For this past year we’ve been tasked to learn more about
creative enterprises, the different kinds of enterprise and overall, what
working within that industry is like. Using this learning and experience to
guide us into formulating our own idea for a creative enterprise. Finding out
the nitty gritty details of business that maybe change our perception of how
businesses are formulated and ran. We’ve also been urged to get out there and propel
ourselves into this industry, to go and gain important work experience that
would truly benefit us into going down our chosen career paths. With all of
these skills learnt we’d go onto making a short film collating all of our
skills.
When this course began my path was very different to the one,
I am on now, at the beginning I wanted to become a freelance filmmaker and
potentially go into writing or directing. I wanted to get as much work
experience in film out there so that I could potentially move on and work in
the film industry. My plan for my business was to create a freelance filmmaking
company that would eventually become a production company. I partook in paid
work experience with accompany called Trett Films and really enjoyed the
experience and learnt a lot from it. This drove me towards that sort of
business type. I don’t feel I necessarily accomplished it but that’s because I
took a different pathway as more opportunities arose. Many activities and tasks
led to this change; I would still like to get into the film industry but maybe
learn some other skills before I go on to do that. Work experience was the key
driver for me during this course, everything I learnt on work experience
opportunities helped me get the next opportunity, each one springing me onto
different things. After these experiences I would note them down and write them
up so I can remember for future reference what I was up to and what skills I
was gaining from the subject.
When pursuing my creative venture, I did a lot of research
into the creative industry in general, I learnt a lot about how much of a core
piece it is within our economy and our culture. I learnt a lot about how people’s
intellectual property is protected and why it is protected and how those
regulations excel and move creativity onwards. Pursuing a film making business
I had to do research into safe work practices and looking into regulations that
would protect more vulnerable workers such as children within this industry. When
creating the short film all these things had to be kept in mind, we had to make
sure that everything we were adding or showing had the right permissions to be
added or shown. That meant our team would compose original music for the film,
we’d write an original script and we’d also gain permissions from local
locations to use their premises for our film. One thing learnt was respect for our
team members and that we needed more of it, we needed to respect each other’s
ideas and remember that filmmaking was meant to be a fun creative process, not
a stressful process, I wish we could’ve learnt this earlier within the
production as things may have gone a lot more smoothly if that was the case.
How to keep safe within this work practice was a pivotal
part of our work, how to get what we wanted whilst protecting all the people
working on the film, whether physically or mentally. A lot of research went
into health and safety in a physical sense but not some much on keeping each
other safe from a mental health point of view. If we’d have investigated
teamwork exercises and more ways for us to work and synergise then maybe, we
would’ve had a more fulfilling filmmaking experience. Teamwork is the most
important thing within the creative industry, pushing each other up. Instead of
striving for our own goals to strive for a collective goal. Instead of competing
with classmates we should’ve learnt each other’s strengths and weaknesses and
adjusted accordingly. It’s really good to keep in mind that you won’t trip over
an audio wire but from what this course has shown me it would be far better to
ask each other how we were feeling and to discuss ideas in a way where everyone’s
ideas are accepted, not an environment where they’re rejected.
As the course progressed my passion for filmmaking fizzled
out as it was becoming a lot less fun. I went on to pursue different ways to be
creative and what I found was marketing, after the work experience opportunity
with a company called Scooterpac I gained a lot of respect for marketing and I
really enjoyed finding really creative ways to promote a business. This is what
I wanted to do, my venture moved from making films to making marketing material
for businesses who maybe couldn’t do the marketing for themselves. At the same time,
I explored new ways to tell stories, via writing and weekly sessions of
dungeons and dragons with classmates, this experience then leading on to me
going onto radio and learning more about that side of media. It has shown me
that in this industry, there isn’t one clear path to go down, each one is
different but similar and in each one you get to be creative. I’ve learnt that
I enjoy creating, however that may be, I enjoy being a creative person. I don’t
have a clear direction that I want to go down but I’m pursuing a career as a marketing
assistant and seeing what opportunities that brings.
