Candu Media

Third and final talk arose and was held by Neil Shand regarding working in film and television industry, many of the talks and lectures we have throughout our university lives are very informative but are shrouded by some form of white lie, maybe that a degree is essential or you can get a certain job as soon as you leave university but Neil laid it flat out on the table how to get into the industry and stay there.

He started by telling us the formalities of who he was and a brief outline of who he has worked for and so on, he then showed us two clips: first was a student film he made with his friends then the second was a clip from when he worked on Heartbeat and he began to explain that he went from being a media student just using the equipment whenever he could (which he advised those who were interested in getting into the film and television industry) and then he contrasted it to when he was an assistant director on the set of heartbeat.

Throughout the whole of the talk Neil didn’t talk of his CV or any of that he told of how to make it in the industry and that started with persistence: he explained that he wasn’t given a job straight away, he said that he would continually try to communicate with anyone within the ITV and other television companies until he finaly got a break for doing some television work with Essex police but even then he still wanted to work within ITV, several years down the line he left Essex police and moved back up to Leeds to chase his dream and eventually he got his chance, coming from and old friend who had recently been hired as a lens cleaner at ITV, he began to hang around with him and help him with work then he got offered a 6 month contract and it went on from there.

His strongest point throught the talk was his emphasis on passion, he said that without it you would go nowhere and usually this comes from people who are just trying to get your attention about something but with Neil you could tell exactly what he was talking about through his body movements, down to his voice, this was a man who knew what he was talking about and he knew what he was talking about, without a doubt he was the best speaker of the week.

This has been my reports of my 3 Enterprise Week talks at Leeds Trinity.