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I was constantly looking around at everyone other parent in my extended family. Each was home for dinner, doing the bedtime routines and tucking their children in EVERY. NIGHT. No questions asked.
Where was I?
What was so important I was never home?
I was with my other family.
My film family.
Are you going to walk on and direct for Marvel? No, of course not.
Can you walk on in a junior position and do well?
That, I can promise, is an
overwhelming YES.
What’s the secret? Lean in my friend, I will tell you…
There are a few. Some of them are so obvious you will want to smack me. I’m not kidding.
Ottawa, Ontario is first and foremost a government town. Secondly, we are Silicon Valley North with a booming tech industry. We are not known for making movies or tv shows.
Yet, we do. At 1Department, we make a ton – like 16 a year.
It’s a big accomplishment in the “Town that fun forgot”.
But it wasn’t always this way.
So many things need to be agonized over before committing to thousands and thousands of dollars in post-secondary education.
What if I make the wrong choice?
What if I commit years of our lives to an institution and hate what we are studying?
What if I realize that we actually don’t like the program and now we have wasted money?
I felt like I was the worst mother in the world.
I was constantly looking around at everyone other parent in my extended family. Each was home for dinner, doing the bedtime routines and tucking their children in EVERY. NIGHT. No questions asked.
Where was I?
What was so important I was never home?
I was with my other family.
My film family.
I am a film and television Producer.
I was making things happen. I was grinding. I was elevating my career. I was making more money than I ever thought possible. I was on the ground producing three movies that were shooting at the same time. I had 200 people employed.
And I was sad.
And stressed.
And so full of cortisol all the time you could see my belly poking out from under my shirts.
I was constantly looking around at everyone other parent in my extended family. Each was home for dinner, doing the bedtime routines and tucking their children in EVERY. NIGHT. No questions asked.
Where was I?
What was so important I was never home?
I was with my other family.
My film family.
I am a film and television Producer.
I was making things happen. I was grinding. I was elevating my career. I was making more money than I ever thought possible. I was on the ground producing three movies that were shooting at the same time. I had 200 people employed.
And I was sad.
And stressed.
And so full of cortisol all the time you could see my belly poking out from under my shirts.
My life had zero balance.
Do you have any idea what it feels like to be the biggest success and the biggest failure at the same time?
How did I get myself in a situation where every day I had to choose between my husband and two kids, or my employees who I felt responsible for like my family?
When I was at home, I was taking calls from work. When I was at work, I was trying to manage my home.
Nothing was working. I was on a treadmill that kept speeding up and I wasn’t going anywhere, except maybe right into a nervous breakdown.
I had to make a choice. And it’s not the one you may be thinking. I didn’t choose my family or my work.
I had to choose me.
I had to choose to make myself and my mental and physical health a priority. It wasn’t easy. I had to talk to my family about the challenges I was having at work and how I needed help at home. had to talk to my partner at work and work with him about having a work life balance. I realized I needed help and then I put the oxygen mask on
myself because the way I was living wasn’t helping anyone.
To do all of that, to realize I was drowning, to talk to my husband about how I wasn’t Super Mom, to talk to my partner about how I literally couldn’t do it all took one thing I hate to do.
I had to be vulnerable.
With myself.
With my husband.
With Shane.
So uncomfortable.
So necessary.
Saying I needed serious help was the hardest thing I have had to do as an adult. I cried. I felt
ashamed. I really thought I could do it all. I was embarrassed. And I was relieved.
You know what happened?
I became free. Shane told me he was feeling the same pressures that I was. He was torn between our work and his two children as well. We decided we both needed a change. And that brought us here. Instead of letting ourselves get stuck in the grind because neither of us knew how to say no, we decided to work together to find a way we could say yes to our families. So, Up Light Academy was born. We want to focus on the things we love, and that’s teaching others how to be great in our field in elevated positions but also not having to feel like they’ve lost themselves like we did.
And I was able to work with my husband and my work in a way that I could be present for both. I am showing up better for my home and my career. I have focused time.
When I am at home, I don’t have to step away from the table every night to take a call. When I am at work, I don’t have to stress about child care or extra curriculars or family obligations on my own anymore. And things are better than I could have hoped. Work/life balance exists for me now.
I’m going after bigger contracts which will benefit everyone at work. I feel connected to my children.
It’s amazing what honesty and vulnerability with self can do for your life.
This is the question that I get asked the most often.
The answer, which many don’t believe, is a simple YES. Now - don’t get me wrong: I will NEVER say no to Education. I am just stating the simple and true fact that in all my years of hiring crew in every department, I have never, ever, once checked for a film school diploma.
Are you going to walk on and direct for Marvel? No, of course not.
Can you walk on in a junior position and do well?
That, I can promise, is an
overwhelming YES.
What’s the secret? Lean in my friend, I will tell you…
There are a few. Some of them are so obvious you will want to smack me. I’m not kidding.
The first thing is: find out if there are things filming near you. If you live in a metropolis, the chances are probably a solid yes. But look in mid-size cities as well.
In Ottawa, no one would believe that over 30 television movies filmed here in 2021 and that I produced 12 of them.
First thing’s first is: be where the action is. You won’t get a job on a film set if there are zero film sets near you. (Braces for impact)
Second – know who to contact.
What good is a fancy diploma if you have zero contacts to find a job when you graduate? You need to find out who the players are. The players are the people in your city who produce content and hire others to physically create it. Most cities have a film office. They will have a list of Producers and their contact information. Ask for it. Email them. Do it often. There have been a lot of situations where someone contacts me and I have a full crew. That person emails again 3 weeks later and I have started two more shows and now they have a full contract. All because they followed up. Do not let one no slow you down.
One no is just one no closer to your YES!
Thirdly, the biggest thing about doing well starting out in film and television is knowing what all the roles are and what they do. If you don’t know what people do, you won’t
know why they are doing it. The film set is a crazy and hectic ride. I remember my first day on set and people were rushing all over. It was a language and I didn’t speak it. I was lost and confused. When I started to know who people were, then what they were doing started to make sense. I got there eventually but knowing what every person’s job was when I started would have made my job so much easier.
Forth, be nice and be helpful.
You may be the next Jon Watts but no one knows that yet. Be nice and helpful and you will get called back from film to film and doing so you will get enough experience and raise through the ranks so you can be considered for your dream job. Being friendly and good at your job is staying power and massive job security. Remember, if you work in film, you are only hired for the length of the contract so being nice and helpful will ensure the phone is ringing with offers all the time. Trust me on this.
Lastly, talk to people! You have no idea how much people will like to talk to you. Talk to everyone outside of your department. Ask the Assistant Costumer how the colours for the actors wardrobe were chosen. Ask the Key Grip what the coolest rig she ever built was. Ask the Gaffer the biggest lighting set up he did. These things are interesting to them and the will love to talk to you about it. In doing so, you will learn about the psychology of colour or a cool rig to make an amazing shot or an awesome light set up.
These are things that will help you as you advance in your career.
So, having an amazing career in film really does start with, being where the action is, knowing who to contact, know what the different jobs are, be nice and helpful and talk to people.
Do these things and watch your career trajectory change. I promise it is really that simple.
Ottawa, Ontario is first and foremost a government town. Secondly, we are Silicon Valley North with a booming tech industry. We are not known for making movies or tv shows.
Yet, we do. At 1Department, we make a ton – like 16 a year.
It’s a big accomplishment in the “Town that fun forgot”.
But it wasn’t always this way.
When I started as a Production Assistant, I only worked on three movies a year. Those were very lean times.
I had to learn how to be frugal with my few and far between paychecks and I had to learn to save. It was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Shane was at the bottom of the ladder back then too. He had to learn to stretch a dollar.
Was it a struggle? Absolutely. Did it suck? Absolutely.
Was it the best thing that ever happened?
AB.SO.LUTELY!
It was hard but I wouldn’t change it for anything. I think it’s what has made Shane and I so successful at Producing. We knew that there was no more money and we had to make it work. We do that with every show we produce. We don’t go over budget and we never ask for more.
We have increased year over year from 3 to 16 movies produced here by us. A big part is that we know how to spend the money we get to produce a product that Networks love.
If I had gone to a big market like Toronto, Vancouver, or Los Angeles, I’m not sure how my career would have turned out. Would bigger cities mean more competition and less room for growth? Would a mega budget that is just a suggestion have made me a successful producer that is able to balance creative with budget?
We learned how to do more with less. We learned how to pick out and highlight the most important parts of a story and use money to make those parts shine.
Everything about being a Producer comes down to money. How you spend it and how you don’t. “Don’t be cheap, be smart” is the best advice I can give you. We can teach you how to be smart.
When we entered Kindergarten, most of us were scared.
New people, new routines - NO Mommy.
For many of us, it was the first time we had ever had change in our routines. It was Earth shattering. It was scary.
Did you ever think that going to school would ever be so scary again? It really can be with post secondary.
If school can elevate us and change our life forever - easy decision.
If school can leave us bored and unfulfilled and in a mountain of personal debt - TERRIFYING DECISION.
So many things need to be agonized over before committing to thousands and thousands of dollars in post-secondary education.
What if I make the wrong choice?
What if I commit years of our lives to an institution and hate what we are studying?
What if I realize that we actually don’t like the program and now we have wasted money?
For a lot of people, the decision to go to school is a hard one. How do we choose where to go? That makes a huge difference in what going to school entails. If we must move away from home to study what we love, how much is that going to stretch our resources? Does that mean we have to work as well as maintaining a course load? What if we must take out loans to go to school? The added pressure to succeed is so immense that it can make us feel crazy!
With inflation skyrocketing like crazy all around us, and the cost of student loans following us into our 60’s, it’s important that we make smart decisions when it comes to committing many years to post-secondary education.
What if you could try out a school program about working in film and television, wherever you were, whatever time you want?
Shane and I both studied media. We each went to college for a two-year diploma. We know the time commitment and the cost of getting a diploma. It worked out for us. We are lucky to love what we do. But – we work with a lot of film grads. Many of them don’t make it through am entire show. They were unprepared for the realities of the job. It is hard for us to see a person commit so much time to learning our industry and not love it. We feel for these people who have spent years and thousands of dollars to get a diploma they will never use.
So, that has been a big inspiration for us to help. We have created an online course to cover all the basics of walking onto a film set and ensuring success. There are no loans, no moves to a different city and no time commitments. You can do it wherever you want, whenever you want.
This course will do two things:
it will give you the foundations to start working on set
or it will ignite your passion for a film school career and make your decision the easy one – NOT the TERRIFYING one.
We can’t promise a life in film is going to be right for you. We can promise we can help you find out! 😊
Get In Touch
Email: caitlin@uplight.ca
