The Fatality Of The Creative's Life

I started University when I was 17 years old. As soon as I finished my first year, one of my professors referred me to a contact of hers who gave me my first job. I had just turned 18, and I already had a full-time job. I had no experience, and I had only finished 1 year of classes which only covered the basic stuff. Nevertheless, she took the risk of referring me and, without her foreseeing it, the opportunity that she gave me unleashed a 20-year long career. I am fully aware that I was fortunate and that an opportunity like that happened just because I had the means to go to that University in particular and also because the professor who spotted me had those sorts of connections. Is it possible to make these opportunities available to anyone from any background?

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with a young cinematographer about how difficult it is for starting creatives in the UK. If you don’t have contacts in the industry, or if you haven’t attended the “right” schools, finding people to give you the first opportunities can be a discouraging task. Disregarding whether you are good or not at what you do, if you don’t have experience or the right connections is almost impossible to find work. Starting creatives resort to unpaid jobs to gain experience and also to meet as many people as possible in the hopes that one of those connections will be able to open a door into the industry.

However, reality kicks in, and when living expenses demand to be covered, you have to get yourself a day-job to be able to make ends meet. Up until here, it all sounds very logical, but any creative will be able to tell you that not every type of day-job counts. Creative gigs come and go easily, they usually appear without notice, and they tend to have an unforeseeable duration. This means that, whichever day-job you get, it must give you enough flexibility for you to be able to take time off with short notice for those sudden gigs for which you might also not know the duration. Let me know when you find an employer who is willing to hire you under those conditions.

This young cinematographer told me that they rely on temporary jobs and creative gigs in other fields different from their own to be able to make it to the end of the month. But, at this pace, their chances of one day achieving the dream of working in the film industry seem to be running low.

The Creative Industries in the UK are one of the strongest in the country. According to the Department of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Britain’s Creative Industries play an essential role shaping how we are seen around the world and are also a vital part of the economy. Yet, for starting creatives whose parents can’t support them throughout the first years or who don’t attend the right schools, building a sustainable career in the industry is very difficult.

Why is it so different for other industries? In the Creatives Industries, if you are a starting creative with no experience but you can afford to get unpaid internships/apprenticeships, there are options plentiful. But, if you are like the majority of starting creatives and have bills to pay, your chances of getting entry-level paid jobs are very slim. What if you are starting your creative career at a certain age when you have even more obligations? I don’t see anyone addressing that demographic.

I know that it is easy to write and campaign for No Free Work from the comfort of my office when starting creatives out there would take any opportunity that comes their way to get a foot in the industry. I also know that when setting up teams for client work, it is challenging to fit inexperienced people in the crew and with limited budgets, it is even more difficult to fit in additional assistants.

But, something’s got to give. As an industry, we are a referent for the rest of the world. I just watched the Emmy Awards 2019, and British creatives took most of the statues home. That is only possible when you support and invest in the industry. And, as an industry, we are only as strong as our weakest creative. Without the proper support, the newest generation of creatives will not be able to hold the weight of the legacy that they are inheriting.

Photo credit: behind the scenes taken by Andrzej Gruszka.

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The Creative Industries Need Our Support

A few months ago, a person who was explaining their business venture to me told me that their target client was not the creative entrepreneur. Their reason for avoiding this segment of the market was that, according to them, creatives are known for not making much money and we wouldn’t be able to afford the services that they offered. That is why, they continued saying, they couldn’t come up with a business strategy that relied on us. This idea that creatives can’t live from their art is not new. BBC radio Veteran John Humphrys famously said that “Art Does Not Get You A Job”, and a phrase like this said by someone who works within the industry shows that we have a lack of support from outsiders as well as from peers.

Last year, I wrote a post titled Art Puts Food On The Table about the contribution of the Creative Industries to the UK economy as a reaction to the thought that, while we are contributing massively to the economy, it doesn’t feel like we are given the importance that we deserve. This is something that also troubled Dr Mari Hughes-Edwards, the creator of an artists’ network with the aim of encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration across the arts sector, who said that “now more than ever, the arts are minimalised and trivialised”. The network that she created is called Art Does Not Get You A Job, and its name is inspired by Humphrys’s phrase.

In July this year, the Creative Industries Federation (CIF) sent the new British Prime Minister an open letter stating that “The Creative Industries are the UK’s fastest growing sector, growing in every region and at twice the rate of the wider economy. In 2017, the sector generated £101.5bn GVA (that’s more than aerospace, automotive, life sciences and oil and gas sectors combined). There are 2 million jobs in the Creative Industries (and jobs in the sector are growing at three times the UK average), while the Creative Industries account for more than 5% of the UK’s economy, and almost 12% of all UK businesses. Moreover, 87% of creative jobs are resistant to automation, which means that a creative workforce is one that is both resilient and future-proof.”

Later this year, the CIF also published an open letter to the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson MP, on the value of creative education.

It is true that early-stage freelance creative businesses struggle to take-off, but the same can be said of so many other industries. So, what’s the difference between our industry and others?

Well, for starters, in other industries like Technology, investors throw millions of pounds at thousands of startups in the hopes that at least one of them becomes the next big thing. In the Creative Industries, you have funders and patrons, but there aren’t enough, or there isn’t enough money to be able to develop early-stage creative businesses as there are in Technology.

Second of all, as Sonya Dyer says in her essay “Pivotal Moments”, mid-career creatives, considering mid-career to be the longest and most productive phase of a creative’s life, do not receive the same level of support that early-stage creatives receive. So, if early-stage creatives receive very little support, mid-career creatives don’t receive any at all.

This is the state that our industry is in right now. Like we have seen from the figures, we are a vital component of our economy, but one that seems to be as invisible as air. So, the same way that we need air to breathe think of all the consequences to our economy if we stopped creating financial and business support that targeted creatives.

If you don’t believe me, think of all the movies and the TV shows you like, think of the clothes you wear, the spaces where you live, the places you like to visit because of the way they are designed. Think of your favourite music playlist. Think of that witty ad that made you smile, or of the books you read, the poems that inspire you, the photos or artwork that hang on your walls. Think of museums and galleries, theatres and concert arenas, think of the videogames you play or the foods that melt your senses. A creative made that happen for you. Do you still think we are not worth targetting?

Photo credit: behind the scenes taken by Andrzej Gruszka.

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