When I was a young child I played make-believe, as many
children indeed do. What I’m not so sure most children do, however, is structure
their make-believe sessions in their head as if they were a TV show. Every time
I went out to play it was another episode in the continuing narrative of “The
Adventures of Phil” (terrible title, but then I was 8). Each “episode” had to continue
from the last, I couldn't just jump from being a superhero to a spy without an
in-story reason for the change; I had story arcs, “seasons” of the show, I would even occasionally kill off a
supporting character who had been in “episodes” for a couple of years. At this
point I should have realised I wanted to work in media and the creative
industries.
However, it took me a lot longer than that. Through me and my
best friend recording radio shows on an old cassette recorder, through my almost
constant writing of the first chapters of novels and even a whole pantomime
script (again I was 8, it wasn't very good), through me even planning out the
fictional schedule of my own TV channel (a mix of bought in programming and
original shows) I still didn't realise until I came across the Media Production
degree.
It happened quite by chance. Flicking through prospectus for
universities, the only firm idea I had about a career was that I quite liked the
sound of being a teacher. Maybe because
that had seemed like the most fun “safe” idea, something there was a clear
route into. The exciting creative worlds of writing, TV and radio work were
something so out of reach in my head I hadn't considered them until I saw
courses in them in these prospectus.
My first instinct was actually Journalism, and when I went to
Uni open days that was the course I was looking at. What put me off this course, however, was sitting in a talk at the University of Lincoln open day to hear
the Journalism lecturer say, “Don’t do Journalism here, it’s shit”, which....
well... kinda put me off the course. I
did, while I was there, however, happen to wander into the on-campus TV studio.
The array of buttons in the Gallery astounded me and my only question was “which
course do I have to do to play with this cool stuff” and that’s how I ended up
on the Media Production course at Lincoln University.
For the first time I had access to the equipment to make the
radio and TV shows I had played at as a kid sound good. Gone were the clunky cassette
recorder with the bad quality in-built mic and in was the professionally equipped
studio. Gone was my parents' Sony camcorder with which I used to make “tour videos” of our house and in were big professional
cameras and editing software! It may sound sad but, oh how I loved the editing software. I’d never encountered it before uni.
Those three years were definitely the best three years of my
life, (It helps that I also met my now wife in that time).
However, the excitement of uni quickly slipped away after graduating and reality kicked in. I worked in a low paid job promoting a radio
station at events while trying to do as much work experience as I could, but
after six months I was heavily in debt, my girlfriend had moved to the other side of
the country for work and all the news was about the freshly hit Credit Crunch.
I decided I had to get an ok paid job to pay off my debts. Alas this was not a
creative one.
Four years later, after two non-media jobs (one lasting three years),
after paying off debts and paying for my wedding, I decided it was now or never.
Time to take the plunge back into the media world.
.....Which is where this blog comes in (well technically I've stopped this story at a point a few months ago, I’ll catch you up on the rest
soon). I’ll chart my experience and
musings in everything I do creatively. From TV and Radio work, amateur dramatics,
creative writing, photography or anything else I get an interest in.
Might throw in some theatre and film reviews from time to
time as well.
It’s hopefully going to be an exciting journey. I'm sure 8 year old me, playing at his TV
show world, would think so.
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