Millennialise The Way We Televise!

There's one great thing about all of this talk about the much-desired Millennial workforce and that is, that I am one!

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Born in 1992, I am supposedly among the 30% of millennials who declare themselves to have no religion. We have on average, the highest number of Facebook friends and send a median of 50 texts a day. We are selfie-taking, sexting, self-promoting and self-sufficient bright young things - we are human version 2.0... and everybody wants us - or so they say.

I LOVE working in Television, as it means that all of my Millennialist skills are called upon every day in a fast-moving and content-hungry industry that stimulates and satisfies me.

The bad thing, is that TV can't help but wrap itself into a hedgehog shaped ball when someone mentions Netflix or the word 'multi-platform'. For most production companies, that just means 'Dorothy throw in a twitter hashtag and be done with it', but it's wayyyy more than that! We Millennials are not only hungry to absorb information, we're hungry to create it. And we do both of those things, tens, sometimes hundreds of times a day. We text, we snapchat, we blog, we vlog, we gram and regram, we Facebook, we tweet and we retweet. Youtube, news updates, TV in the form of video, image, text and live events...the list goes on! I thrive on being thrown into a new job every few months, exploring new places and busying my evenings with a variety of activities to stimulate my body and mind. To some it sounds exhausting, but to me - I live for it. And this seemingly chaotic and exhausting under-web lifestyle informs every aspect of a Millennial's daily existence!

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We are home-grown content-creators and although this might scare longer-serving TV professionals, who schedule boardroom meetings to brainstorm Bake-Off, the synapses of ultra-social Millennials are firing on all cannons as they build their brand and their content, wherever, whenever, and 10 times at once. Millennials and their closest genetic descendants Centennials, no longer enjoy television in the traditional way. TV to us is a World Wide Web of giving and receiving, of content-absorbing and content-creating. It exists in the moments between our chaotic social engagements, during the glimpses at the Metro news in between our tube stops, and the breaths in between the sips of my caramel frapp.

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We're heading in the right direction, but is it fast enough? On Demand services should now be the norm. We want everything we've ever seen before, and every bit of new content available in a central location - and we want it at a time that suits us, not the schedulers. So digitising archives needs to happen NOW, the development of storage solutions for HUGE amounts of content needs to happen NOW. The hiring of Millennials - needs to happen NOW.

We ourselves are a diverse brand, and we push that brand every single day on social media. We champion individuality, don't like to be defined by traditional terms or binary social systems and naturally immerse ourselves in the world around us both physically and mentally. We absorb, we ideate, we create. It's in our nature. We're adaptable, tolerant of change and welcoming of difference, and we want TV to be too. We're ready and waiting to be asked!

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Netflix has proven that new and exciting platforms CAN still be 'thunk-up' and we don't need the confidence of a grammatically correct blurb to make it successful (no seriously, Netflix blurbs are awful) - but it's about originality and adaptability - it's about Millennialism. Netflix might be ahead of the game, but there's plenty more to come. We need platforms, we need infrastructure, we need ideas. We need a new auto-updating World Wide Web of Television, with machine learning capabilities and an inter-disciplinary collaborative remit. The multi-talented and multi-tasking Millennials are waiting to immerse themselves in rich cultural experiences and the time has come to work WITH them and deliver the best they've ever had.

So whether you are media professionals, mathematicians, retail reps or stay-at-home parents - the time has come to Millennialise the way we televise!


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Website: www.katmace.co.uk

Why Working for Free is Never ok...

Like many others in my industry, I have travelled a remarkable amount of milage through the back-alleys of free work - all in the name of progress. But as far as my experience bubble on LinkedIn could tell me I'm an 'All-Star', it quite frankly meant nothing for my bank balance and I even had to resort to the thing that I'd wanted to avoid at all costs, 'state benefits'.

I was upholding a zero-hour contract at a bar to pay my rent, alongside gaining relevant experience within the industry when there were no shifts left to take. I was working all hours of the day to make my mark on the industry and working all hours of the night to make up the money to live in London - and I'd often fall a little short, resorting to housing benefit to make up the difference.

It makes me feel almost ashamed to say that I was on benefits, but I realise now that this isn't my fault. If I was being paid my way, instead of agreeing to free work for companies that have a single production budget larger than my entire life's earnings - I wouldn't have touched them.

I think it is absolutely unacceptable for companies to palm work off on newly trained graduates or entry level professionals and freelancer, and NOT pay them. Does being young and enthusiastic somehow grant professional immunity to rent and bill payments?

At this point I want to encourage a round of applause for 'The Freelancer Club' who have stepped up to tackle the problem head on - despite the shit that comes with it from those grey-haired OxBridge graduates that once ran the business. This time we're stepping up the fight as freelancers are joining forces with grey-haired industry leaders that DO want change and young professionals to pave the way for this NEW, DIVERSE industry that everyone keeps talking about. With the BBC today announcing 5,000 9-week digital traineeships - surely NOW is the time to encourage change in the industry and train up a youth of professionals that will be valued for their talent, irrespective of their background and taught that 'The Only Way Is Pay'.

It comes at a price for the club, 'During the research period alone we've lost business as a direct result of our questioning' but I for one, am backing them all the way and I hope you will too. For all too long have we been silenced by the admins of various Facebook groups who say, 'it's how it was for all of us, so deal with it' or 'how do expect to get anywhere with that attitude?' when we're really not asking much - all we want is TO BE PAID. If this is the attitude we face at the top then it tells you everything you need to know about where the industry we all cherish - is doing things all wrong and is freezing out promising emerging talent with its inability to admit that change is necessary.

So join the movement, join the Freelancer Club and say #NoFreeWork - say that paying expenses only for Producer roles is WRONG and pledge to say that together we really can stop exploiting the talent that could transform the industry we know and love.

https://thefreelancerclub.co.uk/blog/post/no-free-work

https://www.change.org/p/freelancers-employers-stop-posting-and-applying-for-unpaid-freelance-work

MAKE SURE TO TWEET ME YOUR OWN STORIES OF FREE WORK & LET ME KNOW IF YOU PLEDGE!


And here's an interesting article about the argument surrounding internships too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-29996607 I'd love to see your tweets about how you feel about this!

Nowhere to Call Home

The lovely team at The Frontline Club hosted a screening and Q&A for Jocelyn Ford's 'Nowhere to Call Home' on Monday this week. Jocelyn was told to expect some challenging questions, but she wasn't the only one who wasn't always sure about what to say.

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'Nowhere to Call Home' was a moving testament to the power of mass media and to the way that Tibetan villages seem to have managed to shield themselves from it. Zanta is a Tibetan widow, who migrated to Beijing to sell her jewellery and create a better life for her son, away from her possessive in-laws. With her husband gone, Zanta is not only troubled by racism from the Han Chinese in Beijing, but also has to deal with the added pressure of her father-in-law, who wants her son, Yang Qing to return to him.

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One day, Zanta was selling her jewellery on the streets of Beijing and radio reporter, Jocelyn Ford came along and talked with her. Two years later, Zanta contacted Jocelyn and asked her to take her son, she could not afford to feed him. Jocelyn, perhaps against her will at first, became more and more involved with helping Zanta and getting Yang Qing into a school and forced by the pleas of her producer and colleagues, she began filming. Jocelyn helped Zanta out of trouble with the police, she helped her argue with racist landlords about the right to rent a room and she even travelled back to Zanta's village with her, to meet her family - and Uncle Aba, the grandfather who resists sending Zanta the ID for her and her son. And all the while, Jocelyn was unsure, all the while she maintained the view that she didn't want to get involved. Too late for that Jocelyn!

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The film threw up many questions for me. As a journalist, it is perhaps the first rule in the book, not to get yourself involved with personal affairs and promise to help people where you are unsure of the outcome - in essence, not to meddle - but then I've never been one for rules. Jocelyn went ahead. With the support of her producer she captured the times she spent with Zanta on camera and even the voiceover allows us to see how unsure she was that she was doing the right thing at first. It seemed that her heart wasn't in it. I was conflicted as an audience member in trying to see whether what Jocelyn was doing was to help, or to make a film. I'm still not quite sure that even Jocelyn knew the answer to that along the way. The ethics of the film really stirred up uncertainty in me and I found it hard to appreciate some moments in the film because of that. even when young Yang Qing began calling her mama Joce, I was unsure if that was as heart-warming as perhaps it should have been. I was conflicted - which I suppose took me somewhere towards understanding Jocelyn's own conflict.

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Of course, I am not saying that Jocelyn doesn't care. She did for Zanta and Yang Qing what most Tibetan women would give anything for. She helped. And the power of having a foreign journalist by your side in a dispute is far greater than Zanta was, at first, aware of. It is clear by the end that Jocelyn is more invested than she was at the beginning and not just in monetary terms. She has indeed become, mama Joce to Yang Qing and a dear friend to Zanta.

Zanta is incredibly frank and Jocelyn, incredibly candid. The two hold nothing back from the audience in sharing their anger uncertainty or sadness. Yang Qing is charming to watch on screen, as although he is surrounded by controversy, his aim is still to do the things any child would do. He does share an emotional awareness for his mother's well-being, beyond that which I have seen before, comforting her and telling her not to cry. He is still however, just a child and that shines through impeccably within the film as he rides his bike around Beijing, and plays with his cousins in the village.

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There are some nice undercover shots of Chinese employers bullying Zanta as she is Tibetan and is often wearing Tibetan clothes. I think that to me was worse than the police officers and landlords targeting her - no wonder she ends up in tears. It really is heart-breaking to watch ad know you cannot do anything to stop them. I can understand why Jocelyn felt compelled to help.

Similarly there are some nice moments where Zanta bears all to the camera, she does not hold back. Truth be told, the camera work was a little shaky in places, but as editor Gigi says in the Q&A, 'the essence was there'.

Although she may not have wanted to take on the filming in the first place, Jocelyn's nature was of course, not to decline. It was to help and then report back. The film was an achievement on her part and a great testament to the skill of her editor Gigi. She may have, at times, added jeopardy to the events that were unfolding, particularly with Uncle Aba, but ultimately she did what any of us would try to do. She helped and the film that comes out of it, is not only heart-warming because of that, but also deeply affecting when we spend so much time with our widowed mother and witness her sheer sense of will to protect and provide for her son, Yang Qing. 

Click here to see the Q&A session with director Jocelyn Ford at The Frontline Club: http://watchinabitotheatrenstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/nowhere-to-call-home-q.html

And here's the trailer:

Nowhere To Call Home: A Tibetan in Beijing (trailer) from TripodMedia on Vimeo.