2014 will really be the first year in my writing career when I think I can
safely say that I’ll have given up my ‘day job’ for good. Changing to writing
full – time is an amazing experience that brings with it a whole new set of
challenges. Instead of trying to fit your writing around your ‘work’, you’ve
got long swathes of time in which to just…WRITE! And somehow, that can almost
be as daunting as trying to fit it in.
But that’s a whole other
blog. For this blog I wanted to talk a little about the day job I had for the
last twenty – one years, because it was a pretty cool job, if I do say so
myself ;).
When I was eighteen years
old I was due to go off to University in England, to study Social Anthropology.
I had watched the film ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ and fancied myself as a crusading
Dian Fossey and upon investigating how I could do this, I found out that Social
Anthropolgy would lead me in the right direction. Zoology would have done too,
but that was altogether far too scientific and hard.
But, as things worked out,
it was decided by my mother and I that I really needed to make some money, so I
deferred taking up my place for a year.
During that year I was
mainly waitressing in a busy Dublin restaurant but thanks to a woman I knew who
had worked in the film business in LA, I randomly ended up almost working on a
short film. The job didn’t work out but my interest was piqued and I got into
the Film and TV union and started applying for work as a Trainee Assistant
Director (lowest rung of a film; runner; PA).
(Just to clarify here - I had had no previous interest in working on
films at all, it had never even entered my head, even though I was a cinephile
and devoured all movies.)
To my surprise over the next
few months I got work on some short films – working for free. The people were
lovely and the work was unlike anything I’d ever done before. But for some
reason, it really suited me and I really suited it. My very first job was
helping in the wardrobe department of a short film that was shot over a series
of five nights in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. Night – shoots! I thought this
was the most exciting thing in the world!
After that I started picking
up more and more work, as the film business in Ireland was relatively small. It
was easy to build up some contacts and go from job to job.
My first proper paid job was
as Extras Co-ordinator on a film called ‘An Awfully Big Adventure’ starring
Hugh Grant – just after he had done ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral.’ I hadn’t
much a clue of what I was doing and I was terrified most of the time, but it
was exhilarating.
I was also learning how to
drive my first car, a mini cooper. Not something I would recommend – learning
on the job!
By the time that year was
up, and I was due to take up my deferred place in University, I was working on
a pretty major film called…’Braveheart’. I angsted over what to do but in all
honesty Social Anthropology was not even an option anymore. I was earning
decent money and going to work with an international crew of about two hundred
people every day and thousands of extras.
I guess what it did was show
me that the path of studying in order to go and watch some Gorillas in the
mist, wasn’t really what I wanted to do.
So within a year of gaining
and deferrring a University place, my life had changed completely and I was
working in a career that had never even entered my head as a possibility.
I subsequently spent the
next two decades working on a variety of different films, TV shows and
commercials. With a few pop videos thrown in. As well as working here in
Ireland, I got to work in Slovakia (Behind Enemy Lines), Namibia (Flight of the
Phoenix) and Malaysia (Anna and the King). Along the way I made a core group of
best friends who are like my family.
I will miss my old job and the camaraderie of working in
that intensely intimate environment with a hundred or so other people for weeks
on end. We worked hard, but we played hard too, and had the best of times.
The last film I worked on
was this time last year. The early morning starts, long hours, three layers of
wet weather clothes and thermals has definitely lost the exciting mystique it
once had. Especially now I know that I have an alternative; sitting at home in
my PJ’s creating romantic fantasies!
I don’t regret not taking up
that University place, and if anything, working freelance prepared me for the
vagaries of trying and failing to get published before actually getting ‘The
Call’.
My latest book is out now – When
Falcone’s World Stops Turning. It’s the first part in a new trilogy
that features three half – brothers. The third book in the trilogy ‘When Da
Silva Breaks the Rules’ actually centers around a film being made on the hero’s
estate, so I finally got a chance to write what I know!
Happy reading everyone J.
2 comments:
Abby, what a wonderful career you've had, in addition to your fabulous romance writing one! I'm not surprised you've made such good friends in the process. I imagine being in close proximity, working hard alongside others on an all-consuming project must be the way to forge (or break) friendships. Looking forward to your latest story!
Thanks Annie! Yes it was an amazing time, I've been very lucky to experience such diversity! :)). x
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