Being a Woman in the TV & Film Industry | International Women's Day

Since my International Women's Post last year a lot has happened. Especially in the film industry.

Filming/sound recording at Bestival 2016

And the thing is, I wasn't surprised when all of these allegations and accusations came out. Men in a position of power taking advantage of women beneath them. It's a tale as old as time.

#MeToo and #TimesUp has been making such a powerful impact. I love that at the film awards ceremony's both women and men were trying to make a stand. To give a voice to those who don't have one.

It's hard to see the industry you idolise and want to work for in a bad light. I grew up with a huge love and respect for film. Aside from all of the horrible news that has come from this, there has been a lot of good.

Victims coming forward and investigations opening, celebrities and important people addressing the situation and calling for action. In some of the cases the accused are actually taking responsibility, although it is only a few.

Reading with the actors from my short film 'Burgundy' where I was the Producer

International Women's Day is here to address the inequalities of women all over the world, and in all different kinds of careers.

I can't vouch for the women in other countries, or women in different careers. But I feel that I can vouch for women in TV and Film. I'm aware I'm not successful in this industry (yet) but if I've spotted inequality and unfairness already, that's saying something.

Over a year ago I worked on an independent feature film. Everything seemed normal and fine at first. Then I began to realise that all of the women associated with the film worked in the production office or in hair and make up. There were only men on set (director, first assistant director, third assistant director, director of photography, camera assistants, both sound guys, script supervisor etc). Now I'm not saying there is an issue with that, I'm glad that the women were in important roles for the film. It is stereotypical that women are in organisational roles, not just in TV and Film.

But, it was also my treatment on this film. I know I was just a menial runner, but I worked hard. I was working twelve hour days for three weeks alongside my part time job. I was on this film as work experience as I was still in education. I put so much effort into trying to do a good job for the film, I didn't want to let anyone down and I wanted to make a good impression. On a few occasions I was looked down upon, by the actors, crew and investors who came to visit.

Unfortunately, I've become accustomed to this treatment throughout my life. I usually just brush it off because I know who I am and the hard work I put in. However, after a while it starts to eat away at you. People thinking you're a slave, do this do that, with no politeness or even acknowledging that I'm a human being.

Discussing the day's shoot with the lead actress from 'Burgundy' on set

In my office currently I am the only female colleague out of nine of us. I don't think it was intended that way, I think it's the experience and confidence of applicants. Last year I had to re-apply for my job as the contract renews each year, but I was up with the chance to be promoted. After being bruised and battered from university I wanted to pull myself together and give everything I had. Luckily, I answered all of the questions well and was granted the promotion.

I feel like I have to work extra hard to prove myself in my career. When I was at university I would tend to do this stupid thing and not put myself forward for things, and play dumb. When I was around male peers or lecturers I could feel their judgement and I unwillingly proved them right. They thought I was just a girl wasting my time on a film course, with no hopes of becoming successful because I'm not a man. No one ever said these exact words to me, but I felt it.

For one of my projects at university I needed to research women in the role I aspire to be in. I felt guilty that I couldn't name very many female film producers off of the top of my head. But I can name countless male directors ~ I'm aware producers don't get the same publicity as directors, but again I couldn't name very many female directors either. There are plenty of female directors and producers you just don't hear about them enough. I was nearly brought to tears when watching the end credits of the recent Beauty and the Beast adaptation. The first female credit that rolled was for editing, below all of the "important" male roles. I was fuming, as Belle's character and Emma Watson both empower women...but this message didn't make it in the creation of the film?

I'd love to hear from more of you about your own experiences in any career about your treatment by colleagues or management.

My "Day" Job #1

This post will hopefully give you guys a bit of insight to what I do on a daily basis with regards to my university life as a third year. I've mentioned previously I study Film Production at the University of Portsmouth.

I've mainly been a Producer across the majority of my units at university, this means I basically have to organise everything to ensure the project is finished. I assist the director and help bring their vision to life through the logistic side of things, sorting locations, budget, actors, props etc.

It's not an easy role, I do find it rather stressful, but I also can't imagine not being a Producer. When a project finishes and you see the end product you'll get a sense of relief and hopefully you'll be happy that all the hard work has paid off!

If you follow my social media you might have seen me talk about and try to promote my upcoming film; "Burgundy". I'm the Producer (if you hadn't guessed already) so I've been trying to get a bit of a buzz for our film, and also help get some funding as well. It's quite a task to make a good professional film with no budget, we are using professional actors so that costs A LOT. We've tried seeing what we can cut from our film to make it less expensive, but that would make the quality of the film suffer.

As this is our last film at university, we want it to be the best possible film we can make. We are planning to submit the film into film festivals across the UK, Europe and US. This will give Burgundy good exposure and would be an amazing experience to go and see our films on the big screen, and mingle with other professionals.

I live and breathe this film every day, I don't get a day off from trying to organise our shoot days and clearing up any issues. It's really exhausting, but I'm hoping all the work will pay off and that this will be the best film I've made yet! When you have creative projects they kind of feel like your children, that's how I feel with my blog as well. You have to water and feed it everyday to see it grow, and that's the same with filmmaking, you have to work on it more or less everyday.

Here's a little summary of what our film is about: "Sophie is an overworked crime scene investigator who becomes obsessed with the murder of a local young girl. After being forced to take an evening away from work, her boyfriend Peter creates a romantic meal and set the scene for relaxing evening. But everyone has secrets; love, lust and murder.

Two people, one room, an obsessed detective and a murder weapon, who said romance is dead."

I have been planning to write a little blog series about what it's like being a filmmaker and especially being a film student at university. This can give you some insight to a topic you might not know the ins and outs of, but might help current or potential students as well!

Now, I do have a little proposition for you guys. As I've mentioned I'm trying to get money to be able to complete our film. Our lowest reward on Indiegogo is £1 it would help so much if you are able to donate. It's just £1 and you'll get your name credited in our film which will be shown around the world! But, if you also tweet me that you've donated, I will give you a shout out across my Instagram and Twitter social media as a huge thank you for helping us!

We have many other rewards when you donate as well, it'd be great if you could take a look! There's more information about our film and a cheeky video as well. If you can't donate but would like to help our project, if you could share our crowdfunding page, or even this blog post would be a huge help!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/burgundy-a-short-film/x/15738780#/

I hope you've liked my little introduction so far, if you have any questions you can leave a comment or tweet me @SaffronWatson_ and I'll get back to you, or I'll answer them in my next post!

Now it would be silly if I didn't leave the links to Burgundy's social media (I'd be a bad producer if I didn't).

Burgundy Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/burgundyfilm/
Burgundy Twitter - https://twitter.com/BurgundyFilm
Burgundy Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/burgundyfilm/

If you'd like to keep up to date on the film's progress and see some snazzy behind the scenes, please give our pages a 'like' or 'follow' it'd be much appreciated by the whole team! We have some exciting news coming up so keep checking our pages for when we reveal!

Saffron x