Faith and... all sorts of jobs! (Ok, two...)

Ok. So I've neglected this blog a little, but that's only because a very exciting thing happened.

Ok. So I didn't write about the very exciting thing. I'm a terrible blogger/Internet person/human being, I get it. So let me backtrack a little.

I left off at me getting a promotion at work to the role of technical operator and talking about how I was going to have to adjust my mindset to such a different job. Well, I've recently spent about two months doing another job. I was a trainee edit assistant on a new TV drama! The. Dream.

It was a brilliant job to be on too. Some trainees barely get to touch an Avid, but I was able to get properly stuck in. I was actually one of the assistants rather than just an observer. I learnt, hands on, an incredible amount. Everyone on the team was lovely and I couldn't have hoped for a more talented and skilled boss to show me the ropes of the job. I could go on and on about it (and on and on, trust me), but the much shorter story is that it absolutely sealed my desire to be in this industry, and to go freelance properly.

Sadly though, it came to an end. I had this vision in my head where once you got the first job, you wouldn't have to look back, but in my case this hasn't happened yet so for now I'm back technical operating, where it seems I have FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING. I had barely got to grips with the job before the placement, and it turns out if you don't do something for a while, you don't remember much of it. Re-learning also becomes that little bit more difficult when you've been on your dream job and have to come back from it. Don't get me wrong, Encore is where I learnt the foundations of the industry, it's a fantastic company and I'm so, so grateful for every opportunity they've given me. If I could stay there and be an editor, I would. But hey, comfort zones are for leaving right?

So, I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed that something else didn't come up straight away, and I've already had to deal with the disappointment of not getting a couple of other jobs I was interviewed for. Both of which would have been a huge deal to do. As ever though, God has had me prepared. In a previous life (and a previous blog to go with it), I had this bizarre notion in my head that I was going to be an actress. Let's say, it didn't go too well. I mean, I had an agent and went to auditions, but I was dealing with rejection after rejection after long periods of nothing. I often took it hard and I really take my hat off to those who persevere with that career. I sometimes looks back and think what a waste of time and money and effort it was and how it should have just stayed as a hobby - but in reality the whole thing really toughened me up.
I mean, going back to my editing aspirations, these were big disappointments. I know exactly where I want to be, and to be honest, I want to be there now. In retrospect not getting those film placements (yes, feature film placements) is a much bigger deal than not getting those acting roles, but I've taken them less hard, and much less personally. I've still got itchy feet to get into the big bad world of freelancing (primarily on TV drama, but the odd feature wouldn't have hurt...) but I took those rejections a lot better for having been through so many earlier in life.

So, I'm still looking at that next step. I always will do, but I still have a good job. I carry on. I keep looking. Keep trusting that God has something lined up for me. For now I need to back to proving myself.

(No real 'message' coming through in this one. Just an update and account of how God still continues to work in my life and my work. Did I just hear a collective sigh of relief...?)

My Prayer for The Media

Dear Lord

Thank you that we live in a world with so many ways to communicate. Thank you for the joy and entertainment that the media can bring us. For all the amazing ways the it can be used - for campaigns for justice and truth, for fundraising and increasing awareness of worthy causes, for organisations such as Sat-7 that allow your word to be heard in places it couldn't be otherwise.

Sorry for using the media for our own gain and not Yours, for concerning ourselves with how we are seen, not how others are treated. For where our engagement with it has not been in line with your teaching.

May your word, your truth, your integrity be at the heart of our media. Please bring hope to the humiliated, peace to the harassed, truth for the slandered, inspiration to the storytellers, justice to journalism, courage to campaigners and integrity to the influential.

May Your wisdom be in every creative decision that's made, your love be shown on set, in the studio and in the edit suite. May your truth and justice shine through the newsrooms.

Lord, sometimes the power and the influence of the media can seem overwhelming, but we recognise that you are bigger, more powerful and have an amazing plan for it.

Amen

Day of Prayer for The Media: 1st June 2014

I can't stress enough how important I think this day is and how delighted I am that it's happening. I've said it before I know - but the media is so important, so powerful, makes such a direct impact on the way we live, that as Christians we can't ignore it.

The media is one of those things that's such a constant, such a norm nowadays that we encounter it all the time without realising. It, right now, is changing people's minds, slipping into our subconsciousness, forming opinions, creating and destroying stereotypes. People like to think it doesn't, but I believe it has a very firm grasp on the way we think, and yes, maybe we often gravitate towards media that already conforms with our view of the world, but some of it is more dominant than others, and of course makes a huge impression on those who haven't yet worked out who they are or what they believe.

I think this is a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness in churches about this giant that encompasses our world. To learn about its beautiful and ugly sides, about its complications, its impact, the people who have the most control over it, and most importantly, to seek some much needed direction from God about our place in it.

This is so important because we have got to get to a stage where we're engaging positively with the media - with newspapers, television, radio, film, social media, and stop simply complaining about what we don't like. It's about time we went beyond our cute little Songs of Praise bubble and started engaging with and helping to create television, news articles, blogs, websites, adverts that challenge the status quo where it's needed, that are filled with truth and justice and speak, whether directly or indirectly for the glory of God, media that is bold and relevant to more people than just us. Media can't be a little side project or add on for us any more, we've got to do it properly.

I'm delighted to say that I have encountered some amazing people who are on fire for Jesus and who are brilliantly talented in their chosen field, who have deep wisdom about how the media operates and how God wants us to go about creating and engaging with it, but the industry needs more people like that, and both them and it need the support of surrounding Christians. In short, we need to take action, and where does action through God start? In prayer. In prayer God enlightens, strengthens, equips and inspires us.  It's where God initially sends us out. It's where we actually come back to Him and admit that He's the one in the know and in control. As mentioned earlier, the media is a powerful, complicated, often beautiful, often dangerous thing - we need to go back to the most powerful, the most wise, most beautiful, omnipotent one.

I urge anyone who is a part of a church to engage with this day on some level. You don't have to suddenly drop everything in your life and start a career in television or anything, just pray for us crazy people that have. Maybe use it as a chance to learn how what you watch is made, how it affects us, to have a discussion with someone about what they read in the newspaper, or maybe even pick up a camera and see what you can do. It could be anything, but please let it be something. There's no such thing as 'just' a prayer.

The official website for the initiative is here. Read it, get involved. Otherwise I'm going to come to your church and hijack your microphones and projectors. I know how to do that, I work in the media.

Why I Signed the #nomorepage3 Petition

Before anyone asks - yes this is relevant to this blog. The newspapers are part of the media, and not wanting to see breasts in a widely available paper has everything to do with my faith. I know lots of people have done a brilliant job at arguing the cause but I wanted to add my voice from a Christian perspective. There's so many reasons why this page shouldn't exist and why it's a tragedy we still have to discuss it in 2014, they're not all written here because it would be such a long post, and I want to keep this to what I think I can add to the debate, but that doesn't mean I'm not behind those arguments too.

For anyone not in the UK, or who (until now) is lucky enough to be unaware of what 'Page 3' denotes over here, it's really quite simple. There's this tabloid called 'The Sun', and every day on the third page, it has a massive picture of a fully naked women. Let me reiterate - this isn't an 'adult' mag, you don't need ID to buy it, it's not covered in a special modesty bag in the Co-Op, it's a newspaper. Not a very good one, but it is an easily accessible piece of so-called news available pretty much everywhere.

I don't have much time for The Sun anyway, it indulges in scaremongering, smearing anyone who dares stand against it, promoting self-interest above responsibility, and all too often downright lying. I wouldn't be sorry to see the whole thing go, but getting rid of this archaic page would be a start.

Whatever your views on 'adult entertainment', placing bare breasts in a paper anyone can buy sends out a strong message: 'This is ok, no question. Nothing needs to be argued here.' I can't stand the idea of sex and nudity being a commercial venture to be exploited full stop, however at least when it's 'lads mags' and dodgy websites, people are forced to actually spend a few seconds thinking about what they're about to look at, rather than just having unquestioned access amongst the day's news, and at least it's only the people looking for it who see it.

There are plenty of brilliantly put arguments outlining the dangers of children spotting page three, so I won't delve too deep into it again here- but I will say this: when a child is dedicated in a Baptist church, the whole congregation stand and make a pledge before God that they will aide the parents in providing a Christian, loving environment for the child to grow up in. I'm sure similar covenants are made by other denominations during infant baptisms and christenings. If we've taken that vow seriously, we have to question where page three fits in.

Sadly abolishing this page still wouldn't get close to solving everything. I think there is a culture emerging (from both genders) of sexual objectification being the norm - we see it in music videos, advertising, online, and even in one of my favourite things ever - television drama. Why wait until you're in a stable relationship with someone you love to see a naked body when you can just turn on the television, boot up a laptop - or open a newspaper. The Sun may not be the only offender but it is feeding the problem and profiting from it. 'Page 3' is a huge cultural thorn in the nation's side, and getting rid of that would be an excellent start for the bigger picture. We can either sit there and moan about how difficult and ingrained the issue is, or we can take on the problem, one battle at a time.

There's lots of debates and disagreements within Christianity, but this is a rare instance in which I simply can't see any way in which you can be a Christian and not take issue with this. We're not being snooty, holier-than-thou, complain-about-everything-that-isn't-Songs-of-Praise Christians by standing against it. This isn't saying 'I was offended by', this is saying 'this is deeply damaging, it needs to stop'.

You can sign the petition here.

Faith and... Technical Operating!

For those who haven't heard, my working life has changed somewhat recently. This post is a little overdue, so serial television style, let's have a quick recap:

On 19th August 2013, I started work as a runner at post production company in London. One house move, one name change (the company's, not mine), three pairs of shoes (they wear down fast when you're on your feet all day), countless flat whites, even more cups of tea and almost six months to the day later, and I was offered a job as a technical operator! 

Yes - I sort of skipped an 'episode' - the one where I actually applied for the job. Just imagine me bumbling my way through an interview, whilst trying to recall anything vaguely useful that my brain had to offer. Then my surprise when despite this not only did they refrain from questioning my career choice, but they actually offered me the position. All caught up?

In a blog post that I never finished, I talked about how starting as a runner was keeping me humble, and I do believe that from a Christian perspective it was an important way to learn how to quite literally serve, but now I'm learning humility from a different perspective. Being the one with the most to learn. Ravensbourne seems like a another life ago, I feel like I've forgotten everything I learned there and that everything wasn't anywhere near enough in the first place.

Before I started this role I was absolutely freaking terrified. I feel a lot better now I've got started but I haven't been anywhere near the deep end yet. I don't feel as if I could never be good at this job like I did when I started as a runner, but, if you forgive the cliché, there's a mountain to climb. Tape decks have manuals that are two hundred pages long. Timecode comes in more forms then most sane people would care to know about. There's a monitor we use that flickers on and off so you can only see what you're doing about 50% of the time. As for being the only female tech-op, I think I'll leave that for a whole other blog post at some stage.

It's going to take some time to readjust my mindset from running to technical operating, get used to a new environment and start to really hit my stride - but I know I can. Not out of any inflated opinion of myself, but because of one simple fact. If God got me to a stage where I was, dare I say it, good at being a runner, something that is so far away from my natural skill-set that you'd have to catch a plane to commute between the two, then He's more than capable of reigniting a flair for something I spent three years studying. It's still going to take a lot of hard work on my part, but I'm not alone. I've had lots of people tell me that they're there if I ever get stuck on something, which is a real blessing, one of many I'm sure God has up His sleeve.

I appreciate that this post is in a very similar mood to my first 'Faith and Running' post. That's because in many ways it feels like starting again, but that's in no sense a bad thing. By starting as a runner I got to see just how far beyond our established abilities God can take us (without there being a master tape or a whole production's rushes at stake). Once again I find myself outside my comfort zone. I have an awful lot to learn, but I'm very grateful for the opportunity to learn it. 

Faith and Running: 'Good Morning, Client Services!'

I'm not sure if anyone's ever witnessed someone aggressively empty a packet of Starburst into a jar.

This morning, for a variety of reasons (including being woken up at 2am by some very noisy people on the street, and a man on the tube who listened to his music at a needless volume then hatched an evil scheme to make it look like it was me), I was in a pretty rubbish mood.

The nice thing about being at work at 7.30am is that no-one else is at work because it's 7.30am. That allowed me to vent my frustration on a variety on inanimate objects with no-one any the wiser (except when I publicly wrote this blog post about it). I very rarely feel 'physical' anger but this morning for some reason I felt the need to slam every cupboard door I used (which is a lot), and I didn't so much as retrieve the butter from the fridge as shove it in the general direction of the toast making set up. As for those packets of Starburst, I hope they don't form a union.

But, of course, the second my work-colleagues and the clients were anywhere near the building, I defaulted to calm, smiley Naomi. I still slammed a couple of cupboard doors, but only because that's how you make them stay shut. In most jobs, if you're having a rubbish day, people will allow for you to be a bit grumpy and withdrawn, but in client services that just isn't an option. You're there for other people. However little you feel like it you have to start up and engage in conversations, smile as you hand people their coffee and take their lunch orders. Thankfully as our company has many lovely, friendly staff, and we have a really nice set of clients in, it wasn't long at all before enforced niceness turned into a genuine aim to please.

For Jesus, looking out for other people wasn't done in shifts. There's a passage in Mark 6 where Jesus and His disciples were exhausted - they had even made a point of finding a quiet, remote place to rest, but as soon as the people came Jesus began to teach them. No matter how tired He was, His heart was for the people who were crying out for His help. Yes, there were other times when Jesus requested to be alone, but when He was needed, He served.

This is an industry where a lot of people work very hard and invariably there will be some days when we're tired, one thing after another goes wrong and we just can't be bothered. Obviously it's important to rest when the time is right, but sometimes we need a default mode, a kick-starter to launch us into God's service when all we want to do is kick a cupboard door. Just like an editor's reliance on coffee doesn't disappear just because I've had a bad start to the day, God's work doesn't take a day off just because life hasn't gone our way.

We all have bad days, but at those times we're no less a servant of God than I am a servant of editors after a bad journey in. Except being a Christian doesn't happen in shifts. Just like as being a client services assistant means I can't simply go around grumpily placing coffee on people's desks, as Christians we should be thinking of God and other people before what we want, even if it seems like you're the only one doing so. Of course we should be honest when we're having a rough time of it, but that doesn't excuse us from being a person of God full stop.

It can be a tough concept to live by, but thankfully, we don't have to do it alone, or even by our own strength. Plus you can always take it out on the Starburst.

Faith and Running: Nerves

Bear with me. This post is going to bring some quite painful sharing. It'll be worth it, my pain will most likely be to your amusement.

I am not always the most confident of people. I think I've well established this fact. When it comes to talking to people, the more I feel a need to get it right, the more certain it is I will freeze up and become a nervous mess. Give me a bit of time and patience and I'll probably be the polar opposite - embarrassing myself from being a bit too comfortable and doing weird things like hiding under edit suites or curling up on the floor or writing poems about codecs. (Not that I've done any of those things ever...ahem)

Back to my rubbish over-thinking-every-moment self. Imagine my shaking (sadly literally, more on that later), trembling self when someone I'm a huge fan of was a client at work for a while. I'm talking a huge star who's worked on many shows that I'm a little bit in love with. Imagine, then read the painful reality.

So let me put off telling you for a moment, in order to pre-emptively and fairly pointlessly try and redeem myself. There maybe could have been ways I could have avoided putting myself across so catastrophically. I have, believe it or not, been known to be able to communicate clearly and happily with people I want to in the past. A spare moment to have even a brief conversation that wasn't about lunch or drink orders, or if I hadn't known this person would be there in advance, for example, would have kept Overly-Anxious-Naomi at bay. However, since there was a door sign with their name on for days before their arrival (which I may have even put up), and every time I went in the room everyone was engrossed in their work, I over-thought things before I even got to the door, and then when I did get the other side of it I found it very difficult to judge the room and just sort of floundered.

The wording of which has pushed me straight into embarrassing 'Naomi looks like an idiot in front of famous people' moment number 1.

She walks through the door, and, despite the million panicky, frantic yet completely useless thoughts running through her head, she manages to hand out the drinks with a relative calmness. (Comparative to a duck appearing calm whilst paddling madly under the surface, albeit the duck's still shaking a little). She spots some used mugs on the desk, so she dutifully collects them up. One is empty and one about a quarter full. 
'That's a relief' she thinks. 'Carrying full mugs in these circumstances could only lead to bad things.'
The suite's habitants get back to work. Excellent. She's almost appeared normal. Time to get out fast.
Unfortunately, as a clumsy person, this is one the worst decisions she had ever made. She may have pondered this upon her exit had she not walked fairly violently into the door frame at that particular moment. Violently enough to cause the quarter-full mug to become slightly less than a quarter full. Quite spectacularly. 

When it comes to other things, like a piece of editing or an exam, I can use that nervous energy and really make the best of it, but when it comes to this sort of situation I sort of fall apart a bit, and walk into door frames, apparently.

I should clarify for anyone who knows/works out who it is I met, the person in question was extremely lovely and remarkably patient with me. They clearly made the effort to learn my name because they used it once and I certainly hadn't the wits about me to introduce myself.

And here's the thing that really annoys me about the way I was. As much as I admire their work, they are still just a person, a human being who more than likely just wants to be treated as such.
There is a small comfort to be found in that I have floundered in front of many people, not just ones involved in telly, but it really is the tiniest of comforts. Yes, ok, I'm putting off 'Naomi looks like an idiot in front of famous people' moment number 2.

She walks into the edit suite, coffee on tray and tray on hand. Challenge 1. Don't walk into door frame. Challenge complete. Challenge 2. Hand out drinks. For a person who over-thinks every second of their life, this is somewhat trickier. Option 1: Hand drink over to the client, this is slightly awkward as only one person can get the handle, leaving the other with the scalding hot mug. Option 2: Put drink on table, a safer option but somehow always feels a bit abrupt and impolite. 

Sadly, she went for both options. Not quite at the same time, but nonetheless very quickly, one after the other, in the process accidentally taunting the client as to whether they'd get their coffee or not. Fantastic.

In my defence, I'd like to point out that I'm normally much better at my job. Honest.

Believe it or not, there are many points about my faith I could pull from this, but, with hindsight, I think this is the most significant one - sometimes it's better that we don't know what's coming. I am convinced that had I simply walked unknowingly into the room with my usual smile and 'good morning!', the tone would have been set and my shell well and truly smashed before it could make so much as an appearance. Granted, I may have been somewhat shocked but I would have just had to deal with it.
After all, I had, in some ways been unknowingly preparing for this. I spend all day serving people who's work in the industry I greatly admire, and at first it was daunting and scary but it was what I had to do day-in, day-out so I got used to it and learned that the best way to handle myself was to simply realise that these people are real, hard working human beings and try to give them the best service possible.

In my desperation to make it in the world of editing I always really want to know what's coming next and if that big chance is ever going to happen, but that's for God to know and me to find out. That's not to say He doesn't always tell people where they're going to end up (or that I'm going to stop really wanting to know) but He knows when it's good for us to know and when it's best for us to just walk through that door and find out, perhaps be a little shell-shocked, let Him dust us off and carry on, using what we've already learned, the tone already set.

I'm already seeing great signs of hope in the television industry and that God has great plans for it. I look back at the past few months and can see that God is definitely preparing me for something or other. I really hope I'm the two are linked, but for now I'm going to do my very best to keep working away at my career, learning what I can about the job I want to do, without knowing for sure where it's going to lead me. It's the only way to avoid embarrassing coffee moments, metaphorical or otherwise.

I'm just going to hide under my duvet and pretend the world doesn't exist for a while now.