An update from the last article!

It's been over a year since I wrote my last Linkedin article - "An honest account of the last 5 months" and wow has it been interesting since!

I wanted to share some of my experiences and a little round up of the realities we have gone through over the last.... well 18 months now. This is very much a comment on survival and trying to navigate through a persistent storm filled with hard graft, ever so slight terror and alot of uncertainty. I hope you find it amusing, entertaining and enlightening and is ment to reassure you that although social media can portrait a very polished view of the world ( i'm guilty of only sharing my best days) there's an iceberg of complexity brimming just below the surface.

Like everyone Covid has changed our lives and it has created huge issues and also interesting opportunities. The huge issues that have become apparent are lack of travel and lack of willingness to facilitate or allow travel, this is particularly difficult for us as our core business was remote and hazadous locations and by the very nature of them quite a bit of travel was involved... And that still hasn't returned.

When the first lock down happened we lost everything over night, we adapted and we sold, as most of you who will read this will know - I think every single one of my contacts and quite possibly most people in Scotland were messaged across every platform, linkedin, instagram, phone calls, messages, emails, cookie deliveries (yes we baked cookies for as many clients as we could and hand delivered - when it was possible within the rules) several times, I don't want to say spammed but we did contact everyone ALOT! My teams roles (and my wifes she dived into the business to help) changed overnight and to their testament i've never witnessed any team pull together better, faster and with more conviction to survive the sudden total upheaval of an already bizarre and strange industry!

And we survived the first lock down, we adapted, as the rules changed we changed, working from home took on a whole new meaning, to date I think we have shot 7 TV commercials in my house, now don't get me wrong its a nice house but its not THAT big... we have had some very very creative solutions employed to make working from home work. And we have given up our offices, got new offices then given them up. And outside of all this we have had the most successful year in terms of turning everything around and most importantly creating films that we as a team and our clients can be proud of.

And then the second lock down happened and we dug in and now we were getting the hang of the lock downs, we were remote filming, sending off care packages to clients, directing CEO's through zoom or teams or god forbid skype. Working with local cameramen shooting outside peoples houses, building covid testing centres for larger productions and getting international clients who couldn't bring teams over to use us to create content locally. It was chaotic, and hard, and full on and at times alot of fun.

Then the third lockdown happened, by this point it was normal, none of my team had been outside without taking a rapid test (slight exaggeration but you can understand the sentiment) for 10 months, no parties, groups, meetings, and had no possible risk of infection, and then we got through that.

And then we got into spring and summer and with this new work, local work, different exciting and complex, broadcasting large scale events, and quick turn around small productions became the norm. Speed, accuracy and adaptability have become our new watch words. And we are surviving, grafting and creating. It has most definitely been the most challenging time i've ever had working, I was going to say in film and tv but I think ever is a better description, 25 years I've been working in some form and 20 of those have been in broadcasting and these last 18 months have forced me to adapt, solve, create, think and try not to panic more than the last 25 years combined!

Its funny if I wrote down all the crazy things we have done over the last 18 months you wouldn't believe the half of it, and I am most definitely more humble, more appreciative and more thankful for, my family, friends, colleagues, clients, employees and collaborators than I ever was before. And now I'm looking on with baited breath at the year to come, excited at the new opportunities and willing to experience whatever craziness comes next, because the only thing I know for sure is that it can only get better than it was!

I hope this has been enjoyable, relatable and a fun read, and obviously if you need anything filmed give us a call, the worst thing that can happen is I make you laugh...