Employability: Thinking Beyond Your Degree – Alysia Wildman Talk – 5/2/16 

Background

During her second year, Alysia applied for an internship with LoveLove Films, where she originally signed up a month’s work. But after her internship was up, the company offered her a part-time job.

Love Love films did offer full time work. Alysia negotiated with Sally about whether or not she should complete her degree or take the full time work, and eventually she decided to work one day a week at Love Love films whilst carrying on with her degree.

By the end of her degree – she was predominately in Bournemouth working with Love Love Films

Her pros of having a job during your degree:

• Time was no longer a luxury – shorter period of time and availability meant she had to plan her time and focus – improved her time at University

Her cons of having a job during your degree:

• She had to let go of some of the social sides of her degree to make her job and degree work.

The Love Love Films Story

Love Love films, where Alysia was a production co-ordinator, is a small production company with around 8 employees, with an output in multiple branches of advertising (Credit Plus advert, TV adverts, Starbucks, Barclays, EDF energy… are a typical example of Love Love films output). Interns are hugely popular there (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4knXyVcxZU).

Alysia applied 5 times until someone invited her to an interview. The lesson is: never give up!

Here are some of her advices:

If it is for an internship, companies will interview you to check how you are. You shouldn’t be stressed, they are looking at you in a positive light already from your CV and cover letter.

Alysia made a showreel but nobody looked at it – she went in there to be an editor but she needed to adapt and become what they need. Companies are less likely to let you go if you are adaptable. Being narrow-minded in a production company – i.e. saying you want to be a director – this will hinder your progression in a company.

What the manager saw in Alysia was her maths A-level – she was tasked with accounts and budgeting. She saw that she did English Lit at A-level – she was set script editing. She brought a different skill set to other people. Alysia strongly advises to embrace what makes you different to other people.

The LoveLove Films job was not a listed job. You must email companies about work experience opportunities, even if they don’t have an advert currently up. This will allow you to stand out amongst the crowd.

Love Love film worked on various things of different budgets – 75% animation, 25% actual filming – 2D animation – motion graphic type videos.

Here are some of the projects on which Alysia worked:

• Multi-York advert: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPnGs_Pdh1I) For this video, Alysia was the production co-ordinator which involved crew management, budgeting, logistics of getting the TV advert to the channels. Alysia delivered the advert 66 times – new offers, new edits – became a big earner for the company – every time Multi-York wanted to change the offer, Love Love films would have to re-edit it. Alysia had to manage a team of around 30 people, she relished to do and which gave her a taste of what she could be doing in the long run.
• TV advertising – look into Clear Cast (http://www.clearcast.co.uk)- governing agency that analyses any claims that are advertised on the advert. Alysia’s job was to send all these documents off to make sure they were legitimate – also needed to send it off to the TV advert equivalence to BBFC – Alysia was sent to a Clear Cast course – becoming Love Love films clear cast consultant.
• Ad Stream – once it is cleared by clear cast (to which you submit a script), and has been approved, you can shoot it, you then have to go to Ad Stream and fill out various applications to specify which TV channels the advert is going to – budgets involved here as well as you will need to find out how much each TV channel charges.
• A Music Video for Joss Stone (multiplatinum artist) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YZZS4L-U-Y&index=7&list=PLVB7_HyzHonkBlJ-o-TWKAArsDqX367Zq). Love Love Films did everything from production to post production. It gave Alysia her first taste of visual effects : skin corrections, practical effects, rain rig that was plugged into a hose, wine bottle breaking. When creating a music video for an artist, the views can be used to bolster an application for another job.

Alysia worked for LoveLove films for 2 years including the final year of her degree, before leaving. Her reason was that there was not a lot of progression, as the only person above her was the producer/owner of the company.

When you do apply for roles in the audiovisual industry, people will want you immediately: she had enough freelance work (she does web design work as well),  but got itchy feet and sent off applications. She wanted to take a step sideways from TV adverts to feature films – she applied to DNEG, MPC and Framestore (http://www.framestore.com). She got invited for an interview at MPC which was very relaxed and found out she had the job within an hour of leaving the building.

MPC

When Alysia was on her first day at MPC, she got asked for an interview at Framestore but turned it down. She only did three applications and she got a job from it. The success of her applications is due to her experiences at Love Love Films and how she presented herself.

At MPC, she became a department co-ordinator (her first job): she was leading a team of 40 artists (quite a difference, from the number of people at LoveLove Films !). Those 40 artists were working on movies such as The Martian, Spectre, or again The Jungle Book. Parts of her job, alongside managing this big creative team, were to supervise the daily sessions: go to a small cinema where you watch all the dailies, which are the shots that the artists created the previous day; she then takes notes and gives them back to the artists, who would then go on improving the shots, before these could all finally be approved. She would also attend various other meetings, as her department affects other departments of the filmmaking process. For Alysia, it was a very enjoyable and rewarding experience and she felt very privileged to be working on projects of this scale.

MPC was awarded 425 shots from the Martian (Framestore also got some). These shots were spread across London and Canada: MPC has global sites from London to Mexico City and LA. This opened the possibility to travel across the world, and to work with artists from all other the world as well.

VFX break down of The Martian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CPbISkPqKk

She stayed 6 months working in a department role. When she wrapped her work on Spectre and within her department in Jungle Book, the company gave her more Jungle Book footage. Alysia was then made her Show Production Co-ordinator: the person she used to report to. A Show Production Co-ordinator oversees a film once it’s done, from start to finish – every department reports to her. Alysia attends different department daily sessions – (she can go to any session), running her own meetings, and having to look at how one shot looks throughout the process up to the end, all the way through the pipeline (the  VFX workflow, from pre-production research and development to the finished product. One thing to have in mind with these workflow plans, is that you are always working for a client (e.g. Jungle Book is Disney); you have to be available to work long hours in this industry. Alysia worked between 40 to 60 hours in her new job: you have to be prepared to do that or someone else will.

If you’re looking to be in the film/TV industry, you have to expect long hours, no matter what you do. It’s not a 9-5 job, it’s not that type of industry, it takes from you quite a lot but it’s up to you how much you want to put in and how dedicated you are.

Jungle Book trailer (Alysia has been working on this for 9 months)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcgJRQWxKnw

Alysia’s take on post-production and visual Effects, is that you don’t necessarily need to have had a lot of experience beforehand( but it does help). If needed, you should try to learn on the job – Google is a great tool to help teach you about the software used by companies !

Enhancing your employability:

There are many great societies at Southampton that offer the opportunity to express yourself through the filmic (audiovisual) medium, and give you some great experience to integrate into you CV !

University led involvement:

• Wessex Films
• SUSUtv
• FilmSoc
• Union Cinema/Harbour Lights

Alysia’s advice is to get involved with the university led societies. She was president of FilmSoc and was heavily involved with Wessex Films, and got involved with editing, taking her experience in her professional life.

Always keep the contacts around you as they can be useful for you after you graduate, but also don’t reach out and message someone that you’ve never really spoken to. You need to find a balance.

Watch as much new films as possible !

Outside University

• Work Experience/Internships: A lot of them are unpaid or expenses only – it’s very rare to find something that is paid – it is there, but it’s very competitive, and you have to apply multiple times.
• Apply for things that are not advertised:  they receive so many applications – why hire someone who has applied from an advert when you have someone who has contacted you directly? Alysia has been hired only from those that she sent out a CV to without an advert.
• Interviews – It’s not as stressful as you think!
• If you are not willing to do unpaid work experience, you won’t get far. It’s unfair but it’s the only way to get into the industry.f you have 4 weeks of not doing anything, Easter holidays, take that time to do some unpaid work. Transfer your unpaid time and try to convince your employer to employ you part-time/paid work. Set parameters for yourself – don’t work more than 6 weeks unpaid – companies are taking you for a mug – runner role – how long are you willing to be in that role? If you’ve been working as a runner for 6 months and they haven’t promoted you to a PA, go elsewhere. Alysia had 6 unpaid weeks at Industrial Scripts during a gap year before university, has been a PA (production assistant) for a year, and a runner for 6 months. These work experience opportunities weren’t necessarily what Alysia wanted to do but it taught her something useful.
• Go where your strengths are, not what you really want to do.
• Don’t go out of university with the mindset that you want to set up your production company. There’s no credits to support this – many places shut down after a year. You need to work in different industries, work under different people – you need to learn from other people.
• Do not pigeon hole yourself – apply multiple times, approach companies, not just advertised work experience/internship schemes.
• It shouldn’t cost you money to apply – it’s a scam if they ask you to do so.
• MY FIRST JOB IN FILM – don’t pay for their subscription – go rogue and apply directly to companies.
• Recite people’s websites back to them – write about yourself in your CV in a similar way to the company’s website – take their buzzwords – innovative – people like hearing and seeing themselves.
• Try and build your reputation within one company – don’t move between companies at a low level because you won’t build yourself up. Build up credits in one area of the industry – skill sets are transferable.There are opportunities everywhere but you need to create them. So go out there and network!

In conclusion, if you just have a degree, it will be difficult. You need to showcase the other possibilities that have been available to you. Contacts or work experience? What is more important? Alysia has never got work experience/internship through someone she knows, only through her work experience, but never omit networking: some people do get job roles because of contacts.

People who she works with are there because they are passionate about what they do. How do you showcase this passion in the best way possible ?