Confetti Industry Week 2015

Image: Confetti

Last week saw the entirety of the Confetti student population sifted, sorted and sent out to have pearls of wisdom planted in their brains by experts in the creative industries. Speakers ranged from game testers and designers, producers and YouTube personalities, even bleedin’ Professor Green made an appearance.

Image: Confetti

Carol Frankland
In a room full of male film students, I was disappointed at first to see the room devoid of female filmmaker talent. However, as Carol entered the room - a well-established, fierce female production manager - it was clear talent knows no gender, and hopefully the lads will take on her ambition and passion.

Carol has worked for ITV, BBC, Sky and Channel4, alongside too many independent production companies to mention. As well as her television work, she’s got a list as long as yer arm full of famous names she’s worked with, including Elton John, Pink Floyd and Annie Lennox.

She began her talk by asking students to outline their current short film project ideas. She offered criticism and advice, pointing out the difficulties each project will face, and giving solutions to problems referencing examples of work from her own career. Basically, it was a great opportunity to work with a professional producer, albeit for a short amount of time. It’s such a valuable opportunity - being offered advice on a piece of current work - and it proves just how much of an immediate impact Industry Week can have on a student’s career.

Image: Confetti

Sacha Taylor Cox
I departed from a session with one brilliant woman, only to be met by another. Sacha Taylor Cox, of company Impressive PR, in her session on PR. Duh. Having worked and travelled the world for Ministry of Sound, it was exciting to hear that she began her career writing for her local cultural magazine. Just like me. She explained how she grafted bleedin’ hard, stuck her thumb in every pie possible and made sure her face was known everywhere she went. That seems to be the invincible triad for working in the industry, and without a strong combination and willingness to achieve all three, you may as well pack up shop and head off home.

I was thoroughly engrossed in her career path - she’s worked in both print and radio, meeting a swimming pool worth of bands and artists. I was grinding my teeth in excitement for the possibilities of my future career. The motley crew of students who had attended her session were predominantly in bands themselves, so Cox kindly went on to instruct them on how to form their own press releases.

I made my departure with a spring in my step and a tingly tummy as I thought of what my own career might entail.

Look how happy she looks...

Professor Green
Friday saw the headline act, so to speak, of Industry Week. Professor Green would be travelling to Hood Town to have a chinwag about his career in the music business. I’ve never been a particular fan of his music, but I was interested to see what he had to say to a group of young, aspiring musicians.

Pro Green, real name Stephen Manderson, was well-spoken, intelligent and very bloody funny. I am not in the least bit ashamed to admit that I developed a schoolgirl crush on him. Growing up on the Northwold Estate in London, he was raised by his nana, who the big softie gives all of his awards to. His father was absent from his life and committed suicide when Green was eighteen. He sold bud on the estate (hence the name) until he was signed to Mike Skinner’s label, The Beats.

Perhaps the most valuable thing that I took from his session, and I hope that the students of Confetti picked up on this too, was that he was completely unashamed of who he was and where he was from. Manderson was open and honest about his upbringing, his life and the way he deals with his own depression. It was both humbling and inspiring to hear him relate to the lives of young people today.

He explained that when young people are born into ‘disadvantage’, it’s easy for them to see their small world as the be all and end all. They can’t see a way out, and so make a claim on their estates. The Professor was adamant that no matter the struggle, there is always a way out. There will always be a way for young people to progress.

While his interview was mainly centred around his career as a performing artist, and Green talked a lot about the obstacles he had to overcome to get where he is today, much of the conversation revolved around his extra-curricular activities, shall we say. Marijuana was a key topic. While it evoked some uncomfortable shuffles from tutors, the Confetti massive loved it.

I found myself meeting and greeting the main man himself to get a quote for this article. To be honest, I just wanted a fan girl picture and a chance to state my claim. When asked - very professionally, despite my fluttering heart - why Industry Week was so sick, Green replied, “Industry Week is sick cos people like that bloke Professor Green come and talk about smoking weed in front of people where it’s really, really, really inappropriate to do so”.

Nusic Megashop
The Nusic Megashop started with an advice fair from loads of different organisations in Nottingham: YMCA Digital, Young Creative Awards, Acoustic Rooms, Notts in a Nutshell, BBC Introducing, and yours truly. We brought badges, mags and Notts What I Call Music CDs for everyone because Nottingham’s budding musicians deserve treats.

Any road, after having a few chinwags with up and comers, we took a seat in the Nottingham Arts Theatre for a Q&A session with XFM DJ John Kennedy, a Drowned in Sound reviewer Dom Gourlay, and NME Journalist Rhian Daly, all chaired by Mark Del. Questions flitted between the personal and advice-orientated, but these naturally tied into each other. Industry Week is great for hearing other people’s stories, especially when they are so successful – there’s loads of transferable information available and it all seems to be fairly consistent in that industry professionals have all worked their bollocks off to get to where they are now.

They’ve worked shitloads for free, worked because they enjoyed doing what they’re doing and, with a dash of being in the right place at the right time, they’ve worked their way to the top. John Kennedy made note of the fact that he never wanted to be a DJ as a child or anything, but he started going to clubs and bars to play tunes for fun, and it went from there. Rhian grafted and grafted while supporting herself financially through carrying plates – you can’t be workshy in this game.

There were a lot of questions about how to best grab the attention of the media, and advice boiled down to a handful of things: be relevant, have a friendly tone, and keep trying. Inboxes can get drowned in emails and it’s easy for yours to get lost in the madness, so a few gentle pushes without being rude can go a long way. It’s also hugely important for an artist to do their research on who they’re targeting and ensuring that their songs are getting to the right people – no point in sending your heavy metal cum gabba mashup to Ray Charles, is they duck?

Finishing up with a hilarious ‘Spread the Love’ session, the Nusic Academy Megashop had a great atmosphere throughout – getting down to business without being too serious about it. We’d advise any up and coming musicians to get down to them, not just for the excellent opportunities to hear from industry professionals, but to network with local musicians, van blokes, radio producers and more. It’s like light-hearted speed dating for musicians. Plus, you might end up getting your stuff played on XFM like Keto, Deaf Bridges, Field Studies and Opie Deino did. Big. Up.

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Cassetteboy
LeftLion interviewed Cassetteboy back in the day, around the time they were transitioning into YouTube superstars. These days, they manage to pack out Nottingham Arts Theatre with people wanting to know more about mashup art that takes the piss out of politicians and TV chefs alike.

Unbeknown to many, Cassetteboy is actually a duo. They entered the stage with big cardboard cut-outs of cassettes on their faces in a bid to remain anonymous, right alongside DJ Rubbish who sported a blonde wig and glasses.

This was one of the silliest talks of the week, but that’s not to say we didn’t get anything out of it. One of the best bits of information from these guys was to have a bit of fun, and not take yourself too seriously. As long as you’ve got a few good mates around and you enjoy doing what you’re doing, you’re laughing.

The duo first spoke about originally making mashup tunes on cassette decks, before the age of new technology, and how they broke most of their machinery from pressing the buttons too fast. Influenced by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, On the Hour, and the bleak, dark humour of the nineties, Cassetteboy’s work is a mad mesh of humour, musicality and craziness.

One half of the duo took the lead for the majority of the talk, and made it clear that the advancement of technology didn’t necessarily make things quicker for them. Being limited to a record and stop button meant things were much easier and simpler, and the new software available today was likened to staring at a blank canvas. Plus, the guys can get quite hung up over a tiny section in the end product that they keep going back to. Back in the day, once it was done, it was done.

They showed us a few blurry pictures of them working back in the day, clearly having a laugh. The pictures instigated this quote - “When working, at least one of us was topless.” After messing about with clips from Two Fat Ladies, they realised they could attack subjects using their mashup techniques, leading to footage of David Cameron telling the truth for a change, as well as making celebrities swear by cutting up syllables of words.

What Cassetteboy have been doing has long been illegal, hence the disguises. They took footage which was previously owned by someone else and used it to create something, so although getting really close to being on the tellybox, getting commissioned and all sorts, broadcasters got cold feet worrying about copyright issues.

Luckily for Cassetteboy, and parodists all over the UK, the law has changed to allow parody (yay) but that doesn’t necessarily mean YouTube is going to change its terms of service (boo). There have been times when the duo woke to find their 5 million hit video had been taken down, taking half of their channel views with it.

These days, Cassetteboy are making a bit of cash doing commissions for Digital Spy, The Guardian, and other TV channels. They even host comedy discos at Glastonbury with DJ Rubbish as their host, aiming to engage with the audience a little more.

The whole copyright/ownership palava was difficult and expensive, and Cassetteboy were never too brand aware. We got the impression that this weird hobby of theirs swept them away a bit – the duo have still got day jobs recording audio footage for blind people to listen to while watching the telly, and hanging pictures in rich boggers’ houses, but things are looking up. One thing they’re scared of is losing the love for it – it’s one thing messing about with your mates making daft songs and videos, it’s another thing entirely creating commissions for a company.

A quote from Picasso summed up the talk rather succinctly: “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

Confetti’s Industry Week ran from Monday 2 – Friday 6 March

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