So i got an email today from media-match, not the site that attempts to establish tedious dating relationships between meejya types (darling!), but the one that attempts to establish crucial (read tedious) relationships (read sparse connections) between those looking to work in production and those looking to hire. Todays email was a casual update of my (media specific) joblessness, along with an exciting few suggestions of new positions i could apply for. Great, thats both peppy and useful, thankyou the internet. One ever so slight drawback though guys... Teeny really, if anything im embarrassed to mention it... However:

IM NOT IN A POSITION TO APPLY FOR WORK AS

A) A SITCOM WRITER
B) HEAD OF PRODUCTION
C) ACCOUNTS MANAGER

Therefore keeping these things in mind, as well as the fact that as part of the registration for said site one has to outline their 'field experience' and indicate the level at which they're operating and expecting to be able to work, i can't help but feel that this and the other just as useless suggestions from media-match are deliberate in their ignorance of my inability to obtain any of the jobs they think i should apply for. Its like having a really annoying parent that even when you're failing miserably at life, takes your face in their loving hands and says, 'but you're so clever, i don't see why you can't just....' and you end up going bright red and shouting at them in a hideously bratty way that they're stupid and 'GOD YOU JUST DON'T GET IT DO YOU!'

I'd love to walk into any of the above jobs, christ give me accounts manager over shitty retail assistant any day. But we're in a recession.. i can't even get a shitty office job filing crap for a bloody rental company because i don't have the 'appropriate experience'. I must apply to honestly about 30 jobs a week, both media and real life related, iv been doing that for about the last 6 months and iv had 1 interview for a filming job (and i think we all know how that went) and thats quite literally it. I haven't heard anything, from anyone... Ever.

And look, i don't want to be a moany bastard all the time, thats no fun. Its not like i don't know how to be creative and channel that into positive projects. I write all the time, i set up small projects for myself, i try to reach out to work with other people to build my profile.. All of the things i think i should and can be doing, i do. And thats great, its really fun, but it would be nice, to just for a small while, not feel like im climbing mountains in inappropriate footwear. To just once have something come easy, i feel like im always fighting for the things i want to be and to do and i hate it, im fucking tired. To grimly keep on going despite a mounting pile of evidence that suggests you're never going to get anywhere is either admirable or ridiculous depending on how you want to think of yourself when you get up in the morning, and im not saying that i have a shit life or anything because obviously my life is much bigger than what i do and want to be, and im generally pretty positive about things, or i don't know.. i try to be. But i can see how people go insane, i can see why people feel inept and depressed and horrified generally by life, we're part of a system that only ever jokes about our limitless abilities and state of mind. I feel like iv just come to the punch line, turned around to the comedian and his face is sober, a quizzical smirk in his eyes thats asking me, 'wait you didn't think i was serious did you?' And that feels pretty rubbish.

But fuck it, don't cry for me Argentina, i got Bridesmaids on DVD today so im gonna be chuckling with Wiig and her gang soon enough, angst forgotten, heart comforted. Iv got amazing friends and an enviable film collection, who needs ambition?

Amen.

Reject Bom Beject

Interviews, internships, the irony of using plurals 'cos you're lucky if you get even 1 of these things... I finally got an interview for a job. It was to work as a boom holder on a shoot for a documentary potentially to be aired on MORE4. I was so psyched on receiving the email i ran downstairs gushed the news out to my parents who skipped around and clapped my success, finally, an interview.

Needless to say that after spending nearly £30 on a nice shirt, £20 on train journeys and a few quid on cups of tea, i found myself at what looked to me like an apartment block. Being the sensible world weary girl i am, i phoned my sister before entering the building and gave her the guys name and address, there was a hotel directly opposite, why was i not being interviewed there rather than a strangers flat. Was i being mental, my rationale told me if i were going to be raped, it could just as easily happen in an office, good one me. Anyhow, in i went. 

I didn't get the job.

I met the guy, who wasn't wearing any shoes, for about 2 minutes. He was weird and i laughed too much and too loud as we all do when nervous. I asked the wrong questions and he gave me uncomfortable looks. I left in a haze feeling like i'd been on perhaps the shittest fairground ride ever invented. The Whizzing Circle of Career Instability - You'll never be the same again.

Indeed. 

Anyway, feeling rejected from your career choice is one thing, but iv also been feeling rejected from a few other lets say 'life' things (people) aswell, which has made a bad situation... dah dah, worse. 

And what do we do when we're feeling like this? Whatever comes natural, of course. We sing loudly to crappy songs that emote how we're feeling, stamp our feet, play along aggressively to songs we've been wanting to learn, go wild at a gig or on a night out, generally just act a little tougher than we usually would, our vulnerabilities have betrayed us and rebuilding that outer shell of self preservation means doing everything a bit harder, a bit more forceful than we originally would have. And obviously thats kinda fucked up in a lot of ways, but i can appreciate that its these moments that most often lead to some form of progression within myself aswell. And thats cool. Let me be clear, growing in the face of a put down is great, the put down itself sucks, obviously. 

Either way, here we are. 

Arriving at our destination after all of this meandering is a relief right. So for a while now i have been preparing and talking about a project i have been wanting to do. Preparation has stopped and started and now, thanks to my dear friend Bryony Beynon, i have all of the equipment i need and thanks to a run of bad luck, i have all of the drive i need to begin. 

The project is about women, how we feel about ourselves, the world around us, how we engage or disengage with Feminism. Its all based around interviews, with women and girls of all ages, all backgrounds, all personalities and beliefs. I think its a really important project, i never see anything that asks women how they feel about feminism, asks women why they don't want to call themselves feminists, asks women to explain what they think feminism even means. We don't seem to have any consensus about our own definitions anymore and if we're not ALL talking about it then how can we. Anywho...

As i say, i am now fully prep'd and ready to roll (that was a purposeful pun, get it cos im filming, like a roll of film? though actually my cams digital, but still i feel it counts)  so if you are a woman, or consider yourself to be female at all, and would like to share your experience of this and your opinions on where we as a gender stand now, then please contact me on ash800leigh@hotmail.com, im good to travel and i want as many interviews as possible. If you're abroad i could always film you on skype, or you could write me a letter and i'll read it aloud to pictures (that'll look better than it sounds i swear). Lets do thiz. 

Ciao.

Meltdown

On viewing the 2010 Academy Award winning Documentary 'Inside Job' a few weeks ago i thought it was brilliant. Interesting and combative against the absolute fuck up of a system that risks millions in stake of overwhelmingly large financial gains for businesses and those who run them. Those millions being risked are from other people's money of course, the pensions of the everyday worker, the savings of the everyday worker, the livelihoods of the every day worker.  Yada, yada, yada, financial crisis, who's accountable, the political aspect of it all, not to ruin the ending or anything, but basically we can safely assume that due to networks of power and the old moneys trillionaire club, no one's being held accountable for the economic crisis thats now cutting and slicing the world over.

Watch it, it really is brilliant.

Now here's how i feel about it today, this morning. The tag lines on the dvd case read 'The global economic crisis of 2008 cost tens of millions of people their savings, their jobs, and their homes. This is how it happened.' Well it just cost another.

After i was born, my mother who's work ethic honestly exhausts me just thinking about it, went straight back to work at the Early Learning Centre, ELC. She started there the year i was born, and so has now been there for 23 years. Hard work, etc, paid off and she became the store manager. Well done mum! She complains every christmas that the holidays are going to kill her, frenzied parents shopping for countless toys, i can see her point. She works hard still, no sick days, she doesn't get sick. Can't afford to be sick. She's gone through several interesting blends of polyester uniform shirts, hundreds of simple black work pumps. Thousands of bruises from lugging boxes up and down what can only be described as an 'intimidating' load of stairs to her stockroom. And today at quarter to nine this morning, she was told that her store is being shut down. The rents along the town centre high street have been going up, hers is coming under review, Mothercare - who recently took over ELC and have since done a fantastic job of running the company into the ground, kudo's on that guys - superb job, have a store across the road they can just incorporate the ELC products into. How cost effective.

In the meantime, my mother, an extremely proud woman, is left to open her shop, serve her customers and inside her head i know she's screaming, reeling, devastated. So today, im thinking about that documentary and how few people i know who have seen it, or even heard of it. In the face of a very real consequence of the greed and absolute disregard shown by those who created and caused the economic crisis i feel the need to rush up to everyone i see and scream at them to watch it, to rage through the streets shouting about how unfair it is. That these wallstreet ASSHOLES are sitting comfortably on their plush antique fucking chairs whilst we're looking at perhaps having to sell our goddam house.

So in some sense of solidarity or whatever, please, watch the film, feel angry about it, because it sucked then, it sucks now and with no end in sight, it's gonna suck for years to come.
Its on youtube in parts so you can watch it for free - for those who're already feeling the pinch.

Amen.

Brideshmaids

So tonight avid readers (ahahahhh) i went to see the film everyone with a vagina has been raving about, 'Bridesmaids'. And let me tell you something... it was freaking awesome. Not in a wanky, oh isn't it amazing that women have been given the space to be as crude and funny as men within hollywood way, because i personally don't need a film to inform me of the comedic potential of females, im surrounded by genuinely hilarious women pretty much all day every day. But in the somewhat so far ignored undertone of  the ups and downs of female friendships. I was sat next to an immensely close friend of mine, who i hadn't seen in months due to different locations of study and living yada yada yada... this isn't even someone i speak to regularly on the phone. We might occasionally facebook. On paper, our friendship might seem casual, distant even, but in reality this is a girl i trust beyond belief, know inside and out, and love deeply. I know without a single doubt that i can see her after months of separation and slip right into a shared world of in-jokes and involved topical discussions.

As my friends and I venture into a scarier and more mature world, filled with added responsibilities, deadlines, crazy schedules, office wear and networking, will we change that much? Will we still go dancing on fridays, Sarah doing the dirty wind (a skilled technical move, not to be attempted lightly) and Lora pulling MJ wannabe's around the dance floor like they haven't met 'bad' till they've met her? Will we still yack on the phone about how crap our jobs are, how much we hate the general public in our business dealings with them? Im beyond excited about getting my foot in the door of the media industry, meeting creative people with shared passions, ideas and projects, i truly can't wait. But in reality, at some point i will probably have to move to London. My best friend doesn't live there. I don't want to make a new best friend, iv had the same one since i was 14 and we work extremely well together. Its easy to comment that friendships survive if you work at them and if not then you know its for the best, people change... But here's the deal, with female friendships, and you know the kind i mean... the past boyfriend/girlfriend love, the hammering down your fist on the table when you're blind drunk declaring your love to your pal in the oh so eloquent statement of, 'I WOULD FUCKING KILL FOR YOU!' before taking their hand and dancing on the table to Bonnie Tyler's 'Bright Eyes' kind of love... For me to enjoy any kind of success, i'd need to be able to call my friends up and squeal down the phone 'oh my god, guess what i pitched this idea to this production company and they loved it and its gonna get made and im gonna direct it and its gonna be this and that...' and so on. Because as hardass as i can be and as determined as i am, deep down i know im nothing without those girls. The ones that inspire me to be stronger, savvier, smarter... These are not girls who sit around dreaming of marital bliss, they play guitars, study politics, speak russian, give speeches about feminism, scream into microphones, work 60/70 hour weeks, volunteer their time, and set up their own goddam initiatives to succeed with. I could win Best Documentary at every film festival in the world and im not saying i wouldn't be psyched about it, obviously i would... obviously. But with no one to go dancing with to celebrate, i'd be pretty bummed out. 

Not that i couldn't go dancing on my own, i probably could im a pretty good dancer. But you get my point. 

And thats what the film made me feel, appreciative of my friend sat next to me. And anxious about who would be sat there in the future.

Mere Days Away

I had better write fast because i really only get one good burst of writing energy a day and its usually first thing in the morning, if i don't act on it then by lunch time like a goddam sieve all of those bird tweeting thoughts i had circling my head have sprinkled out and I'm left with an empty chasm. Not to put unnecessary pressure on this whole blogging situation, but there it is.

In a few days i am going to find out the grade awarded to me for the last 3 years i have spent studying for my degree. I forget generally, never having turned up to feedback and grade giving sessions for the past 2 years, that I'm even being officially graded on everything I'm doing. Or should i say, have done. Not because i don't care about the mark i get, just because it costs me £40 to travel to my uni and then when i am there I'm busy and forget to ask. Being in this 'my degree has JUST finished, what the hell did i study that for' state, where the idea of entering the seemingly impenetrable media pit feels almost impossible i have decided, and am now officially recording, to take a stand. Sadly not against moguls or inflation or for human rights, though thats not to imply that I'm against human rights... obviously I'm for them. No this stand, is against the cultural perception that has always like some sort of cruel chinese water abuse (is that correct? heaven forbid i muck up my torture references on the first go) splattered steadily against my head, corroding my sight and told me time and time  again, you will never achieve greatness. Now this isn't a self pitying poor me thing. Pssh, thats right, pssssh. Not at all. Its merely what i know, near enough my entire family works in retail, my dad works 2 jobs, both fairly unglamorous, and thats fine. For them, for him. Now i am the first in my family to go to university, and my chosen subject 'Documentary Film & Television' sounded very impressive around the kitchen table, my ma boasting of 'quirky choices'.  But actually, though i would say I'm almost impressive in my abilities to write screenplays, direct documentaries, film people in their environments and fuck am i great in an edit, but enough, thats not what this is about, because actually it kind of feels like none of that matters, i can't get a job.

The way of the industry is very much so 'who you know' and that sucks. But really think about it, they can't all come from one long line of inbred media fanatics now can they? Someone, at some point was the first in their network to land that job, to impress that guy, to make their own, not to be too corny about it all, but 'dreams' come true. So why the hell shouldn't that be me. All i have to do is work my ass off trying to find an internship, a weeks experience, an unpaid post. Which is fine, i just first have to work my ass off to save up the money that allows me to work for free. because i want to do it, i want to be the novice intern that aces the coffee run and brings everyone extra biscuits i want to work 15 hour days and nights, making sure everyone is fed and watered and holding umbrellas over camera equipment, carrying sound gear to and from vans and studios, peeking in and making friends with the editor in the hopes s/he'll show me a thing or two. I want to do all of those things and work and claw my way into a creative position. I know that i have to work twice as hard as someone who could afford to work for free in the first place, and that that is something that will probably consistently leave me a year or two behind someone with better fortune than me, but i also know that money doesn't guarantee creativity and it doesn't ensure people skills or confidence in one's ideas.

So i guess in essence, the stand i am taking and the journey i will be recording via this blog, is to not stop until i am making the films, shows, programmes that i know are in me to make. No matter how hard or unrealistic this may seem, i will strive forth and conquer the fuck out of british film and televison.
Amen.