Women in Film & TV NI Launch

On Thursday 26 Oct I attended the Women in Film & TV UK’s Northern Ireland launch! The evening started with a discussion of Anne Morrison’s career (Women in Film & TV UK Board member and former Chair of BAFTA) with Alison Millar (Producer/Director at Erica Starling Productions) and ended with networking over a glass of wine!

Anne and Alison buzzed with conversation about Anne’s career and she gave great advice to young women in the industry. She explained that when she began her career at BBC in the 80’s, she noticed that all of the female HOD’s (Heads of Dept) were regarded as “Battle-axes” and were more often that not, married to their jobs.

She continued to explain that this gave her no female role models in the industry to look up to, and the previous generation of women in media’s personal lives had to take a toll, in order to pave the way for her generation. This really stuck with me and whilst networking I noticed how many brilliant women (including Anne herself) I found myself able to relate and look up to.

Anne’s curly blonde hair (which she pointed out as a possible hindrance to her, career-wise) and the way she was glammed-up with her makeup and dress made her really relatable to me. I also met Sarah McCaffrey of the Royal Television Society NI, and she’s also a very well established Planning Producer. She was really friendly and full of advice and told me about her career and I felt really encouraged when she mentioned her children, it was brilliant to meet another cool, fashionable woman and to hear that I don’t have to marry the job. 

Sarah also introduced me to Georgia Parkinson, and I was invited to the RTS Futures Committee meeting on Thurs 2 Oct. They’ve spent months planning their RTS Futures Careers (part of BBC’s Digital Cities week) event on Tues 14 Nov down at Queen’s University, and I’ve jumped on board as an extra pair of hands at the last minute which I’m really excited about! There are tickets to some of the events still available and I’d seriously recommend anyone into who wants into the Film & TV industry to head down. I’ve left a link to their Facebook page down below!

Since I consider myself a sort of brunette ‘Elle Woods’ type, I loved getting to meet girly, feminine women in the industry who’re still bad-asses that get the job done.

https://www.facebook.com/RTSFuturesNI/?hc_ref=ARQT2Fke0iaVdfpPrZVHNGyfcAn_tbBgqlnnZ-bHyTo6wp0giSgv6-OQmfEorBfHDco&fref=nf&pnref=story