This is, once again, not the blog post I'd intended to write for this month - the reason for that being that this is the first week since July where I've actually had more than two days at home! So instead, I thought I'd drop in to do a quick update (and keep my SEO happy in the process).
Being self-employed sure is a rollercoaster. Things were worryingly quiet in July. Whenever my calendar clears, I always tell myself that I should use the time to recharge and take a holiday. I never take that advice, though - and last month I spent all my free time worrying about the lack of work, trying to bring in new work, doing my accounts, and finishing my script for NFTS. I think I took one day off, which I used to practice overhead portrait photography, so it was still kind of work-related! I did take some extended morning walks, but that's about it.
Well, I definitely wish I'd listened to my inner voice now, because August has been completely stacked with work and other bits! Being busy feels like a relief, and my clients are always a joy to collaborate with, but I'm exhausted too. I'm covered in bruises and I wake up feeling very achey every morning, purely from how much I've been lugging suitcases and tripods around over the past four weeks.
So, what have I been up to? Well, I'll start by saying that there was a little bit of social activity this month. I had a 'one day micro holiday' in Scarborough with my parents, walking in the misty coastal rain, vising the grave of a Brontë sister, and spending too much time and money in a brilliantly geeky shop I've loved since my teens (Ancient Warrior), where I got a couple more Lord of the Rings items to add to my ever-growing collection.
I also attended Cromford Comic Con, which is perhaps my most local comic con, set within the charming setting of Cromford Mills. As well as seeing lots of fantastic costumes and browsing the action figure stalls, I did have a couple of film-related encounters. I had a lovely chat with Colin Baker, who I had been attached to direct on a short film in 2016 (I sadly had to turn it down due to scheduling conflicts), and I got to shake his hand and say how nice it would've been to have worked with him. And then I met Hugh Spight, whose incredible career includes roles in projects such as Star Wars and, more importantly to me, The Dark Crystal. He told me stories about his time playing one of the landstriders, and how Jim Henson never lost his cool on set. At the end of our conversation, he encouraged me to 'keep at it' with the filmmaking. I really needed that. The people who worked on all the 80s fantasy epics are the ones who first inspired my love of films, so it was an emotional encounter for me.
After that, my month was dominated by work, from back-to-back meetings to working on the road and living out of suitcases (I still haven't unpacked them all, actually!). I had a fun location recce to a magical site on the edge of Derbyshire in preparation to shoot the next Apothecary Mead commercial, which I'm really looking forward to. And then it was off to Bristol for my next shadowing experience, working with director Sam Masud on series 2 of Boarders. I can't say much about my time on set, and I didn't take any photos, because I signed an NDA. But I'm very grateful to Sam; he's such a legend and a pro to watch, as well as having the steady patience that all truly great TV directors need when working across multi-week shooting schedules. If there were any gaps at all in my knowledge of the process of running a set, there certainly aren't now!
I had only been back from Bristol one day before it was time to pack my bags and set off for Oxford, to film on-site for the last ever Towersey Festival. We had a reduced crew and shoot length this year, but we were so grateful to the client for booking us at all during this challenging time, and we soaked up as much as we could during those two days. Capturing Towersey has always been one of my favourite jobs, and they were my first recurring client so they mean a lot to me; this year the shoot was still brilliant, but tinged with a bitter-sweetness as many regular festival-goers said goodbye to something which had been a special part of their lives for so long. (I did another shoot with Towersey earlier this month, too, but I'll say more about that once the video is publicly available online.)
Losing Towersey is a difficult sign of the times, and it wasn't the only woeful point this month. Déda, another important local arts institute and also a client of mine, announced voluntary insolvency last week (please sign this petition if you want to help them recover). And of course, although I don't want to get too political on this blog post, the events that took place in this country at the start of the month made me ashamed to be British (perhaps even ashamed to be human), and not for the first time.
And on a small (physically!) sad note, mine and Edward's elderly guinea pig Alan passed away at the start of the month - right before I had to deliver a Zoom pitch, which made things challenging! We're missing him terribly, but we're proud of him for reaching the grand old age of nearly 6.5! And as it turns out, we now have a random extra addition to our household; our cat Falkor kept attacking an elephant hawk moth caterpillar in the garden, so I decided that the best thing was to set up my butterfly house and bring the caterpillar inside to recover. He's doing very well, and we've named him Simon. I don't know why, it was just the first name that came to my head!
So all of the above is why I haven't written the blog post I intended to write this month (and I haven't even included all the edits I did or the meetings I attended)! This week has been, thankfully, a little steadier - but my calendar for September is already pretty much full with client bookings, on top of the fact that pre-production on my NFTS short officially starts on Monday. There's also a lot of cinema trips I want to try and fit in, if I can. So it's going to continue to be a busy time, and who knows when (or what!) I'll be able to post on my blog again.
In Derbyshire, where I'm based, the seasons are changing very quickly right now. This morning, the dew was cold and crisp enough to show up the tracks of a pigeon that had been hopping along. So over this weekend, I hope you'll all take a moment to soak up the very last of the summer. I'll probably be unpacking my suitcases!
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