Finding My People - PART ONE

[00:00:03] I'm Claire Duffy, I am a writer and a producer but really I've come to realize I'm a bit of a jack of all trades. I have had 8,000 day jobs along the way and brilliantly I'm coming to realize that every single thing I've done, however irrelevant or just for a bit of cash it seems to be at the time, has all been qualifying me to do this. I am launching the very first Glasgow Tele Festival.

[00:00:30] It's nothing like any of the industry festivals you've ever seen before, it's very much its own unique festival. We're going to be pitching essentially to people of Glasgow and beyond almost 60 ideas for big exciting ambitious TV dramas. In loads of different ways there's going to be script readings, live script readings that you can go along and you can actually hear some incredible actors bringing these scripts to life.

[00:00:57] Everyone who's there live and watching online is going to be able to say, I want more from this series. We're passing the power of commissioning TV over to the only people that matter, which is the audience. There's no secret to anyone that UK drama, TV still stop is in a crisis. It's a huge opportunity to build from the ground up an industry that actually works for creatives and specifically for Scottish creatives.

[00:01:25] Scotland's women, our lives, our stories. Now let's get on with the show. It's great, lovely to see you. Big exciting things are happening for you.

[00:01:51] Absolutely. I keep saying to people I feel a little bit like I'm living in a tumble dryer but in a good way. I think it's partly because of course this is the first year of the Glasgow Tally Festival. And so I'm learning and I'm figuring out how to do it as I'm doing it. Sometimes I talk to somebody and I'm like, oh, actually that was a really good idea. And right now we're doing that as well. So yeah, no, I am. I'm living in a tumble dryer but in a really, really good way. Oh, that's such a huge achievement.

[00:02:18] And I love when I say, it's having confidence in your ideas, isn't it? When I see women doing it and they're just like, just wait and see what happens. It's a learning process, a big journey. And congratulations. It's great news. Thank you so much. You know, it's been such a funny thing. And I think it is something to do with, especially as a woman, when you get to a certain age, you just get, no, hold on a minute. I do know what I'm talking about. My ideas are good.

[00:02:46] And I feel as though I've been thinking along these lines and kind of coming up with these types of ideas for my entire life, certainly my adult life. And whenever I got someone go, oh, I'm not sure if that would work. I go, oh, you're right. I was just an idea. You know, I did that all through my 20s to a lot of my 30s. And there is something that I keep saying to people. It's weird how suddenly those voices, I'm just like, oh, right, you don't get it. Not a problem. I'm going to talk to the next person.

[00:03:14] It's this funny thing that I said to someone the other day, actually, that it almost feels, and I don't mean this in a big woo-woo kind of way, but a part of me does feel like this has already happened. And I'm just along for the journey. Like nothing really feels like, oh, it's not going to happen. It's just like, man, this is a bad day today, maybe. And the vast majority of the days have been good. But at an odd time that there has been that kind of questioning, I'm just like, cool, cool. You're not on my level. Not a problem. Oh no, on we go. Good for you.

[00:03:42] I feel the exact same way. Why is that? Do you think that women feel like that? So I think that, so I've got a real issue with the idea of imposter syndrome because I feel it's one of these things that people talk about as though it's a thing women just came up with. We all just decided to feel like imposters one day, when in actual fact it is imposed on us by society, by the patriarchy.

[00:04:08] I can't tell you how many times I have sat in meetings and I've maybe been pitching an idea or whether it's a story or an idea of how to do a production. And people have questioned and they've questioned and questioned and questioned. And you do start thinking, hold on a minute, I clearly don't know what I'm talking about here. And so then you question yourself. And then when you do get an opportunity, you remember those voices from before and you start thinking, well, hold on a minute, I didn't know what I was talking about then. Maybe I still don't know. That's how imposter syndrome, it gets imposed on us.

[00:04:36] And I think something happens when you get into your 40s. One is, I think I start, I think we all start talking about our experiences much more. And that's one of the things that I actually think is a real positive about social media. I know it's not a total positive. No, 100%. Yeah. Women connecting with women more, I feel. Exactly. Because you start realizing, hold on a minute, it's not that I'm incompetent. It's not that I'm not confident enough. It's this is how women are treated.

[00:05:03] We all have the same stories, whether it's in the industry or out in society in general. So I think that's a really positive thing that you start going, well, hold on a minute. Is it maybe that, you know, because I've watched guys I've been in workshops with, maybe like screenwriters workshops back in the day. Like, and we were maybe like the two kind of like the stars of the workshop. Everyone was like, oh, Claire and so and so are the ones that are great.

[00:05:27] And then, you know, five, 10 years later, he's getting massive commissions and has, you know, big series on the main channels. And I don't and I don't begrudge him at all. I wouldn't think fantastic, totally deserved. But you spend a lot of time kind of going, well, so clearly I'm doing something wrong then because everyone thought I was as talented as him. But whenever I go and pitch, they're like, oh, but that doesn't work because of this reason. And maybe have you thought about this? And I don't think people will get that. And you start you get all these voices in your head.

[00:05:56] And then, yeah, you kind of get into your voice. And I do think that is a part of just I don't know if it's menopause or what it is, but you definitely get a much more like I no longer have time to care about what people think of me. I'm just going to do my thing. And then when you combine that with understanding that every woman in the industry and beyond has had similar experiences, then you start kind of going, right, I have something to say here. I have experience.

[00:06:23] I've always had really good ideas, but now I've got the kind of the life experience and the confidence to back them up. So I don't know. It's a very it's a magic time. I know I couldn't be doing what I'm doing any earlier in my life. Really? Yeah, I would have definitely I would have had the idea. I've always had ideas around this kind of thing. And I definitely would have thought, oh, my gosh, what about a festival? What about this big thing? I would have had the ambition and then I would have been knocked a couple of times and I would have been persuaded that maybe it was a daft idea after all.

[00:06:53] And so there's something about, yeah, that kind of the power of the late 40s, which I think is quite exciting. When you look back on it, that was probably just two people in this world that were saying those things to you. And you're like, why am I listening to you? Because you are you're conditioned and you're trying to play the game and stuff like that. And then you're just kind of like, I don't want a minute. No, my opinions, my ideas do matter. And I'll keep fighting for them. Good for you. I'd always been a storyteller.

[00:07:23] I went to drama school first and did a foundation course at Lambda. I didn't even know if I really wanted to go into theatre, but I knew that I wanted to work in the industry. I wanted to tell stories. I wanted to be in entertainment in some way. And I didn't. Looking back now, I think I probably knew that I wanted to be a writer. But strangely enough, I had I was a bit intimidated by it. I was a little bit like, that's such you're the one writer, you know, on a film or a play even.

[00:07:49] There are many dozens of people that are doing, you know, there's the whole cast. There's the crew. There's all these teams of people. And there's one writer. That is quite scary when you say that. Well, exactly. I remember as well, really, so I'm skipping back a little bit. But after I did this foundation at Lambda, which was a kind of a little bit of a general. There were some directors, there were stage managers, there was actors. And we did a bit of everything, which was quite a good grounding. And then when I left, that was just a year's course.

[00:08:16] And I pretty much scattered on an empty CV at every theatre in London, which is where I lived at the time. And a handful of them just kind of went, yeah, OK, you can come along and help with this for a couple of weeks. And I went, great, fine. Which led to like, I got hired as a wardrobe assistant on an open air production of A Midsummer Night Dream. And I remember when I got there, I was going to say it was an email. But no, we didn't actually have emails then. It was really a letter. And we got a phone call saying, yep, come in and do this. And I said, look, I don't know how to sew. I don't know anything about costume.

[00:08:46] And they went, no, no, you're just helping out, you know, helping to organise the clothes. Maybe doing a bit of ironing, but you're just sort of, it doesn't need any skills. And I was like, oh, well, OK, then I'll come along. It means I'm doing something. It's a wee job for six weeks or something. Cut to me being sent with a needle and thread into the wings to repair Puck's fly, which he had managed to like come undone on stage. It was pitch dark in between scenes. The poor man pretty much saw his ability to father children flange before his eyes.

[00:09:16] As I'm having this needle going, I am so sorry. Yeah. So there was a few jobs like that, that I was just like, what am I doing here? But then after a while, I started to realise that writing and directing was really what I wanted to do. Again, I'd probably known that all along, but it feels a bit up yourself. So it's a bit like, I want to be the director. It does, doesn't it? It totally does.

[00:09:41] And again, I was already at this point being told that there's not very many women directors. There's not so many women writers. If you're a woman in the industry, you're going into costume or makeup or casting. I mean, casting is a tough, actually all of them are tough, tough jobs. But somehow they tend to be more dominated by women. There's this idea that maybe it's people skills. There's something a bit softer, more gentle about it. And I was like, no, I want to be the director.

[00:10:06] So anyway, I managed to eventually get a few jobs, assistant directing, assistant stage manager, and put a handful of fringe plays around London. And so I'm getting back to where the intimidation of writing kind of came from. Because I remember really distinctly being in rehearsal one day for this play. It was this American play, but the Vietnam War was a brilliant play. And it was a little like studio production in Wimbledon somewhere. And one of the tea breaks, I think I was getting everybody tea or whatever.

[00:10:33] And I spoke to one of the actresses who was in it. And she was sitting scribbling away in this like a diary journal thing. And as I was taking her tea order and she started telling me what she was doing. And she was journaling as the character. So like every day, whenever we did a scene. Oh, wow. It's actually a cool thing, right? That is such a cool thing. It's brilliant. And she's amazing. I won't say who it is, but she's brilliant. She's done very, very well for herself quite deservedly.

[00:10:59] So every time we ran a scene, because at that point we were quite late on. They were off the book and it was running. She would sit down and she would write how her character had felt in that particular run of it. So that then she could go back and see the different emotions that different rehearsals had brought out. So that she kind of knit them all together into her performance. And I was just like, wow. Like that is, it's such a cool thing to do.

[00:11:23] But then I remember getting this panic of, are these things I write enough to make it worth it for someone to do that? You know what I mean? Like I really thought about how much you have to pour into a character to justify somebody else working that hard on something you created. And that was really, it was inspiring. It was terrifying at the same time.

[00:11:50] And that was kind of where I was like, I know I want to be a writer, but I don't know if I'm up to that. I don't. So again, I don't think that was imposter syndrome as much as it was. Actually, I respect for what the job entails. I'm actually quite glad that I have, because then when, I think it was two or three years later, I was like, no, I actually really, really want to write. I kind of knew what I had to live up to. I've always had that actress in my head.

[00:12:19] Whenever I sit and I write a character, I think about all the different layers and the different ways they might feel in a given scene. This actor gives a line to them that way that might give them anxiety or it might be them angry or whatever it is. And I think that's just what you have to do as a writer. How is it being a writer? I would always think writers are in their head. Is that not difficult?

[00:12:43] You're constantly taking on new personas, new characters and trying to put yourself in their position, feel how they feel. Is that not very difficult? That's like, I couldn't be in my head all the time. It's a scary place. It definitely can be. Like I always kind of joke that writing is a bit of therapy and it kind of has to be because you have to access so many.

[00:13:07] I think you do have to be, I think, reasonably, what's the word, like emotionally literate or emotionally aware because you do have to. I think it can drive you a little bit bonkers in real life in some ways because I give a lot of thought to why people do what they do. Because you have to, because you have to know why even your antagonist, even your serial killer or your whatever the big bad guy is or girl is, you have to know why it is logical. And it almost everybody thinks they're doing the right thing.

[00:13:36] Almost everybody thinks that they are the hero of their own story, whatever you or I might think of their actions. So they can actually drive you a bit bonkers sometimes because the amount of times I've had like an issue with a friend or a partner or a guy that's chucked me or whatever it is. And I'm sitting there going, well, I think that might be because his mum told him this and he's now got this pressure to. And I'm like, do you like totally analyze things? Wow. That's a really good skill to have.

[00:14:04] But also it can have its cons, can it? It can drive you a little bit bonkers. And I think sometimes, I think over the years, I probably learned to switch off in my personal life more than like when I was younger and I didn't even consciously realize what I was doing. Although that said, you do have to spend a lot of time in your head. But I actually really believe that screenwriting in particular should be a much more active process than it is. So I'm a massive old Hollywood geek.

[00:14:31] When I started writing, very quickly, I stumbled across a book about Mabel Norman. It was over in LA. I went to film school after all that in Vancouver. And we used to go down to LA every once in a while to pretty much sit in coffee shops and tape screenplays to sort of pretend that we were part of it and hope somebody might go, oh, what's that you're writing? It looks amazing. I'm going to take it to my pal Steven Spielberg or whatever. Never happened. We just sat in Starbucks in Glendale Boulevard or something.

[00:14:59] But anyway, while I was in there, I stumbled across this book in the Pasadena Public Library about a director named Mabel Norman, who was this fascinating woman who lived, I think she was born in the 1880s. And was one of the early pioneers of filmmaking. And one of the things that drew me to the book was that she was a director. She was an actor as well. And she wrote some of her, or she improvised, she was a comedian. And I remember thinking, well, hold on a minute.

[00:15:24] 120 years later, I'm being told that it's very difficult for a woman to direct. And yet Mabel Norman, she was already doing it. And in fact, I got a bit obsessed with this. I came to realize that up until 1925, an average of 50% of Hollywood releases were written by women. And for many of those years, there was almost 50% directors as well, which is mind blowing.

[00:15:50] In the last few years, I think the best we've got for writing is 11% and directing is 80%. And that's in the 2020s. It's horrifying. But so what I got really fascinated with about that world, I was thinking, well, how was that? Why were they so much ahead of us in many ways? And there's a few reasons for it. But one of them is they didn't know what a film was. They didn't know what Hollywood was going to be.

[00:16:15] And you do see that as like a pattern throughout history that you get these new, even coding. Women were the original coders. And then all of a sudden, the money came in and it became this real thing. And all of a sudden, women didn't know how to code anymore. It's exactly the same in the film industry. So it's all brand new. People kind of, it's yeah, it happens. It happens everywhere. But because they had no idea what a screen story was, and that can apply equal to film and TV, because of course, they didn't know either yet. They improvised. They just made it up as they went along.

[00:16:43] They kind of had a camera and they knew that there was a way to tell stories with it. And all of the language of cinematography and the structure of a screenplay and all of that that we now take as these kind of like laws that must be obeyed because they have been established. They were just figured out as they went along. They were in these barns in West Hollywood. And they were just coming up with ideas. And when they maybe had an idea, they thought kind of worked. They would go outside.

[00:17:10] They would start the camera cranking and they would improvise. And they'd be like, oh, right. Okay, it's getting boring now. Let's get someone else's in. Let's have an explosion. Let's have a, you know, whatever. And let's move in a bit closer and see if we can really see the actor's eyes. And that tells us something. I know, let's call it a close up. So that is how filmmaking was born. It was people saying, we've got a story to tell. What is the most efficient, the most exciting way to tell it? Let's just figure it out as we go.

[00:17:38] And I think that we've lost that a lot in the film industry. Screenwriting now, it is much more literary. And you're right, we do. Screenwriters just sit around with our laptops and our notebooks and just think things in our head. And that's not really how to use the medium. Because the fact is, a character and a page and a script is nothing without an actor. Yeah. So one of the things that I'm trying to establish, I think is really important that we get back to, is getting actors, getting directors involved really early on in the process.

[00:18:08] Getting things up off their feet, on their feet. And just giving life to it at a much early process. What I found very interesting of it is how you've simplified it. And I think what has happened is overcomplicated. And then giving excuses, oh, it's very technical. Or it's very this. And discouraging women to become a sound recordist, for instance. Getting into sound that's predominantly male-orientated in the industry.

[00:18:34] And there's no encouragement when it becomes very technical. But everybody is a human being. They figured it out all this time. But it's become a system now. You know, it's very... And there's rules to it. But it's like, well, the rules were invented. When you're sending out this wonderful woman, she was just doing it as a go. What are the stories that you're most passionate writing about? That is such a good question.

[00:19:03] In a lot of ways, I'm kind of passionate about every story. And I know that's kind of a crap answer in some ways. But whatever stories I write, I'm passionate about. And I've never really stuck to one genre. I've written crime, thrillers. I've written romance. I've written historical. I am really passionate about history. I'm a real history geek. And I love it. One of my series at the moment that I shall be hopefully premiering at the festival is a time travel. And it's about the history of Glasgow.

[00:19:31] In fact, to be honest, if there was any genre that I've come back to, it's not exactly a genre, but it probably is Glasgow stories. I actually grew up abroad. I'm from Glasgow originally. This is a bit of a ridiculous story, but it maybe kind of tells you a bit of where that passion comes from. So I'm from Glasgow originally, but my dad got a job abroad when I was eight. And I grew up in France and in the States. And particularly when we moved to the States, I was really, really homesick when we were there. I just didn't really, I was a bit of an awkward age.

[00:19:58] I think when we moved, my younger siblings were still quite young, but I was 10, almost 11. So I was kind of coming into those teenage years. That must have been hard, yeah. So yeah, it's a tough, it's a tough age, I think, to be very different. So I was a little bit like bullied from accent at school and I just wanted to go home. I want to see my grandparents. I wanted my friends. And every day I would just come home from school and ask my parents, can we go home? Can we go on? Can we go home? One day my dad came home from work and he was like, look, I've got this.

[00:20:27] I found out about this Scottish festival that's on next weekend or whatever. We can go along. And I was so excited. And of course, this was not long after. This was summer after the Glasgow Garden Festival. So in my head, it was going to be just like that. So it was going to be like, I don't know, there would be the Bruins and there would be Iron Brew and there'd be pies and what have you. I just started thinking, I'm going to pretend that I'm home for a little bit.

[00:20:49] And of course, we got there and it was all Highland tossing the caber, kilts and whiskey and all that kind of thing, which is it's all fine. And it is Scottish as well. But of course, it didn't resonate with me in the same way. And I was absolutely gutted. And it kind of became a little bit of a thing for me as I got more into my teenage years. We moved to England when I was almost 16.

[00:21:14] But until then, just because I think that the international view of Scotland is very Highland dominated. That's what Americans tend to be aware of. It's what most around the world. If you say you're Scottish, they're like, oh, well, does your dad wear a Celtic? Have you got a castle? And I'm like, well, my dad's from Castle Mill. So does that, you know? And so I did start to get a little bit of a bee in my bonnet about the fact that nobody knew. Nobody knew Glasgow. Nobody knew the Scotland that actually resonated with me.

[00:21:43] So over the years, I did start to get really passionate about sort of telling, I guess, telling the story of Glasgow in terms of history necessarily. But showing the Glasgow that resonated with me, all the humour and all the quirky wee characters and, you know, the way that community is such a big thing. And a little bit of that rough and readiness. But then also it mixed with so much kind of warmth and humour and so on. And that definitely, I think, became even more when I started writing my novels.

[00:22:12] A lot of people who've read my novels tend to react to the fact that Glasgow is almost like a character in and of itself. And that's something that I'm, yeah, I'm really, really proud of that bit a lot. And it's been really lovely to almost come full circle. Having lived all over the world and now live about 100 metres away from the flat where I lived with my mum and dad when I was born. Oh, wow. Full circle. Totally.

[00:22:39] So it's there. I've not just come back to Glasgow, but to not even just the south side, I've come back to Charlotte. I love that. I love that. Tell us what's happening now. You've got a big announcement to make. I am launching the very first Glasgow Tele Festival, which is hugely exciting. It's a completely unique festival. So it's nothing like any of the industry festivals you've ever seen before. It's very much its own thing. It's very, you couldn't do it anywhere else. And I kind of love that.

[00:23:08] It's very inherently, there's a little bit of chaos and it could go either way. And that's something that is just, it's so exciting. And it's a big part of what makes it such a thrill. And that kind of came out of everything I've been talking about, this total lack of references to Glasgow. And this applies to a lot of areas of Scotland, obviously my familiarity is Glasgow. But there's a lot of versions of Scotland that all of us are like, well, I grew up here and this is the world I know.

[00:23:35] And I've not seen it represented on screen. Every time I see Scotland, I see not only Highland, I think people in the Highlands probably feel the same way because they also don't live in the 17th century or the 1800s. They don't all cut about in kilts and be, you know, noble warriors and they don't all live in castles. And so it has been a thing for me most of my life that it's not even that Scotland isn't represented on the world stage in terms of screen storytelling. We have Braveheart and Outlander and so on.

[00:24:05] But also we don't because both of those were written and directed and produced by Americans. So there's quite a unique thing where, of course, there's loads of countries that you might not have seen a lot of their culture on major screens. But Scotland and probably I think it affects Ireland in the same way. It's not that we don't see ourselves at all. It's that we see a version of ourselves that's been invented by somebody else. And that's a mission for me to address.

[00:24:32] And as a writer over the years, I've had these Glasgow scripts that have done so well. I've got agents. I've got other jobs from them, but none of them have been made. And that's sometimes partly because they kind of push comes to shove. They're like, could you maybe do this in London? Or could it be English characters? Or could it be this? Or could it be that? Because there is this weird perception that authentic Scottish stories aren't interesting to the wider world. But I've never believed. I've always fought back against that.

[00:24:58] It's no secret to anyone that UK drama, that drama, that GV full stop is in a crisis. And it has been for a good couple of years at this point. It does disproportionately, I think, affect us in Scotland because we have the pressures with streaming, which we've never really properly worked out. We just kind of started streaming stuff and then made it up as we went along. And then, of course, the economic situation and so on. That affects everybody.

[00:25:22] But when you combine that with the cultural and, let's be honest, political and historical reasons that maybe authentic Scottish voices are being a little bit unheard or pushed aside, it's kind of a perfect storm or a very imperfect storm for us where the industry is in a particular extra crisis, as it were. So that all sounds really depressing.

[00:25:46] But I also think that it is an element of Scottish earth and there's a huge opportunity to build from the ground up an industry that actually works for creatives and specifically for Scottish creatives. So where did this idea come about? Do you just wake up one morning and go, yeah, I'm just going to do a festival? I mean, has this been going on for a good couple of years, planning? No. No, it has been really? No, this is what I mean. I started off by saying I feel like I'm living in a tumble dryer right now.

[00:26:16] I had an idea last summer for a way forward with the industry. Risk aversion is it's the core of all the problems. And as I say, that affects everyone globally. It's the same reason that Hollywood is doing nothing but superhero stuff again and again and again, because it's perceived to be a safer bet because people have heard of Batman or whatever. And they don't seem to realise, well, OK, just because they've heard of it, they don't want to see 75 films about the same characters. But it does affect everyone.

[00:26:45] And then the way that very specifically affects us in Scotland is that, yeah, there's like this gloomy crime dramas. And then there's sort of piling sexy Jacobites and very formulaic stuff being made in England and the States and everywhere else. But because it's such a narrow view of Scotland that's considered a safe bet.

[00:27:04] And then that then gets compounded by the fact that there's this kind of perception that, oh, if we fly this name director up from London or this showrunner or this writer or this star from from Creation Street or Doctor Who or whatever, then it will be safer. Then it will be bigger. And safer bet.

[00:27:23] Yeah. And it's just and it's not only nonsense, but then that's also it becomes this kind of vicious cycle where nobody who is in Scotland is getting the opportunity to get to be those names because you're not getting the opportunities in the first place. This is a problem that has been I've been aware of. I've been thinking about it for years and years and years. And then last summer I started thinking of the solution. So I came up with this idea that is the solution.

[00:27:49] I researched for a few months and I spoke to a lot of people and I was building it and building it. And I realized that I have to launch it with a ban or could just get kind of lost in the phrase. Because I think that the film and TV industry, again, like many industries, it doesn't really want to change. And it's got this almost like delusional sense of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And we're all going, it's broken, though. It's totally broken. And the industry goes, yes, no, you're right. We'll have a panel discussion and we'll discuss how broken it is.

[00:28:18] And then we'll continue to commission the exact same way that we always have done. Yeah. I knew that if I just launched one project in this new way, it could get swept under the carpet as just a wee thing somebody was trying. And I knew that it has to be a revolution. It has to be not just one project, but an entire new system of how we do this. Because that's the only way it's going to work. It's a new evolution and ultimately will be as big as when TV came along and affected cinema.

[00:28:46] This is now the third big kind of phase. And it's already underway. There's been social media and digital productions and YouTube and so on for quite a few years. But it's been a bit of a wild west with just different people having a goal. And I think, as I say, what we have to do now is just bring that into a really integrated system, into something that actually creates a foundation of a new industry. When you were talking to people and the idea was coming about, what was the general feel? Like, who were you speaking to?

[00:29:16] Were they all saying the same thing, but too afraid to maybe rock the boat? Because you're probably talking to a lot of freelancers. That's their livelihood. In the freelancing world, Scotland's a very small pond. Scared to say anything because they might not get a job. They've got lives to sustain. They've got to eat, you know. And what was the general feel when you were speaking to people? So at that early stage, I wasn't just speaking to Scottish people.

[00:29:42] In fact, I don't think I spoke mostly to contacts that I'd had sort of along my career for many years. And I spoke to Swedes and Germans and people in London, people in the States. Because I kind of just wanted to bounce the concept. Again, that people at quite a high level. Because again, I was like, I don't want this to be a wee thing that I'm doing. I really want to be like, this is. So I got a lot of feedback. And really, pretty much without exception, people were really excited.

[00:30:11] So I do think that there's been so much talk about the problems in the industry. And as I said, there's definitely stillness action that would like to just carry on and put their heads in the sand and pretend it's not. But I also think that the crisis has reached a point where we know that solutions are crucial. Or else we're just going to lose the whole industry eventually, you know. Don't say that kind of. No, it scares me because I know that you're right. And nobody's doing anything.

[00:30:39] And it's just kind of like, sweep it under the carpet. But it'll come back. The amount of people I've heard, it'll come back, it'll come back. Maybe you've not been directly affected of it. But it will reach that point. And you will be because it's not going to stop. It's going to keep going. Well, exactly. And that's what I mean about this being like this huge systemic issue. And it has to be changed at that level. This isn't just about freelancers in Scotland's employment.

[00:31:08] That's a huge symptom of it. But this is, it's much, much deeper than that. For that kind of first phase, it was pretty much unanimously. This is brilliant. You have to try this. This is great. How can I get involved? How can I help? How can I? So I knew very quickly that I had something. That really proper people at high levels of the industry were going, Oh, I make sure you've got my number, right? You keep me, keep me informed about this. And I was like, yes, brilliant.

[00:31:33] So I knew that I needed to launch it in a way that kind of introduced it at the level that I needed to and made the kind of noise. And then honestly, I had the flu over Christmas. I had this rotten flu. I got it the week before Christmas. My family all lived in London. I was too ill to even get on the train. I spent like 10 days just lying on my couch, coughing miserably alone. Oh, no. It was sort of depressing. But do you know, in a weird way, it was what I needed. Because after the first few days when I was just like awful,

[00:32:03] the second few days when I was too shattered to get up and do anything, but my brain starts working again. That, I mean, that whenever I let myself get really, really bored, that tends to be when my big ideas come. And sure enough, I had just been to a brilliant gig with my favorite bands. And so I was all kind of excited and I was booking up. I was like, oh, I have to go to loads more gigs this year. And what are the festivals on this summer? And I was getting so excited. I suddenly went, oh, that's what I have to do. It has to be a festival.

[00:32:32] It came to me, I think it was like the 27th of December or something. And the first Monday of January, I kind of got up and I went into the office and went, right, how the hell do you put on a festival? And that's pretty much it. That is amazing. That is amazing. Wow. You just, and I love how you've got the confidence and you believe in it. Because as you said, throughout your career, throughout your life,

[00:33:02] rejection's tough. And in the media industry, TV, film, that's where imposter syndrome comes from though, is being in the industry we're in, is we're constantly getting rejected. And we're in an industry that really praises, we have award ceremonies, we have BAFTAs, we have this. And it's an industry where you're constantly being judged. And that's what the TV film industry is like. And no wonder all of us have this imposter syndrome, because sometimes it is,

[00:33:32] it's just like, oh, we'll just go with the flow. It's kind of working. We'll see what happens. And the formula of how it's working, it's not working, but people are, you know, everybody's scared. You know what it is? It's really, it's the unknown at the moment. And it is, it's very scary because it was always like this for a while. And then it's just went, it's just went down. And so I feel you having this idea, it's like,

[00:33:59] do you feel everybody was just maybe waiting for you to make the first move and to make the first step? Because nobody else is. I do. I definitely think that is, it's one of these things that, again, I'm not a massive like universe woo-woo sort of person, but definitely the timing of all of this. It's just been, it's the right time for me. It's the right time for the industry because you're absolutely right. I do think there is a lot of fear.

[00:34:25] It's something I've been for so many years because nobody can speak out about the real problems that they are because you don't want to get on the ringside of people who might be able to get you development money or a job or whatever it is. But that's where in a strange way, having been a woman in the industry and having been a bit of an outsider in the industry, I've been in the industry, but I've also, I've done a lot of like kind of different things I've been in now. And for the last few years, I've been a full-time author. So in a strange way, I've got nothing to lose.

[00:34:54] I have literally nothing left, nothing to lose. Next time on Scotland's Woman. It's all about the journey and it's the starting gun of the revolution. So it's not the revolution in and of itself. It is how we go, right, here we are. This is what we're doing. So I think as long as we establish that, as long as it gets the attention, as long as we show off this incredible sort of array of talent in Scotland that, you know,

[00:35:23] that nobody else can ever say, oh, well, do they really even have the talent fill up there? That will blow that conversation out. It's showing the talent. It's showing the potential of what we can do when we have a playground where we get to be risky. We've created a community that was already there, but we sort of like pulled it together into a thing, into a movement. Thank you for listening to Scotland's Woman. We would love to hear from you.

[00:35:49] So please visit the website at scotlandswoman.com as every Scotland's Woman has a story to tell. And please subscribe on wherever you get your podcasts. Scotland's Woman, our lives, our stories.