How I make a living from death
Photos of dead people
Whilst searching the internet Violet found a photograph of a fireman on the internet.
Dressed in uniform standing up the fireman is actually dead and has been propped up as a memento (There are however, some views that so called ‘corpses’ that are stood up aren’t real). After finding more of these pictures Violet decided to set up a blog and collate them in one place. After posting a link to her website on Facebook she had 800 hits in one night.
Violet describes herself as a ‘Curator’ of these photos. She doesn’t own them and they’re out of copyright as they’re so old, so her website is effectively just a collection. Although shocking to some the photos aren’t gory, in many of them it’s difficult to tell who is actually dead. There are lots of photos of people with small dead children. Unfortunately in the 18th & 19th centuries a photograph was the only memory a family had and the infant mortality rate was particularly high. It was normal for dead bodies to be kept in the house until it went to the funeral. There are even photos of deceased dogs. Part of the intrigue is that these pictures have no back story. It’s possible that some aren’t dead. Often amateurish propping up of bodies is a giveaway. Some people say it’s sick but Violet thinks it’s good that they were up front about it. She believes these photos are taken as a remembrance and we all die, it’s a fact of life.
Jewellery
As the ‘Plush’ toy business was time consuming and not very profitable Violet decided to utilise her skills as a Jewellery maker. She now makes ‘Mourning Jewellery’ that has an anatomical (skulls, owls etc) and Edgar Poe type of look and feel. This ties in nicely with her website and she sells them via an online shop. The website gets thousands of hits per month from people looking at the photographs and it’s this traffic that she uses to generate sales for her jewellery business. It’s this ‘cross pollination’ that she encourages. Everyone should have a web presence of some sort even if it’s just Facebook. It’s difficult going into retail but if you do she recommends that it would be best if the retailers buy stock rather than on a sale and return basis.
Violet also recommends keeping overheads down if possible by working from home (she worked in an old coal shed under the stairs), using resources you already have. Money can also be claimed back for expenses whilst working from home.
Violet recommends becoming self-employed as the hours are more flexible and easier to fit around family life or other commitments.
Her online shop was set up using ‘Big Cartel’ which allows you to sell 3-5 items per month for free or up to 25 items for £5 per month.
In closing Violet said remember to cross pollinate and link everything, a great image sticks and will drive traffic to your website. Facebook, Tumbler and Twitter are all invaluable. It’s through this that Violet made friends with a book editor who through her contacts has managed to secure Violet an invite to a conference for female bloggers in London. Her website could now get turned into a book. She also made links with another website called ‘Spooky Isles’ and now writes pieces for them for example about ‘The History of British Vampire Myths’. She now gets business through the ‘Spooky Isle’ website.
Violet felt she did everything wrong but somehow managed to survive anyway, despite everyone’s gloomy predictions.
Overall this talk was inspiring and contained a lot of useful information. It highlighted how important the internet is to building a network and obtaining business. Violet demonstrated that to succeed takes hard work and a few knock backs but if you persevere then success is possible. Here's a link to the website www.theskullillusion.com
Getting a Job
This was a lecture by Wendy Rees from BBC . Wendy heads up operations in the North of Wales for the BBC. The BBC covers TV, Radio, sport, factual, news and online. She began by giving us some background to her career. She started out as a Law Student and was offered a position with a Welsh Language station in its Legal Department but had an opportunity to do a bit of everything. She took every opportunity offered her way. She was seconded to set up a training company running craft courses for the independent sector in Wales before joining the BBC.
Wendy works mostly in HR or training. She was asked to do this job and it opened up lots of doors and gave her good exposure. She didn't have a plan and didn’t start out on traditional journey. Wendy recommends that you be very flexible in your approach to work. The BBC employs around 20 thousand people primarily in the UK but also has a global market. It has a myriad of opportunities as a host of different skills are required to support the operation.
The BBC has a Production Trainee Scheme and talent pool. It's looking for passionate people who are interested in what they do. Out of their talent pool of recruits for production trainees, around 12 per year are employed. It also has a business trainee scheme and a design trainee position. Wendy said that your portfolio is more important than formal qualifications. They are looking for creative people that are interested in what they do. Lots of its output has moved to Salford so there are vacancies there. She recommended that you register on website. Work Experience are often 1-2 weeks placement, maybe casual work to start then permanent positions may follow.
How does the BBC recruit?
The interview process is competency based. Wendy said at interview stage they ask for evidence, questions such as "tell us about a time when you’ve done a certain thing". For example an original idea turned into a film or radio show. Draw on your own experiences. On the standard application form, be concise and precise. Ensure answers are relevant to question.
They need to know why you measure up to the competencies. A starting point is the job spec. Draw out key things they’re asking for. This should get you an interview, although they get thousands of applications so you need to stand out. Do this by demonstrating that you’re different and interested in what the BBC does.
The BBC doesn’t have people that work in silos. Multi-skilled operators are required to work in more that one area. Flexibility across a number of disciplines in any role. A 9-5 job is becoming a thing of the past. Technology is moving on fast and have to keep up. Lots of content is user generated and comes in from a variety of sources. BBC has to adapt to this.
It is hard to get work and there’s massive competition. If you’re keen and flexible and can stand out then you should be successful. Lots of help on website.
I found this lecture interesting and had some good advice. However, I've applied to the BBC on two occasions for work experience (following the above advice) and have not been succesful. The application process they have is surprising as they do not ask to see any examples of your work but expect you to write thousands of words reviewing its programmes, providing suggestions on how they can help socially excluded areas of the community and giving ideas for new programmes. Whilst I understand some of the reasons they do this, the majority of people that are applying for work experience are creatives and their strengths are in making things and not writing essays. I therefore think many talented people are missing out on these opportunites. It would be much better if they asked you to make a short film so you could really showcase what you can do. I appreciate the BBC is probably inundated with applications but in my opinion they're not getting the best out of creative people with this process.
Piece to Camera
Matthew Richards reporter for Wales Today gave a talk on the best way to interview on camera. Firstly, he gave us a bit of background to himself. He has been in North Wales since 2000. He’s previously work in English Language and radio. Matthew left university with a journalism degree and got into the BBC on its regional trainee scheme. He’s worked on the Radio 1 Big Weekend and at the Cannes Film Festival and is a regular on BBC Wales news.
He began by defining exactly what an interview is:
- Reporter/Presenter speaking directly to camera
- Any contributor speaking on camera
He then gave us some pens and paper and asking us to get into groups of two. One person was asked to describe an image on a piece of paper whilst the other person drew what was being described. It was an interesting exercise that demonstrated that with an audience you have to be descriptive about your message so that it is clearly understood and not misinterpreted.
We were shown a film called ‘The Bad Interviewee’ where Matthew interviews himself. It demonstrated how an interviewee can ruin an interview. The interviewee was constantly fidgeting, used jargon and kept looking at the camera. Matthew said that with editing a portion of this interview could still be used providing it contained the information that was needed.
Matthew recommended that as an interviewer you should always start with the basics questions , who, what, where, how and why. Preparing questions in advance is important.
We were shown an example of ‘Ambush Interviewing’. A film of Ali G interviewing the famous astronaut Buzz Aldrin where there are innuendos and odd questions to try and make the interviewee look silly. It’s entertaining but I wouldn’t like to have been the interviewee!
Another short film entitled ‘Cassette Boy vs BBC News’ took different clips of news and edited them together to make an entertaining and alternative news piece. This reminded me of the audio assignment we were given in year one.
As an interviewee Matthew gave the following tips
- Be passionate, animated and lively
- Show control
- Speak naturally
- Explain any technical terms that you use
- Don’t get too personal *
*Other interviews were shown, one with Tracey Emin where she talks in too much detail about her personal life and one with Dennis Potter which demonstrated how to display emotion correctly.
Matthew then ran a news feature about Banksy. It showed how he is able to deliver his message without doing any interviews. The final film we saw was called ‘How not to walk out’ and was made to demonstrate how to quit an interview in the right way.
This was an information session, with some good practical exercises and advice on how to conduct interviews.
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