film makers, where every piece of equipment is home made and held together with gaffer tape.

 

Ain't I bin' sayin' it?

 

 

 

Doctor Who, Torchwood, Casualty, Sherlock, Merlin, Being Human and many others in the last few years... What's stopping you from getting a job on one of those shows?

 

You mentioned six productions in the last few years. Let's be charitable and assume they were all in production simultaneously, even though that's not true. How many really decent, properly qualified, highly experienced first assistant camerapeople does the UK need, in total? A dozen, maybe, including features, TV, ads and music videos? How many really good directors of photography can we actually employ? Four or five, I suspect. In total. Nationwide.

 

There are 1200 members of the camera branch of BECTU's london production division alone, and if more than five per cent of them are making more than a few hundred pounds a year making movies I will eat my hat and yours too.

 

To your point, no, they don't need crew. They already have all the crew they could ever possibly need, a hundred times over, a thousand times over, literally. And in terms of experience on that sort of production most of us will never get within a thousand miles of it.

 

P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is even more work in London. All of these productions require crew. What's stopping you from getting a job on one of those shows?

 

 

I am totally up for it if you can get me an in. I'm friendly and hardworking and very enthusiastic.

I'm happy to do stuff in London or to move over to Wales if need be. :)

 

Freya

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mentioned six productions in the last few years. Let's be charitable and assume they were all in production simultaneously, even though that's not true. How many really decent, properly qualified, highly experienced first assistant camerapeople does the UK need, in total? A dozen, maybe, including features, TV, ads and music videos? How many really good directors of photography can we actually employ? Four or five, I suspect. In total. Nationwide.

 

 

Five out of those six were in production simultaneously, and as they were all two camera shows, and all often 'double-banked', they would have been employing 20 1st ACs, 20 operators and 10 DPs. I know you're exaggerating for effect, Phil, but the truth is, there is work out there.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Five out of those six were in production simultaneously, and as they were all two camera shows, and all often 'double-banked', they would have been employing 20 1st ACs, 20 operators and 10 DPs. I know you're exaggerating for effect, Phil, but the truth is, there is work out there.

 

I'm actually not that fussy about the set position if you can get me an in.

Camera Trainee would obviously be amazing tho.

Whatever you can line up would be fantastic however.

 

Freya

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
I know you're exaggerating for effect

 

I wasn't, actually, but even if I'm out by a factor of three or four, which I'm certainly not, the point remains. There are literally thousands of qualified candidates for those sorts of roles, and with my background in no-budget crap I'm never going to be even vaguely qualified, let alone the most qualified.

 

Of course there's work. There's just, literally and absoluetly without exaggeration, several thousand qualified people to do each job. And then there's all the losers like me. I hesitate to say this, oh how I hesitate, but sometimes I wish they wouldn't let people into the union until they knew what they were doing, then this whole miserable tale would boil down to "couldn't get my union ticket" and a lot of breath and heartache would be saved.

 

Which is why I spend my days metaphorically begging for C-stands on street corners.

 

P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Bear in mind that the UK only needs (literally) one or two replacement camera assistants every few years in any case; the interest in training anyone is consequently very low. If it's anything like post houses were in the mid-2000s, it'll mainly be about getting someone on cheap to fetch snacks. Most of the union-sponsored training courses I've seen have been patronisingly transparent attempts to control entry.

 

Naturally this doesn't stop scruple-free film schools taking money off people.

 

P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bear in mind that the UK only needs (literally) one or two replacement camera assistants every few years

During my time working for BBC Wales, there were considerably more than "one or two" trainees that worked on the various productions, and as far as I remember the production staff there were always very gracious when dealing with them.

 

I have to say, Phil, that your cynicism is straying dangerously close to "sour grapes".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Personally? I have never even attempted to become a camera assistant. I knew that making a decent living in high-end film and TV was (next to) impossible the second the concept occurred to me at the age of about twelve. If the dotcom bubble hadn't burst more or less the day I graduated in the subject, I'd probably be pulling down £150K as a database developer by now. If my grapes are turned to raisins by now, it's more on the basis that at the age of probably 16 I was told that I should on no account pursue an engineering-related subject on the basis that we would be oversupplied with them for the next four decades. Oops.

 

Which sort of brings us back to the point. Are any of those trainees now making enough money to pay for a mortgage, a pension, a place to live, a car, and enough left over to raise a couple of kids?

 

 

No, they aren't. Not any meaningful proportion of them, anyway. They'll have been taken on, used and abused as low-cost labour - possibly while people smiled at them ingratiatingly, or more likely while people deliberately teflon-desked as much poop down to them as possible, I speak from experience - and then rejected in favour of someone cheaper.

 

The film industry is right down there with high fashion as an absolutely malfeasant employer which will do more or less anything to more or less anyone, and it's fantasy to pretend otherwise.

 

Edit - and - call me cynical? You left. I don't blame you for a heartbeat, I'd do exactly the same given half a chance, but you can hardly lay claim to a terribly positive attitude about the place. Unfortunately without familial connections or marriage prospects, as you well know, most Brits are effectively imprisoned on this nasty little island.

 

P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are any of those trainees now making enough money to pay for a mortgage, a pension, a place to live, a car, and enough left over to raise a couple of kids?

 

Of course not, they're trainees. No-one in an entry level job makes enough to do those things. They train, they learn, and they move up. When they become 1st ACs, they make enough money to do that. I know this because many of the 1st ACs I used to work with had families and houses of their own, and they are now stepping up again to become Operators.

 

I didn't leave because I hated the industry there. I was earning a good living, and loved what I did. But why would I not move to LA, given the opportunity?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

they move up.

Not very often, they don't. We've already established that these roles are oversubscribed thousands or tens of thousands to one. This is bait and switch at its finest, and it is a positively shameful thing to do, to promote this situation as if it works in -literally - more than 0.001%, or 0.0001% of cases. You know the jobs do not exist. It's self-evident, even without the numbers. It's like asking if tax is owed on a one million income. It's like telling someone who's in debt to gamble. It's evil.

 

But ultimately, I can't stop you, and I've said my piece. What this does illustrate is why nobody in the UK can afford C-stands.

 

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

We just had a bit of back of the envelope calculation on how many productions are going on at any one time in the UK. If we have a really good year and make 10 or 15 real films that's only employment for a few dozen film crew.

 

Of course those people have access to all of the stands they like but they are a vanishingly small minority. It is a material fact that most of the filmmaking that occurs in the UK is done for practically no money at all and it should not be a surprise that the people who work on these productions lose their marbles when confronted with a warehouse full of used gear that would be considered too worn to be useful in Los Angeles.

 

Personally I have worked on million shoots where I knew exactly what I needed to do to make the picture better but could not because I simply didn't have the equipment. Basic equipment - stands and flags - that are quite properly considered elementary elsewhere. Think what that's like.

 

 

 

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not very often, they don't.

We'll have to agree to disagree, but the vast majority of trainees that I worked with at BBC Wales have gone on to become Focus Pullers, just as the Focus Pullers have become operators. I'm not saying you're wrong, but my experience of the UK industry is very different to the world you describe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Phil.. I hear what your saying.. and also Stuart.. I came up through the 80,s in the UK .. got a few lucky breaks with who I assisted, and I have to say it was a fantastic time to be in the film /tv industry.. had a incredible decade of traveling the world.. and making quite a lot of money for my age..

I realize those days are gone.. and actually i also don't live in the UK anymore.. but a lot of the people who were assistants that I knew are.. and are doing very well for themselves..

 

But for those starting out these days.. its tougher for sure.. but the over supply of labour to work has always been there to a huge proportion..and Im sure it is in LA,SYD,or Lapland and I,ll be the first to say..luck . has a lot to do with it.. it was for me for sure.. but end of the day.. thats the type of business it is.. there are few formal qualifications (even if they counted !) .. its a business a lot of people want to get into and very few places .. Im sure its always been like that.. its luck to get in.. then skill and more luck to move up.. look into the stories of all the big time DOP,s.. there was always one lucky break they got.. or low budget film they shot that got big "easy rider" "mad max" . I guess acting,painting,furniture design,Architecture .. all these niche industries are the same.. and there is no doubt some great talent never gets through if the cards don't fall for them..

Edited by Robin R Probyn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

And you left quite a lot of tv series there, Poldark, Wolf Hall, etc, etc.

 

Also, what about the commercials? Loads of commercials are shot in the UK nowadays.

 

If we have a (small) industry in Ireland (Vikings, GOT, Penny Dreadful, Ripper Street, movies, commercials, etc) and people make a living out of this, how come the UK doesn't have any?

 

I'd say Freya that if you want to become part of the "camera department", go to 24/7 Drama, Arri, Movietech or Panavision and ask for an internship there, in no time and if you are really interested, they will let you go out as a camera intern

 

Have a good day!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

 

 

We'll have to agree to disagree, but the vast majority of trainees that I worked with at BBC Wales have gone on to become Focus Pullers,

 

Think for a second how many people that actually involved.

 

Three, four? And how long did you work there?

 

You and I both know that the total number of job openings in all of professional filmmaking across UK is something like two or three individuals a year, for all trades. On a year where there isn't a Spectre or a Harry Potter, that will frequently fall to effectively zero.

 

 

 

go to 24/7 Drama, Arri, Movietech or Panavision

 

How, exactly, is one supposed to do that?

 

You can't approach bona fide companies as an individual, they won't even take your call (I should emphasise, I don't blame them for a second - they'd be wasting their time).

 

As with so much in the UK, you have to be someone's offspring or someone's friend or at least a pretty young woman with a nice smile, and even then the overwhelming likelihood is that you'll do it for six months or a year or two years and run out of money.

 

Two or three a year, folks, I kid not.

 

P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...