 Hey, folks, welcome to the podcast. Today, my friend Emily Smith came in for a chat and she is an assistant producer in factual television. And so we had a really good conversation around the reality of working in broadcasting. So we spoke about how we tap into media today and how Amazon and Netflix are changing the way we watch and consume TV programs and content and so forth. And what's in store for the future of technology is become more and more connected. And we also have a little conversation around the mental toughness of working in a freelance role and a gig economy as we're seeing the world going more and more towards people working on their own or freelance and not wanting to work in big companies. So it's quite a shift in mindset and mentality and Emily seems to be coping really well and it's really interesting to hear her perspective. Hope you enjoy the conversation. Hey, it's Lewis. Welcome to the podcast. Enjoy the conversation anytime, anywhere. And we're live. Hello. Emily. Hi. How are you doing? I'm very well. Thank you. How are you? Good, good. So we used to work together. We did. Like, so 2012, which is cool. And you've blossomed into the wonderful young lady that you are today. Hopefully, still working on it. So what do you do now? So now since graduating and working with you and also not working for a little bit and doing different other various things, looking for a job, I now work in television, broadcast television, making factual TV as an assistant producer. Nice. Did you do that at university? No, I did classics. Classics. So how did you get from classics to wanting to work in TV and stuff? Well, the thing about working in TV is you can actually do a media studies degree. I'm quite opinionated about whether that's a good use of your money. And because tuition fees went up for my year, I wanted to do something that I thought would be valuable in the long run. It hasn't proved to be that valuable because no one cares that I've got a degree. No, actually no one cares what you did. No one cares. I did chemistry. No, exactly. But I do try and occasionally reference Virgil or Horace or Ovid just to make me feel less bad about my £51,000 worth of debt that I've got. £51,000. And it's ongoing. It's like an 8% interest rate. Yeah, they're quite cheeky because they only charge you at the end of the year. So even though you're paying back, they'll charge you for that year's interest. Yeah, so they let it all kind of load up. They let it screw up and then they like whack you with a bigger bill. Yeah, I'm not that keen on that. But yeah, so I work in TV now. Nice. How have you found it? I love my job. I really, really love it. It's very, very hard. It's difficult. It's very constraining and the commitment is just all-consuming. And I find that a lot of my friends and partners that I've had don't really understand what it is that I do. And they don't really understand that it's not quite the same as most of their jobs. In one way? Mainly that it's... Even though it's very flexible in one way, it's also very not because the hours are just so, so rigorous. You end up doing crazy, crazy long hours that are definitely illegal all the time. And that's just an industry standard. So it's very exploitative, generally. But no one really talks about it because it's the same for basically everyone. So what do you do? So you have like a project, a TV show, whatever, and you're working all hours, whatever you have to do to get it done? Exactly. And I think as the industry has changed, even in the time that I've been working in TV and I've watched that kind of happen, it means there's less and less money. Whereas I think maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, someone doing my job would actually get a lot more money and have a lot more benefits. But they kind of, they're scraping that back and they're just making one person do the job of three people. And there are so many less benefits now. You don't have kind of unlimited booze, unlimited drink, like everything is just on a budget. You can't get wasted at work anymore. Nightmare. No, there's no drinking and driving now, which is a shame. But there used to be loads of like independent, small production companies, right? And I guess with Netflix and Amazon, it must have shrunk a lot now or? Yeah, a lot of the more independent companies are still kind of bought out by people like Sky because they can't really afford to be making as much TV on their own. There are still a few really great independent companies that are making groundbreaking, compelling TV. But the majority of them are just bigger companies that are independent and they consider themselves indie. However, they do still have 10% share taken up by a bigger conglomerate. Obviously they're owned by bigger. And is most of the content being generated for Netflix? So for what I do know, I'm still kind of working in broadcast television, although I think things are gonna start to change. And I think a lot of the shows that I'm working on will try and find another home, whether it is abroad or online, because yeah, TV is just, I think it's not struggling, but it needs to innovate. And I think it's not innovating at the rate that it can be with the onset of other kind of competing platforms like Netflix and Amazon and startups that are made by entrepreneurs who have that young mindset, whereas a lot of TV is still run by old white board members who don't understand their target audience and they don't really understand their employees either, so. With all of that analytic stuff, it's so easy to understand who your audience are and stuff, but you can, mostly you can, I guess, do YouTube and it's really changing a lot. Yeah, I think. I don't think I would even watch, I probably don't even watch TV. I know, that is really, really scary. And I think the audience that do watch kind of your flicking channels is getting older and the young people are flocking to YouTube and they're watching stuff on Netflix and they're watching things on Amazon because it's very easy to get what you want there, whereas the old form of television is kind of, it's out of touch and it's not giving the young people what they want, so they're not gonna watch it. Yeah, no, true, true. I had a big debate with my mates. Most of us, to be honest, I may say I watch sport, but I like to like sky sports, beauty sports, they've got all the football and everything and then programs, I watch Netflix or I like to just go down a rabbit hole in YouTube or even Facebook, there's quite a lot of stuff. Yeah, people don't have the attention span that they used to, so even though they'll dedicate an hour a week to watching Game of Thrones, they're not necessarily gonna watch the kind of Obstocks that I make unless something really catches them. But then people do like documentaries, though. Yeah, people do and that's what's really interesting because I've always loved documentaries and I've always loved crime and now it's really in vogue, which I find kind of exciting, but also a bit shocking for me because it used to be a bit of my niche and now it's very widespread, but that means that there's so much more to watch. So you work on some crime stuff at the moment? Yes, I am working on just mainly crimes, Obstocks, which is observational documentary, so they're just documentaries where you, as a viewer, just see basically what someone else does and there's not very much producing, although there is always producing in television, but there's not any kind of presenter directing the flow of what you see. So it's just like a fly on the wall documentary. Yeah. Where's your next one? My next one's in Kansas. Wow. So I'm gonna be following the cops. Nice. I was gonna do American accent, but it's really bad. No, I'm not gonna do it, but yeah, I think that's gonna be very interesting and very topical. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So you're gonna be in a car with a couple of cops? Yes. And in the back seat? In the back seat. Camera out and... Yes, so I just did that with the cops, well, the police in Northampton. Oh, right. And that was very eye-opening. Yeah, yeah. But I think that it's gonna be... Well, racial tensions are much stronger in America, I guess, than here. Exactly. Although you'd be surprised, there was a lot of racial tension in Northampton. Really? I think Brexit has made... What between... What police... Oh, not... Well, a lot of Brits hate the police anyway. Socially, yeah. Yeah, so there's a lot of kind of just bad blood, anyway. Yeah, yeah. I think that's definitely worse in America, but that's because you're more likely to get shot by an officer than you are here. But still, I think just generally in groups in Northampton, there was a lot of tension and a lot of people that didn't like each other. Crazy. Hence Brexit. Hence Brexit. And then in Kansas, Kansas is super interesting. Yeah, I think also because of its geography in America, it's kind of on a state line, so I'm gonna be in Kansas City and you've got Missouri on one side and then you've got Kansas on the other. So I think from what I believe American states don't really converse or work very well together because of their jurisdictions. Yeah, so I think that's gonna be interesting. Yeah, how long are you gonna be there for? I don't know yet. That's the thing about TV again. You just don't really know. You might have a rough idea, but then someone will tell you to do something for longer or they'll just be like, oh, you're not staying any longer, which does happen as well. So I think I'll be there for six weeks to two months and then back and forth for the next couple of months, but who knows. And with these, obviously, to give a good unbiased view is it must be quite difficult. Certainly if you're gonna be in a cop car with some cops in America and they turn out to be racist or just doing stuff that's not quite, doesn't sit well with you. Yeah, that's something that I'm gonna have to reconcile, but also I don't really know how it's gonna go because what we try to do in the last show that I did is make sure that we have as little impact on what goes on in front of us. And people always think, oh, if there's a camera there, then people are gonna act differently. And that is true. However, you do forget. So I can film someone and they'll be so pissed off, they'll be so pissed off. And then 10 seconds later, they'll just forget about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're out with offices for 12 hours for six weeks, it does just become part of the daily routine. So, although- What are the people that they're interacting with? Do they have to be on camera or? I don't know how it's gonna work in America because in the series I've just done, we would use public interest and also just go in with the police. And then we kind of seek consent and just find out all the legalities afterwards. However, in America, if you go into someone's house without permission, they do shoot you. So I don't really know how that's gonna happen. Just stand well back, get the vest on. I know. In fact, stay in the car. I know. But it's strange also, Americans love being on TV and they've had cops on the TV for such a long time that I think that actually getting consent and getting people that wanna be on TV is probably gonna be easier in America. Yeah, yeah. That'd be fun. I don't know. That'd be fun. That's scary. How have you mentally adjusted to this freelance, like freelance, gig economy? Because usually, as I said, we've talked about this before, mostly when you're growing up, it's like education. If you go to university, you go to uni and then you typically follow a conventional career. And our parents, well, I'm saying my dad anyway, he was in his job for like 37 years. I mean, a lot of the older generation, they go like a stable. But as you've just gone like, you never know when your next gig's gonna be. Have you found that in transitioning? It is difficult at times and it has its benefits. But then I think psychologically, it can be very stressful. And I think you have to be able to have that mindset that you will work again because for all you know, you might not. Yeah, yeah. TV is very, very reference-based. So it's very insular. So if you do a good job, you generally just get referred onto someone else. And it's very kind of constant like that. But there are always those days when you're in between jobs where you just think, oh God, my rent's due. I might not work again. It does get scary. But I've been very lucky and I haven't had periods of unemployment yet, touch wood. Nice, nice. So to get in there must have been quite tough originally. Yes, it's very difficult to get in. Did you do like runners, jobs and? Well, for me, I found it quite surprising. So I was lucky enough to work with you, obviously. So I had a working background. But at the same time, I also... And you worked with me throughout uni. Yeah, I worked for you throughout uni. But I was also working at a production company, if you remember, but doing adverts. And I was lucky to have that background. And so I thought, oh, OK, I got a first-class degree from a rest of the uni. Just throw that in. Cool, better than me. And I've been working since I was 13. I've got loads of things on my CV. Good grades. Generally, hopefully quite personable. I don't know, you can tell me. All right. Maybe. Yeah. So I thought, oh, OK, I can easily get a job on TV. But it was not easy. And for five months after I graduated, I just couldn't get a job on TV. And I was applying for running jobs, which is supposedly the bottom rung of the TV industry. But I wasn't hearing back, really. Harsh. Yes, really harsh. And that's the most difficult thing, I think, is when you come out of uni, you're kind of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and really excited for life, and you're ready. And then it's a huge knockback to realise that actually you're one of a million and not one in a million. Well, that's the thing. And also, like, loads of others have first-class degrees from other universities. Exactly. Like, you kind of, suddenly the real world is so much bigger than your school, your university. And also, so many options. Exactly. And I think you have to make a decision on what you want to do in such a transition period that you're not even really that sure. You're like, oh, I really want to do this, but do I? Do I really want to do something that doesn't really seem to be lending itself to me because no one's calling me up, even though I'm sending my CV out? Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. Even deciding what to do, whether to go into TV or to try something else, or... Because you've got no idea. And they will say, like, you can do anything you want to do, which is hard, because if you've got so many options, you've got no idea what to choose. You haven't tried anything, or maybe you've tried a little bit of stuff. It's hard to get into. You get kind of pushed and pulled by different influences in your life, as well, because my parents were very much of the mindset, oh, you've got a good degree, just go into the city and earn those money and retire early, even though they're very creative people, as well. They just kind of saw that as not the American dream, but, like, the dream for their daughter to do really well and be financially able to buy a house and not have to worry. And I guess just what you do after you do a good degree is go on and go into the city and follow that. It's the one that pays the most. Exactly. So I had that. But also, they were very much of the mindset that I had to make my mind up. And they know that I'm very creative, and I always have been. So they were also saying, well, why don't you go and be an author? You always wanted to be a writer. Why don't you go be a journalist? Go and do a master's at the city university and do journalism, which was also another option. And I nearly did that, but I couldn't be bothered to do the application form. That's the truth. I looked through and my self-defeatess attitude was, I just, I can't do this. So I just didn't do it. So that's why I didn't do journalism. But also, it's another, but you haven't got to do journalism to master's or degree to be a journalist. Exactly. So if you set up a podcast, I wouldn't say I'm a journalist, but it's still a little kind of media-y platform. I think anyone that finds out about other people is a journalist of sorts. And that's what I'm doing in television is I'm telling stories. And that's what I always wanted to do. And that's my vocation in life, I think, is meeting people and hopefully having an opportunity to extend them by putting them on a platform where other people can hear their voices. It's funny, because you do something quite different to me, but actually really we do the same thing. So I'm obviously run a head-hunting firm and I'm speaking to people about their stories and helping them through their lives and careers and stuff. And then with podcast, I'm speaking to people about their stories and sharing their stories. And the thing that motivates me most is like the human contact. Completely. Like a proper conversation with someone. Because if we were having this conversation on WhatsApp, you need to be like thinking how to respond to me and I'd be thinking the same. Whereas here, we're having a real-life conversation and most people are like losing that now. No, I know. I actually also had that part in my head which was thinking do I just stay at Bentley Lewis? Because I, and I say this unbiased, I actually loved working here so much that that almost made me wanna change what I think I would actually really wanna do just because I loved the working environment and we had so much fun. We did, really. And I feel like I did grow a lot working here. So I thought that was also another option and I could have done that. And I think I would have still been happy. So that's the thing. When you're 21 and you're graduated, you have so many different paths and actually you can find something you love down many of those paths. It's just picking one and going for it. Yeah, most people I meet, and this is gonna sound a bit sad, I find most people don't enjoy what they do. So I mean, 90% of the people I meet and they probably either got pushed by their families, let's say, into a career that they didn't really wanna do. Or you end up getting caught in something. You're making money, you're living in a city, you need to cover rent and all this stuff. And again, people that end up don't have the courage to actually try and do something that they really enjoy or even they actually don't really know what they enjoy. Like it's quite, it's a very tough thing. For you to have found something that you really enjoy is really lucky. Yeah, I'm very fortunate that I stuck with it because I did very nearly change my mind. So I think I graduated in August and I was casually applying for jobs. And what I didn't realize is how you have to apply for jobs is you have to apply for 100 jobs a week. But to me, I've always been a little bit, I guess, lazy in my attitude sometimes. Even though I'm really motivated and ambitious, I've also been a bit of a slacker at times. So I was just applying for like one job every couple of days and then just getting a bit defeated when I didn't hit back and then just applying for another one. And so I was working all that time and I did get offered a few other jobs from other industries. I worked in market research for a bit. But by end of January, I was just thinking, oh God, okay, maybe I just need to go to the city and maybe I just need to do something else. And maybe my dreams of doing something to do with kind of writing or presenting or film or TV are just pipe dreams. So I started applying for stuff in the city and it's like getting traction all of a sudden. What's a banks and... Yeah, and all of a sudden I was just like, okay, well, at least someone wants me and these are really, really great firms. And then that's when finally my one job came through and that was my first ever job and that's the company that I just finished with on Friday. Oh, amazing. So that was just a complete lifeline and it was at a point where I was just about to change, I guess, my 20s. It's quite a big jump from taking a permanent job in a bank with all the benefits and everything to I'll just take this two month contract and see how it goes and then hopefully get another one and interesting. The mindset's the most important thing. But I was so, so excited going for that first job interview and just knowing that I was gonna give everything. Because all I wanted was an interview because I know me, I might not put the most effort in and that's a fault of my own. I might not put enough effort into the application form, which is bad enough as it is because you should be doing that. But all I wanted to do is get in front of that person and sell myself because I knew that they would hopefully see my enthusiasm and just give me a shot, which is all I wanted. And that's all I needed. And then, yeah, the rest is history. Amazing. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. Was that the biggest, like the toughest bit? Do you find transitioning from uni to work? Yeah, it is difficult because as I said, you just expect things to be different and you think that you're different and that's one thing I've learned in life is you learn that anything can happen to you and it just does. So you just think, oh, I'm different. So this is gonna be easy for me. You can be very complacent if you've been lucky enough to kind of breeze through life and do well at school and do well at uni. Yeah. You can just suddenly get a real shock when not that everything was given to you on a plate because it wasn't you worked for it. But when you realize, yeah, it's a big world out there and you've got to do, you've got to put so much work in to get very little back. Yeah, that's true. Also, the thing you find when you start work is it's a real cliche, but it's like a marathon. You know, like climbing the mountain and there's so many, it's such a long career that you have and so many different routes and things to do. You find, I find when I meet people who've just finished uni is they're like really trying to rush to get to the top or specific thing and they're not enjoying the journey and the learning and the experiences and stuff like that. It's really important to do, I think. I agree. I think there's so much pressure, but it's you kind of put it on yourself because you wanna look good. You wanna meet up with your friends from school who've got jobs and say, oh, I've got my job that I wanted. You wanna, you feel that competitive nature that I think is kind of fostered within you if you grew up in the UK where you're an individual and you're told you can do whatever you want and you really, really wanna be doing that but more for everyone else rather than yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to get out of that. And obviously with Instagram and Facebook and all this stuff, everyone's posting cool stuff of what they're doing and you just get caught in a, I don't know what it is, just what your peers are doing. You wanna be impressive to them. You wanna show that you're doing well and succeeding and stuff like that when really you need to like focus on what you enjoy yourself. If you can get that all sorted then the rest of it just takes care of itself. Yeah, it makes it a lot easier for you to enjoy your job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you stop caring so much about what everyone else is doing and what they are thinking and just think about what you're doing and what you're thinking and have control over yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's tough one. It's tough one. Amazing. Great to chat. Thank you for coming on and good luck with Kansas. Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. If you get back, come back on and let us know what your experience was. I would if I didn't get shot. Cool, good luck. Hopefully not. Good luck. Hey folks, thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe in all the usual places.