FILMING CLUB

Never complain,

Never explain.

Kate Moss

FILMING CLUB RULES

Rule 1: You never talk about filming club

Rule 2: You never talk about filming club

Rule 3: You never walk from filming club

Rule 4: You must sacrifice all for filming club: relationships, friends, social life and family.

Rule 5: You must deal with extreme stress and pressure for filming club, as your freelance, so you don't know where that next job is coming from. 

Rule 6: You must cope with extreme lack of sleep.

Rule 7: Filming will go on as long as it has to. 

Rule 8: If this is your first time at filming club, I suggest you have a strong deposition

I BROKE THE RULES: I WALKED FROM FILMING CLUB

I think I was seven when I first fell in love with film. I remember being sat alone in my grandmother's caravan. I don't know why I was on my own but I recall that I was there, alone for a very long time. Why? Because I watched the whole length of Gone With The Wind in isolation. It was light when the film started. It was pitch black when it finished, but time didn't really matter. It had stood still for me, as I was entranced by this world that I had entered. It was such a beautiful world and I wanted to be part of it. As the years progressed I try to educate myself with different genres: the black and white classics, where watched with my Grandmother; the best war movies were watched with my brother; and foreign language films where watched on my own due to the fact that nobody else in my family had the patience for subtitles. I would collect books and absorb all the knowledge I could and I became an annoyance to my media studies teacher as I would never let anyone else answer a question, in class. I had always studied fine art because drawing was the only natural talent I had, but instead of going down the artist route I decided to combine it with my love of film and went to study costume for 3 years. Then at the age of 21 fresh from university I finally got to enter this world that I had longed for, for so long. It was a different world to what I expected. I remember clearly my first day on set and how overwhelming it was. So many people, doing so many different things, none of which I had a clue of. I was a little fish, in a big pond. I soon came accustomed to things and learnt fast. If you don't, you sink  for filming is a brutal and unforgiving industry. You get tough quick and you become part of this world. This world where night can become day, or day can become night; where the heavens can be made to open up; where people look perfect; say perfect things and where there is usually always a happy ending. This is a world where you spend more time with your colleges than you do with your family or friends.  A world where you forget the outside world. It's a world where I've missed weddings, birthdays, even a funeral for. It's a world that has destroyed many a relationship for me. This is a world that is all encompassing. The problem is, this world is not real, but it is very easy to forget that as we get caught up in a bubble. The bubble is what keeps it together, it's what has got be through many a tough shoot, but then something terrible happened to me on this job! The bubble burst! 

I'm nearly 2 months into my job out of 5, and there is no escaping it. Im lonely, homesick and I'm miserable!  I've stopped sleeping and I've stopped eating. I'm a mess, so much so that the production coordinator pulls me to aside and asks how I am as she's worried about me, because I'm pale and gaunt. I go into a shell. I'm quiet and unsmiling. I have no passion for anything, even the costumes themselves.  I feel like there is nothing left of me. The thing is you can't leave, that's just not the done thing. The show must go on no matter what. I've never in 15 years in the industry walked no matter how bad it's got (apart from a Bollywood movie, but that was a joke and I only left 2 days early). So I battle with this feel for a long time. "You can't leave! You just can't leave! It's career suicide!"  I keep telling myself over and over again. It's part of the job to keep going. You don't complain or explain, you're just meant to get on with it.  The feeling doesn't go away though.  It's eating away at me inside and I'm living on my nerves and then one day I just crack. 

"I can't do this anymore. I want to leave!" I say

I'm sat opposite my boss. I feel like I'm going to throw up I've got myself in such a state, but she is calm about my decision and no great thunderbolt from heaven has come and struck me down either. A sudden weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel lighter than I have done in weeks. The decision has been made. 

I sit here now, a week later, away from it all, and ask my self "Did I make the right decision?" I know with my decision I have burnt bridges and made myself unpopular with the production. Some people didn't understand my decision, but it was my decision and the right one because it's my life and no one else's. This doesn't mean I still don't love filming and costumes. I still do. It just means this wasn't the right venture for me at this moment in my life. I've learnt it's OK to walk away. It doesn't make you a bad person. It just means sometimes things are not right for you and life is too short to be unhappy.

The person who summed it up best for me was my line producer, a small, golden haired, overly tanned man from South Africa, who chained smoked himself through the stress of his job. I was very fond of him and had a great respect for him as well. As I handed my notice into him fretting he could see I was broken, and he said:

"We make entertainment Carly! That's all, but when it stops being entertaining, then it's not entertainment anymore."

With that he patted me on the back, told me it was OK and went out side to have another cigarette to relive the stress of which I had just added to. As he left, I thought to myself if he found it entertaining anymore?