Hello there! I thought I would start my blog with a little bit about little old me:
Right, I was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada though to hear me you wouldn't believe it. I grew up in Tulsa, OK but again I got rid of that accent pretty quick too. I moved to England when I was 11 and stayed there for the next 15 years - I have recently returned to my roots and ended up back in Ottawa in June 2006.
In London I worked in television. Well, after going through school, college and university. I worked for the largest independent production company in the UK called Granada TV, they make Coronation Street and a lot of other very popular shows. I worked there for nearly 4 years - from October 2002 to June 2006 - and worked my way up through the ranks from work experience, to junior researcher, to researcher, to senior researcher to assistant producer (AP) and finally I was a shooting AP.
At Granada I worked on gritty and not so gritty factual programming. When I started I did a couple of installments of the "From Hell" series (Diets From Hell and Facelifts From Hell) - great car crash and tabloid TV. And really great experience in people finding... and learning how to get them to say and do what you want. After that I worked on a BAFTA nominated series called House of Horrors where the production team pose as householders and expose dodgy tradesmen - again great for the research skill building and for the CV!
After this I went to work on the first of (I think) 4 series of 60 Minute Makeover - a house makeover show that is done in, you guessed it, 60 minutes! Now that was great for the organising and planning, as well as blagging - I don't know if it's a purely British term, but "to blag" is to get something for free. In the case of 60mm, I was blagging for other people's homes. And the companies that we blagged from did get some exposure. I did 3 series of 60mm and watched it change from a normal series to a surprise and went from researcher to AP on this show.
Somewhere in the 60mm lull between series, I also worked on New Homes from Hell - by far the worst (for me) "from hell" I ever had to work on. I am not a builder, carpenter or even a house owner so why do I give a toss that people's houses are 1 inch off the foundations or whatever visually (and verbally) boring problem you have?! Another thing that made this show, well "from hell" (I couldn't resist) was my boss... ever read "The Devil Wears Prada"? Think about her but add Freddy Kruger and you'll have an idea of what I faced on that show. But you're still not close. She's a different story all together.
Anyway, after my 3rd series of 60mm I did some edit producing on another "from hell" (Staff) which was really good experience but probably my worst show I worked on there as I was mainly on my own - I work so much better in a team. I then went on to work as a shooting AP on Just Jade - with the ever delightful Jade Goody. Now this was a great show to work on - it was basically following Jade for 6 months while she (we) created a perfume. I got to go to Mumbai & Goa in India, Nassau, the Cannes film festival (not to mention the MTV Party at Pierre Cardin's villa) and Grasse, France - the perfume capital of the world. Now those were the highlights of working on the show. We also spent a lot of time in Essex. With Jade. Just Google the girl, or youtube her, and you will see. She's recently been behind the huge racism scandal in Big Brother in the UK and her career has been pretty much destroyed - kind of ironic that Big Brother made her and broke her... it also shows the British public's obsession with reality TV pretty well too.
So there we have it. Me in a nutshell. Some people ask me why the hell did you trade London for Ottawa? Well, I ask myself that question sometimes too. It really was a life choice - my boyfriend and I decided that we'd had enough of city life and both love the country so why the hell not? And me being Canadian had a lot to do with the decision as well! I am now working back in TV here in Ottawa... it surely is very different.
Right, I was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada though to hear me you wouldn't believe it. I grew up in Tulsa, OK but again I got rid of that accent pretty quick too. I moved to England when I was 11 and stayed there for the next 15 years - I have recently returned to my roots and ended up back in Ottawa in June 2006.
In London I worked in television. Well, after going through school, college and university. I worked for the largest independent production company in the UK called Granada TV, they make Coronation Street and a lot of other very popular shows. I worked there for nearly 4 years - from October 2002 to June 2006 - and worked my way up through the ranks from work experience, to junior researcher, to researcher, to senior researcher to assistant producer (AP) and finally I was a shooting AP.
At Granada I worked on gritty and not so gritty factual programming. When I started I did a couple of installments of the "From Hell" series (Diets From Hell and Facelifts From Hell) - great car crash and tabloid TV. And really great experience in people finding... and learning how to get them to say and do what you want. After that I worked on a BAFTA nominated series called House of Horrors where the production team pose as householders and expose dodgy tradesmen - again great for the research skill building and for the CV!
After this I went to work on the first of (I think) 4 series of 60 Minute Makeover - a house makeover show that is done in, you guessed it, 60 minutes! Now that was great for the organising and planning, as well as blagging - I don't know if it's a purely British term, but "to blag" is to get something for free. In the case of 60mm, I was blagging for other people's homes. And the companies that we blagged from did get some exposure. I did 3 series of 60mm and watched it change from a normal series to a surprise and went from researcher to AP on this show.
Somewhere in the 60mm lull between series, I also worked on New Homes from Hell - by far the worst (for me) "from hell" I ever had to work on. I am not a builder, carpenter or even a house owner so why do I give a toss that people's houses are 1 inch off the foundations or whatever visually (and verbally) boring problem you have?! Another thing that made this show, well "from hell" (I couldn't resist) was my boss... ever read "The Devil Wears Prada"? Think about her but add Freddy Kruger and you'll have an idea of what I faced on that show. But you're still not close. She's a different story all together.
Anyway, after my 3rd series of 60mm I did some edit producing on another "from hell" (Staff) which was really good experience but probably my worst show I worked on there as I was mainly on my own - I work so much better in a team. I then went on to work as a shooting AP on Just Jade - with the ever delightful Jade Goody. Now this was a great show to work on - it was basically following Jade for 6 months while she (we) created a perfume. I got to go to Mumbai & Goa in India, Nassau, the Cannes film festival (not to mention the MTV Party at Pierre Cardin's villa) and Grasse, France - the perfume capital of the world. Now those were the highlights of working on the show. We also spent a lot of time in Essex. With Jade. Just Google the girl, or youtube her, and you will see. She's recently been behind the huge racism scandal in Big Brother in the UK and her career has been pretty much destroyed - kind of ironic that Big Brother made her and broke her... it also shows the British public's obsession with reality TV pretty well too.
So there we have it. Me in a nutshell. Some people ask me why the hell did you trade London for Ottawa? Well, I ask myself that question sometimes too. It really was a life choice - my boyfriend and I decided that we'd had enough of city life and both love the country so why the hell not? And me being Canadian had a lot to do with the decision as well! I am now working back in TV here in Ottawa... it surely is very different.
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