Executive Producer Jo and Financial Controller Emma both entered the industry early in their working lives, although neither had prior plans to become part of the production workforce. Jo tells us, “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I did know that I wanted to move from Oxford to London.” Before making the move to the capital she “saw an advert for a secretary at a film production company and thought, well that could be quite fun, so applied and got the job! Luckily for me I kind of just wandered into film.”
Emma began straight out of education after a friend reached out: “In the early nineties, I left university, and a great friend of mine who worked at Working Title Films in London said, ‘I'll give you 30 quid to help me, and we'll go drinking down the King's Road’, and the reason she asked me is because I had worked in accounts during my college years. So, I went in for the afternoon and I was there for three years!”
In the case of Post-Production Supervisor Tara, she made a conscious decision to switch paths: “I had been working for my father in the travel industry and when he sold the business to retire, I took the opportunity to change career. I saw an ad in the paper for ‘Unemployed Women in West London’ promoting camera and editing skills. I’d always been interested in the behind-the-scenes world so answered and got a place on the course. I found I particularly enjoyed the world of the edit where you create the story.”
Even once they all had their start in the industry, it did not mean that it was a simple journey to where they are now. Jo felt as though she had to work hard to move up the ladder after “looking around and realising I could be in danger of getting aged out. Especially for women, age can become an issue unfortunately - I think this applies in all industries.”
When Tara completed her training course, although freshly equipped with new skills, she still had to hunt for a job and so “knocked on the doors of the post houses in Soho and got a job as a runner, working on the coffee bar for six months before moving to work alongside an in-house post team.”
After she got her foot in the door, Emma believes it was down to “certainly luck and reputation,” as she explains: “I think your trajectory is who you've worked with, and really you are only as good as your last job. So, the reason I think my career has done as well as it has done is predominantly because of two amazing women who mentored me.
"One of whom was incredibly generous with her skill and encouraged me in the room, when she would have meetings with the producer I was often included and that was incredible. She was an incredible educator and was a big move in the initial APATS scheme so working for Carolyn Hall was amazing and I attribute that a lot of my success now is because I was lucky enough to be one of those people who worked for Carloyn.”
Though all three women have since become highly successful in their respective fields, they have carried those early experiences with them – and all are proud to now be able to pay it forward. Whether that be “providing an opportunity for other people to progress” as Jo says, or “drawing on my breadth of experiences to help educate my team further by knowledge sharing and keeping my door open, so that they can come into my office to ask me a question” for Emma.
On advice they’d give to other women wanting to follow in their footsteps, Emma said that although she encourages everyone, “it would be great for the women to be a bit bolder.” Tara stresses the importance of not minimising or trying to avoid “starting from the bottom up” because for her “starting as a runner in a post facility was invaluable.” where she “learnt the full post process and was able to take that knowledge to become a post coordinator.”
Although there has been a lot of positive steps taken to progress the position of women in the industry and to make it a more inclusive and safe space to work in – as Jo says, “women are more able to report without fear” – there are still aspects that could be improved to propel the film and tv environment forward, as well as to retain the talented women who join the screen sector. Jo highlights that “women need more support around the physical things that they have to deal with – both when they’re younger and when they’re older.”
Another way to keep women in the workforce from Tara’s perspective is to address that more needs to be done in terms of the caring responsibilities a woman usually faces, which expand beyond the patriarchal assumptions of childcare. These duties can additionally include relatives and friends, with Tara realising “as I get older, I see the need for care at the other end of the family ladder – elderly parents and relatives.” The flexibility that has been rightly sought for working mothers also needs work to encapsulate all caring responsibilities.
Emma voices that we need to “make the industry and departments more accessible, not only to women but to open it up to people with transferable skills from other sectors and even to more vulnerable groups of people... The film industry is a magical world because of the people that you meet who all come together to make something out of nothing. There is a camaraderie and a team effort that is put in and a product that comes out. That for me is what makes it incredibly rewarding.”
