Produced By - #SPECIAL - Taliah Lamont: Role Model Filmmaker at University and Beyond

Starting point is 00:00:02 Talia Lamont is London-based freelance video producer, who recently graduated from Metfilm School in Ealing, with a master's degree in producing for film and television. Born in Al-Corab, Saudi Arabia and raised in Leeds, England, Talia was surrounded by the arts and cinema since she was a child. This passion carried her through education as she started in musicals and plays and participated in collaborating with older students on business films for both of their high schools. This would lead to her decision to attempt a BA film production course at Middlesex University in London, where her short films, such as Potty the Plant and Chopsix, would win awards and be shown at festivals internationally. Currently, she focuses her own style or individual ideas with strong emotional connections and relatable stories.

Starting point is 00:00:51 Additionally, she hopes to push more LGBT plus characters and stories into the industry and shine a light on the community. I sent to this episode to get a sneak peek into the behind the scenes of Italia's successful short films, discover more about pitching projects to have them commissioned and get inspired by her story as a hardworking, enthusiastic and optimistic student. Enjoy it. Hello Talia, thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Hi, it's fantastic to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Starting point is 00:01:24 It's a pleasure. Can you please introduce yourself? So my name is Talia LeMont. I am a fullerner. am a filmmaker based in London, currently doing short films. I like to do lots of action comedies, stuff that's just exciting and funny and different, but I'm currently working on a few TV pilots, which should hopefully, yeah, get picked off the ground soon, but as the TV industry is, it's, oh, we're just going to have to work hard and see if we can get it. Yeah, fingers crossed. So, what's your position on those TV pilots? So I'm producing every role that I'm, do in my work I'll be a producer.

Starting point is 00:02:03 Oh wow, and it's not excited. Projects and ideas. Oh yeah, it's fantastic. So it's not like some smaller role in the background. It's actually one of the biggest ones. Oh, yeah. I'm really, really excited about it. I've been working with a couple of writers on a current concept we've got,

Starting point is 00:02:18 which I'll try not to disclose too much on. But it's an absolutely fantastic experience producing for TV. It's so invigorating and it's so fantastic. It's lovely to be able to concentrate on things like this. It's currently, what I'm working on right now is like a Channel 4 young adult sort of a sitcom about a effort about living in the queer world. There's obviously a little bit more to that.

Starting point is 00:02:47 Well, it's called LGB&T, lesbian, gay, bisexual and Tom. It's a really cute, daft little concept. Great guy living with gay people and being completely out of his depth than just trying his best to be a good ally. And yeah, it was just a silly deaf concept, but it's been so fun developing it with my writers into something tangible, something real. So what the stage are you currently in?

Starting point is 00:03:11 We're currently in the very fun stage of trying to pitch it. We have the pitch deck made. It's just been trying to get back in, well, get back in contact, really. I've got a few contacts in various broadcasters, but being able to arrange meetings and that nowadays is a nightmare. Is it because they are very busy

Starting point is 00:03:31 or a lot of people want to pitch to them? Oh yeah, no, definitely. Of course, lots of people want to pitch them as well. But even like my direct contacts in companies, they are so busy at the moment. It is such an exciting time for the industry right now. There's so much stuff being made, but it's also been really limiting in people's time.

Starting point is 00:03:53 You have to be much more selective now about who you talked to and when because everyone's got something to do all the time. So if you reach out to them, based on what do they decide if they let you to pitch it to them? Is it like elevator pitch or based on that you know each other? So with this particular contact, their head of productions for a UK broadcaster.

Starting point is 00:04:18 I won't say who, just in case someone tries to look it up. But I worked with them May of last year, May 2022. worked in their company for a bit, got to know them quite well. And I've been getting back in contact with them. I did a little bit of an elevator pitch with them on our first meeting together. But before we were going to move on into an official pitching stage, I'll be passed on to their scriptwriting and development team. And I'll run the ideas past them.

Starting point is 00:04:45 We'll make sure that everything suits it, that everything's feeling good, and that it suits the broadcasters sort of a content, the stuff that they like to release. And then we would go forward. I mean, actually, it'd be back to the head of productions, back to my contact, to do an official page. But she's also helping we develop it, which is pretty nice. Is it something you are excited about or are you nervous about? Oh, yeah, it's nerve-wracking for sure.

Starting point is 00:05:12 Luckily, she's really lovely, but yeah, it's absolutely terrifying putting ideas out there. It's absolutely frightening because you just want people to like it. You need to sell it. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, luckily she's really good. We have a nice relationship at this point and it's making it a little easier. Regardless with the advantage over the competition, if there is someone else who wants to pitch it, they probably don't have such a relationship. So it may be something that may be helpful for you. Oh yeah, that's what I'm hoping because it is so tricky nowadays when it comes to networking and contacts and stuff. So much more's done over the internet now. to lockdown and COVID and all that fun jazz.

Starting point is 00:05:57 Things like networking events aren't as full as they used to be. With people's schedules getting busier, sometimes there's not as many high advantage contacts going to these events. So it can be a little bit harder, like pushing your elbows in and trying to get your foot in the dot. It's something that, yeah, if you still keep persevering with it, then you will find the contacts. It's just, oof.

Starting point is 00:06:22 It's just one of the thing. cannot give up. And would the actual pitching be in person or also online? Ideally, I'd have it in person. I really love pitching. It's actually one of my favorite parts of my job is trying to sell an idea. I get really excited and passionate about my ideas. And I feel like that comes across better in person than online. Obviously, if they ask me to do it online, then I wouldn't question it. But I like to be, yeah, I much prefer to be there in person. and hopefully that's what will be set up for this one is I'll be able to be with the execs in the room

Starting point is 00:06:56 and I can talk to them face to face. Yeah, so it sounds like you've done it already, so how much experience have we got with pitchings? I've got, yeah, I've got a load. Really? I've had to pitch for every single short film I've done. Yeah, none of the projects were greenlight off of the bat. I always had to get them pitched.

Starting point is 00:07:16 And even then, it's just really like public speaking. Oh, you like it? Yeah, I really, really enjoy public. I think that's a great advantage for you as well because I feel that most of the people are rather scared of public speaking, which to me is quite understandable. It sounds great, yeah. Oh, it's so, so, so fun.

Starting point is 00:07:36 I'm still one of those people who likes to, like, proper plan in advance. Like, riffing on the flight is not something that I do with great confidence. I still like to plan out what I'm going to say, but it definitely helps that I like. like to pitch and present and speak like that anyway. God, I can't imagine doing this job without that. And can you say that with this experience, do you still get nervous when it comes to that or are you okay with it? Oh, definitely. Obviously, there's nervousness in my ability. I always, you know, I don't want to mess it up. I don't want to make a fool of myself. I want to do good job,

Starting point is 00:08:12 all that jazz. But a lot of the nervousness just comes from like, do they like the idea? Is this good? Like, I spent so much time on it. Like, to me, it's my baby, but they might be fucking at it like, ugh, no, get out. So that's where the nerves tend to lie. And can you say out of those projects that you pitched, maybe what was like the percentage of successful ones? I mean, not to brag, but I've had all of my short films greenlit. There's only a couple that happened, but that's because they're currently in development. Okay, good. Well, what can I say in probably either well-developed films or great pitches or a great present movie is pitching that. So very well done, yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:56 It's a mix of all three, to be honest. I mean, I don't consider myself great, you know, like any creative. The imposter syndrome is strong. But there's the confidence in that, like, I've had stuff greenlit before. I can do it again. The writers I've worked with are really good. I really love their work. That will be a huge boost.

Starting point is 00:09:17 I have great faith in this idea. it's something that multiple people have told me they might. So hopefully all of that put together translates into those nice, big pocket money bag holding executives to go, yes, we'll make that. Yeah, and it also sounds like something that helps you to build some kind of credibility, because maybe if you tell them that you've already pitched several films that were greenlit, it definitely gives you also a competitive advantage over someone who's never done it, and it's the first time. Oh, definitely.

Starting point is 00:09:50 Like any part of hiring a new person in any sort of industry, you want to have confidence in their previous history and confidence in the things they've done before. So having that backlog of green lights is definitely very advantageous. Yeah. And with those short films before, was it also for some television or who are you pitching to? So most of the pitching that I've done so far is for short films.

Starting point is 00:10:16 I've done several pitches for TV, but all of my short films, yeah, all of my short films were Greenlight. Those were the ones, yeah, mainly done between like 2017, 2020, 23, some time in that. Yeah, after that. So does that mean that they provided you investment or they showed it on TV or? So partially, once the project was Green Lake, we still had to do a decent amount of funding, but in most of those cases there was equipment, there was crew,

Starting point is 00:10:50 didn't have to worry about paying for that sort of thing. With the people I was working with, we were lucky enough to have a lot of other great contacts we could take advantage of and be able to get things a little bit cheaper or even just taking the time and the due diligence when you're talking to someone who owns a location or talking to someone who has something that you might need

Starting point is 00:11:12 but for a slightly cheaper rate, is just being good at the negotiation game it's difficult as a creative if you're stubborn some creators are very stubborn and have been very successful I want to say Quintan Tarrantino but the stiglinus can also cripple you unless you're a Tarantino yeah but maybe later on once you've got

Starting point is 00:11:35 your name established you can be like that as well oh yeah once you've got your name established you can definitely be more selective yeah I wonder before you you said that you've already got some context, but who did you speak to when you started? Because back then you probably didn't have any context. So who did you reach out to or how did you start? So one of them was through university, my second year short film, Pottie the Plant, now one's available online, and talk about that one. I feel like I may have seen it, actually.

Starting point is 00:12:09 We attended the same university, didn't we? Yeah, so I think they showed it to us. It was like a musical, right? Yeah, short comedy musical, the singing pod plan and the evil doctor. I will share the link like in a show note so that people... Oh, definitely, definitely. It's ever so fun. I know a lot of people probably haven't seen it, but it's... Especially for my first official short film, I was dead proud of it. It was lovely and a fantastic...

Starting point is 00:12:37 It was a fantastic production as well. I was producer. Also produced. So it sounds like your whole career has been producing. those are my main project I have done production assist and work location managing

Starting point is 00:12:50 I've helped with casting on other ones those have been projects that I've done for I've only had to be a part of like a week or two a couple of months yeah the bulk of my work of my experience is through my own production

Starting point is 00:13:02 sorry for interruption oh no no no no worries yeah the first contact was through potty the plan we'd screened it at university and the creative director of our courses she had contacts at Channel 4. She invited the CEO of Channel 4's wife to the screening. And she saw Pottie the plan and she was like, oh my God, this is fantastic.

Starting point is 00:13:26 It's so funny and so creative. I'm going to show this to my husband. And it's like, oh, you're going to show this to the CEO of Channel 4. Hmm. Like both a sense of incredible pride and just massive fear. like being pushed onto train tracks where it's like boom now you've got this light on you and it's like oh my god

Starting point is 00:13:49 and imagine being in the second year of uni it's like a great achievement yeah right I was still focused on like you know I've got a degree to finish right like I can't just pull out of that to do a TV show or can I like it was so weird but it was absolutely yeah it was absolutely hilarious

Starting point is 00:14:10 it never expected it But I was lucky enough to go to a great uni. So what was the reaction then? Did you get some kind of feedback or they got back to you or you kept in touch with them? So for the most part we've kept in touch, the project itself, Houghty the Plan is a brilliant short film. I'm really happy with the short film. But translating it to TV is difficult.

Starting point is 00:14:37 I'd like to make it into a TV series. Make it into a TV series is one of the first. those things where we would either have to remove the musical element, which we didn't want to do. We thought it was a big part of who it was. And we were having ideas of like, oh, we'll put potty the plant on like a pirate ship. We can have an episode of potty the pirate. And like we even drafted a couple of songs for that. But if we didn't remove the music, then it couldn't really be an episodic thing. Because it's like you can't really have a connected series of things. musicals. There was a cop procedural show in their 80s that was made that was a musical.

Starting point is 00:15:19 The first two episodes did great and it tanked after that. It was the example I was given when it's like, okay, if we're going to make this into a TV show, we should know that other people have tried and it did not succeed. However, I have also developed two pitch decks in case potty the plan ever wanted to be a TV show. So was it the baguadena? like sometime recently. So the first initial, like, conversations of turning potty into a TV show happened in 2019, I think, 2018 to 2019.

Starting point is 00:15:53 In that case, it was a situation of just like talking to these contacts and they were like, oh, this is really fun, but we're not too sure. We need further developed ideas to have a little bit more confidence. And it's like, that's fair, that's fair. Yeah, we'll take this away. We'll develop it a little further. And then it was while we were trying. to develop it that we started to hit those sort of marks of like,

Starting point is 00:16:16 oh, we really want this to work, but something's not clicking yet. And that was sort of what halted potty for a while. It was so difficult to adapt. We really wanted it to work with TV, but it was really difficult to strike the balance and make it marketable. So what's the current situation around it now? Do you have it somewhere in back of your mind that may be one day, or what is it like?

Starting point is 00:16:42 Oh, it's always, Pottie's always going to have a special place in my heart. The first short film I made, and it was successful, like, people liked it, and it did well in film festivals, and like the contacts channel for. That was fantastic. Nothing will ever take that from me. Potty's in the hand of the original writers now. They're currently developing him in the theatre circuit. There's a potty, the planned show that's going to be performed at the Fringe Festival is here. So that should be pretty fun. And obviously, because he's a puppet, that's really well suited to theatre work. One of the inspirations while developing the TV show was a comedian puppet called Randy Feltface. He's just a purple orb of a puppet with hands and he's Australian and he could be any other comedian.

Starting point is 00:17:26 Like his sets do not revolve around him being a puppet at all. But yeah, they don't revolve around him being a puppet at all, but he's really funny. Remind me what is the name? Randy Feltface. Lucky, I will have a look. Give it to Google. He's got some great sets. And I'm hoping that Pottie does the same.

Starting point is 00:17:48 Oh, I see. Like, quite a simple look, but looks funny at the same time. Exactly. Even does audience work? Even though the guy who's obviously underneath the table can't see the audience. Yeah, yeah. It's real clever. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:06 And why did you actually decide for musical? It's quite rare. is it it? Yeah, it's actually so the writers itself because they came to me with the idea. No, I found out the idea, sorry,

Starting point is 00:18:20 and I approached them. But their reasoning for it was just like, well, they were super into those Rocky Horror Picture Show, there's a little shop of horrors. The guy can compose to the music, Baden Burns. He was part of the original casting

Starting point is 00:18:36 for the Billy Elliott musical. Billy's best friend in Billy's Elliot. He was the first person who was cast for that. He was originally going to be the first performer of that. For various reasons, that didn't work out. But he's super angry. Do you mean, like, in the short film?

Starting point is 00:18:52 In your short film? So, in my short film, the man who composed the music, Bade and Burns, he was part of the original run and development of the Billy Elliott musical on Broadway. Wow. How did you manage to get such a person?

Starting point is 00:19:08 I met him in uni. Well, that sounds impressive, yeah. Yeah, it was absolutely incredible to find out that, like, wait, you were part of the original cast of Billy Elliott. He didn't end up being the final actor for the best friend. They did all of the development with it. He was performing all the way up with them for like six months, I think. But yeah, he's been really ingrained into the musical scene. He's also just super into them in general, as I'm I and the other writer, Aidan Susser.

Starting point is 00:19:40 and it was just one of those things that just weirdly came together of like, why not? Why don't we just do this weird musical thing? I don't know how the actual idea of Pottie the Plant himself came to be. He's a little enigma as that character. You mentioned before that you came up with the idea. So how did you... No, no, no, no. I didn't come up with the idea for Pottie the Plan. I didn't.

Starting point is 00:20:03 No, no, no, that was my original writers. Yeah, I'd heard about the story and it was... so unusual. It was so different. And for some reason, nobody else wanted to touch it. I don't remember by like the,

Starting point is 00:20:19 yeah, the ambition of it. But it was just like, why not? Why? This sounds amazing. Why wouldn't we make this? So,

Starting point is 00:20:26 I think I remember specifically, like, going up to Aiden and just being like, so yeah, do you want to do this thing? What was this reaction? I mean, he was happy to, to be honest.

Starting point is 00:20:40 luckily because he was also a part of my Unicorse who were familiar with each other, so he had some confidence in their work. And yeah, luckily for me, no one else wanted to touch it. So it was it all fit in, really. And how was the budget? Was it very expensive or was it? Really? Ideally, it would have been much bigger. If you've seen the short film, you can probably sort of see how like ram shackled and taped together it is. I think it ended up costing us I want to see 1,200, that number stuck in my head, which is incredibly cheap. Yeah, I agree. And I wonder then when you went into the third year,

Starting point is 00:21:20 did you feel some pressure that you need to again create such a top film? Oh yeah, definitely. I had to repeat performance with my final year film. And not only that, but I opted for so stupid reason to make two short films for my dissertation, instead of one. Oh, really? So I had one, which was the Lansford Loop, which I worked on with Baden,

Starting point is 00:21:46 which is a sci-fi film about two brothers struggling with their mother's decline into Alzheimer's. And there is chopsticks, which I developed with Aden, and that was Kung Fu short film about a drunkard young woman who has to defeat her brother when her father, the head of this massive gang in Japan, is killed. I think I've seen that one as well. You probably have. That's another one. He likes to show classes.

Starting point is 00:22:17 Oh my God, but that one looked like proper professional short film from, I don't know, some big production company or something. I remember watching it. I was like, wow. How could someone in a third year make something like this? Thank you. We were very lucky in a lot of ways. We had our friend, Reese Beale, he was DOP for it.

Starting point is 00:22:40 He was lucky enough to have done some advertising work at the very least. I think during his second and third year, just short bits here and there. But it made him really, really comfortable with the camera compared to other university students, especially when we were using, pretty sure we were using Reds or Black Dragons. But when we had these, Black Magic, sorry, Reds or Black Magic. She was really comfortable using those cameras that helped. We had a fantastic stunt guy to do the fight scenes. He coordinated all of them and he worked really well with the rest of the crew and the actors.

Starting point is 00:23:15 So those came off looking really slick. And things like the locations as well, I just contacted a lot of restaurants, a lot of temples, religious places. And most of the time, if you go to the right places, just mentioning that you want to film their peaks there, They're interested enough to give you special treatment. One of the big fight scenes, you have this one continuous shot fight scene. It was the lower floor of this gorgeous restaurant.

Starting point is 00:23:46 There's like this floating buddha art installment, these beautiful wooden tables and like arches. And it was absolutely gorgeous. And I only had to pay 600 quid to film for three days. It was dirt cheap and it was a beautiful location. And I just talked with the owners. I explained the concept of the film, they were 100% downfall and they just loved the idea of their restaurant being shown in a film.

Starting point is 00:24:13 And we made sure to negotiate everything so that all of the filming was done outside of work hours. And then they wouldn't have to worry about any revenue being lost from their day-to-day stuff. And yeah, being able to find those little gems, being able to talk to those people who also shared the love for the idea, helped to just up that production value nicely. I can only agree because I remember watching that and the location was so beautiful and it just made me feel like on one side, kind of motivated

Starting point is 00:24:45 to create something so spectacular as this one was but at the same time, scared because I felt like wow, this isn't possible as a student film because it just looked so professional. We were so, so proud when it was finished. Do not get me wrong though, doing those films especially doing them at the same time. Burned me out.

Starting point is 00:25:09 I'm not surprised. It's even more impressive. How could you make two films? Crazy. Because I had a penit for self-pudishment. But it was, I loved both of the ideas, and it was an option that was available to us. And the thing is, as well,

Starting point is 00:25:25 is like, they both Aidan and Baden worked together for Pottie the Plan, but they wanted to make their own separate things for their third-year films, which makes sense, than that they're both writers and directors. But I wanted to work for both of them. So it was just like, well, I'll just make both of your films then. I don't want anyone else making these ideas.

Starting point is 00:25:44 I want to make these ideas. So I'm going to make them. And wasn't one of them against the idea that maybe they felt like that you wouldn't focus 100% for their film and you would have to split between both, so you would kind of neglect it? Oh, of course, there was always concerns about that, Even just through my tutors who obviously I'd have to do check-ins with them, and they'd just be like, Talia, are you sure?

Starting point is 00:26:09 I would ask you to say. Yeah, right. But with Baden, Baden started developing the idea for his script as soon as second year ended. Over the holiday between second and third year, he was already figuring out what his script was going to be. Same with Aiden, but to a sort of lesser extent. Aiden didn't really cement the idea until closer to December, I don't think, which was when we were pitching that end. anyhow. And before they'd even been pitched, as soon as I knew I wanted to work on these two films

Starting point is 00:26:39 at the same time, I meticulously planned out every day for myself until the final submission. I looked at both productions separately and divided my time as equally as possible. However, of course, like, the sci-fi drama had less to worry about than the Kung Fu film. So I'd do it proportionally. The, yeah, chopsticks was more higher, was more high production than the Langford Loop. But I just took, yeah, I took like three days just scheduling out these six months to try to get as much of it done, as balanced and as properly as possible. And yeah, don't get me wrong. Still bird me out.

Starting point is 00:27:20 But I'm sure that the reward in the end was worth it with such beautiful short films. Thank you. Yeah, I'm very proud of them. And what was the budget of chopsticks? Chopsticks? I wanted to say chopsticks was two grand, two and a half. Really, I would also expect much more. I always get Langford-Loop's budgets and chopsticks mixed up.

Starting point is 00:27:46 It might have been four grand, but compared to potting the plant, with chopsticks, I wanted to pay more. Like, with potty the plan, I was getting people to act for free, and I was trying to, like, pulling favors wherever I could, but for chopsticks. I wanted to at least pay minimum wage for people. I wanted to make sure that, yeah, we were getting the best sort of locations and the best sort of crew possible. So yeah, there was the probably about 900 quid spent in locations. The fight coordinator, he agreed to do 10 weeks of work with us from beginning to end,

Starting point is 00:28:25 700 quid. You said how many weeks, 10 weeks? Yeah, about 10 weeks of work, I think. And the negotiation for that being, we went to him as just a stokey and he was like, yeah, I'll do it for 700 quid. But I want to coordinate the whole thing. And we were like, yeah, his worth was fantastic anyway. So it was just like, yeah, absolutely. Like, more than happy because all of that stuff then he ended up using for his own short reels.

Starting point is 00:28:52 And the really lovely, nice, polished pieces. And he was able to film the practice sessions, the choreography set. He was able to get all of this stuff filmed and have all of these different versions of it available to be viewed. And he was very happy with the work he did. We were very happy to work with him. And how did you find risk assessment for such stunt scenes? It was interesting. Stunt scenes, by their very nature, yeah, come with a lot more health and safety stuff. We also had some pretty involved things.

Starting point is 00:29:24 There were fights where one of the actors had have an eye patch, so he'd only have half of his vision. available to him. There's ones where it's like the girl has got she's got chopsticks in her hair. She's got really messy hair in general like her clothes are like baggy and stuff so we were having issues with like stuff like that catching on things.

Starting point is 00:29:43 In the scenes where like there was one in a boxing ring so there was like a safety equipment as well and we had to make sure those were properly done up but um because I'd been with them so early on in script development every time they'd come with like a really great idea and I'd be like oh my God that's amazing. I'd make

Starting point is 00:29:59 every time to point out what we're going to have to work the hardest on to make sure it gets done. So with some things, it was just putting in the grind to get the health and safety completed for them, but then for the things that we could compromise on, it was just like, yeah, do you really need it? Is this going to be worth the trouble? I think we found a great compromise in the end, though. So the fight scenes look impactful and creative. And do you feel like they look realistic? because as far as I remembered, it looked great to me, but it was years ago, so I don't remember it that well. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't necessarily describe the fight scenes as realistic. I'd say they're sort of in the same, I don't want to put them in the same league as,

Starting point is 00:30:42 but Kingsman's Secret Service, the World's End, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. So realistic movements that you can see being realistic, but they're definitely exaggerated just a little, just to make it a bit more fun and cartoony almost like Scott Pilgrim vibes. Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. Just a quick one. If you enjoy our podcast, please give us a review on your favorite podcast app, subscribe or share it with your friends. For more information, visit the show notes. Thank you and back to the show.

Starting point is 00:31:12 So how did these short films do at festivals? So it was a bit of a mixed bag. Langford Loop didn't do too well. It got an award for screenwriting which was nice but the concept itself because it was time travel it was quite ambitious essentially we didn't want to explain the time travel too much but we wanted it to be enough where it made sense

Starting point is 00:31:36 it was frustrating though I don't know why that one didn't do as well chopsticks on the other hand fucking cleaned up it got awards like nationally internationally the Royal Television Army I got one for potty there were ones for chopsticks that did learning on screen. Chopsics also ended up, along with all of these great festival awards,

Starting point is 00:31:58 ended up opening for the... It was a short film showed prior to the feature film Triple Threat. When Triple Fet had its official premiere, they showed Chopset fans. So I honestly just put it down to the fact that the piece was just so fun. The piece was so fun and so engaging. Not that Langford Loop wasn't, but it was definitely grittier and more drama-oriented. And those do tend to be a very saturated in the film festival circuit. And are these two short films available somewhere? Unfortunately not. They're not available for public viewing. Why is that? Is there like some reason?

Starting point is 00:32:35 I'm not too sure, to be honest. I'd hope that they become available to watch at some point. That's something that I'd have to talk to their respective writers and slash directors. I'd have to talk to Aidan and Bain about it. I hope one day they're available to view online, whether or not I'm the person to put it up. I'd like people to be able to see them. Yeah. I would be curious also to watch it again. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:58 I mean, I can always jocularly. Yeah, sure. And based on your experience, can you share some advice for students or for starting filmmakers? For students, it's so important to know that university provides so much for you. Especially the university I was at at Middlesex, where we had access to great camera equipment. For Potty, I had to build a custom set.

Starting point is 00:33:26 We have a TV studio, so I could build it and do everything through there. We had fantastic churers. They're absolutely fantastic people, some of the best people I've ever met. We had editing studios, sound recording studios, where we did all the music for Potty. And even during my master's degree,

Starting point is 00:33:48 Just having the group of people around you of all of these fellow filmmakers makes the job so much easier. So it's so important to remember that when you step out into the real world, everything's going to get a lot more expensive and it's going to require a lot more of you. And God knows getting hold of money nowadays for short films is, God, as difficult as it's ever been. But with that in mind, it's also important for students to remember that

Starting point is 00:34:18 you have so much at your hands now. Use it as an opportunity to be creative and experimental. It's lovely to stick with things that are safe, but when you have all of this available to you, when you can make films on such a smaller budget and have these people who are already available to work on it, take advantage of that. If you have a wacky out there idea like chopsticks

Starting point is 00:34:41 and the plant and the landfid loop, make them, because otherwise it's going to be really difficult if it's not a traditionally marketable idea especially. And also considering how much you are paying for university, at least take advantage of that. Exactly. Like, we're already paying enough for it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:00 You might as well rinse it for all its worth. Yeah. And you said that you studied Masters. What did you study at Masters? Was it also film? Yeah. Producing for film and television, specializing in commissioning for TV.

Starting point is 00:35:12 Yeah, my dissertation ended up being a TV pitch, which was fun. Wow. So in the first place, why did you actually decide to study master's? I always wanted to do a master's degree. It was a little bit of like pride. Of my part, like a bit of an ego boost that I wanted a master's degree. But it was also that especially after lockdown,

Starting point is 00:35:35 the film industry became so difficult. And it just became so much harder to get a hold of certain things, especially when it came to like trying to get jobs in broadcasters. I've been trying to get a job in a broadcasters, but the competition is so intense. So part of getting a maths degree not only for the experience was to also have that extra level of credibility for I help and get me a permanent position in the industry that I love.

Starting point is 00:36:09 And how did you then find doing masters? Did it meet your expectations? Masters was strange. Like University 2.0, especially because of lockdown, I was going into my master's degree at 23. I must have been. 23, 24, yeah, I would have been 23. It was so weird going there as like an adult. Like when you're going to university, you're a teenager.

Starting point is 00:36:35 But then going into my master's degree, I was an actual established adult. And instead of it being the traditional school year, September to July, it was just one solid year, October to October. Every single month you're working on something different. And it is even more intense. The expectations are even higher. But it's one of those things, just like in any course, in any form of education. The more you put into it, the more you get out.

Starting point is 00:37:05 And I was confident enough in my work and I was lucky enough to be able to put in all the time and effort that I needed to walk away with a fast. So that was nice. Oh, congrats. Well done. Thank you. And out of curious, too, how big was the class?

Starting point is 00:37:20 How many class plays did you have? Remarkably tiny. Compared to middle sex, where, yeah, my bachelor's degree, I started off in first year. That class was probably 40, 50 people, maybe more. So my master's degree, I think it was less than 20. And how many finished? Less than 15. Okay.

Starting point is 00:37:41 Definitely. And what's uni? Was it? It wasn't in Middlesex, right? Oh no, I didn't do my master's in Middlesex. I did it at the Metfilm School in Ealing. It's linked up with the Ealing Broadway Studios. Why did you decide for that one? So, Metfilm School has a really good reputation. It has a really good track record for the sort of people that come out of it. They also had really good industry links.

Starting point is 00:38:08 Ealing Studios itself, it's the oldest. TV studios in the world, which I thought was fantastic. They didn't know. And they do work all the time. It was associated with UWL as well, who have a fantastic reputation for film courses. And like during the year as well, with it being connected to the studios, there were a load of productions getting done there. The biggest one, I know the longest running one, was Don Mochwood for Netflix.

Starting point is 00:38:34 Period piece, they had a dialect coach, that was running there for a few months. That was fantastic. But yeah, I wanted to go off for the nice prestigious name. Yeah, that sounds great. And was it hard to get accepted there? Luckily for me. Or I mean, would it be hard for regular person? No, I don't say it like that.

Starting point is 00:38:55 It's hard to say. It comes down to certain personality types. Because I was, obviously, I was a filmmaker through and through. I got in because I had a very good backlog of footage, content that I could rely on, of short films. But I remember one of my classmates, Nathan, he came in with a bachelor's in business studies, where he just looked into marketing in general. And he wanted to translate that into film.

Starting point is 00:39:23 I had another classmate, Elisa, her background, I believe, was fashion and modeling. And I had Pamadzai as well, who was music based. So all different backgrounds. Exactly. Don't get me wrong. A lot of people were from film backgrounds. but that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone has to be from a film background. It just comes down more to understanding what this industry demands of you and whether or not you're willing to take that risk.

Starting point is 00:39:52 Because loving film is fantastic. Getting into film is hard, hard work. Yeah, a very competitive industry. Exactly. The people that we see on TV and interviews, the creators that we look up to, it's so important to remember that they're the lucky ones that for every single one of them

Starting point is 00:40:13 there are thousands of other people yeah it's like just a tip of the iceberg there are so many sadly unsuccessful ones and everyone goes into university thinking I'm going to be the next Martin Scotsese I'm going to be the next Stephen Spielberg and it's like that's really lovely

Starting point is 00:40:31 the enthusiasm is fantastic but again these people about one in a million. Yeah, I'm afraid it is said truth, but I have to agree. Exactly. It's an unfortunate thing, but it's one of those things as well that you can still have a very successful career just because you're not on Martin Scorsese. It doesn't mean you can't have a fulfilling and brilliant film career.

Starting point is 00:40:55 Yeah, exactly. And during a master's, was it also filming and doing the projects, or was it rather like a paperwork or essays and to develop? So there was a really nice mix between the two because it was producing a lot of our assignments came down to pitching, which worked for me. That was fly by me. A lot of it came down to that sort of paperworky side, but there was a lot of practical elements involved. One of the big ones was working with three separate businesses to create marketing and commercial material for them. Another one of us situations, we were all of the producers were only going to be working with two clients each. their groups, but one of the people in my group dropped out, so I ended up having to do three to cover their load. So three at the same time, which was fun. But we were approached by some clients to do commercial work for them, and we did some commercial work for them. I ended up doing Gotlut Fight Academy, Brazilian Jujitsu Gym, the perfume brand Ilukthafin, and Lizard

Starting point is 00:41:58 King, which was a drag show that was going to be running in London. So is exciting, but I guess you were already used to work in several projects at the same time, so it's not anything new. And is studying masters or course like this something you would recommend to aspiring producers or filmmakers in general? It's something that I'd definitely recommend for producers, primarily because producers, although we have a lot of creative elements in what we do, a lot of the stuff we do is very admin, budgeting, scheduling, pitching, this is very business-oriented things and being able to practice that

Starting point is 00:42:38 within the film industry in a more comfortable environment is worth a lot. But for people who maybe are a more creative based, like the directors, even though it can be really fantastic doing master's degrees to understand what's required of their role a little more,

Starting point is 00:42:54 some of them I know can find formal education restrictive and maybe a little bit oppressive in some cases on certain creative styles but the experience alone for doing a master's was fantastic and I love being able to tell people that I'm a master of the arts

Starting point is 00:43:14 like that just has so much power I didn't get the special title in front of your name yeah yeah I have BAMA I can put in the beginning of my name beginning or the end I think oh yeah yeah yeah that's good do you want to tell us more about the final project today in Masters? Oh yeah.

Starting point is 00:43:33 So in Masters, yeah, I did a TV pitch because I wanted to go into TV myself. I was contemplating again doing a short film and the pitch at the same time. But I was going to do one called Red Velvet. It was called Red Velvet.

Starting point is 00:43:48 It was going to be this quite trippy piece about a woman killing her two children. But it was going to take place in this really weird American 50s happy nuclear family vibe where like the daughter does pageants and the son does football and like you see the

Starting point is 00:44:08 cracks start to fall through the short film and then it finishes on this reveal I ended up having to discard that project and work on the TV pitch instead it requires so much work and because I want to do commissioning in television it was just like right we're going to have to pick this we have to admit that maybe too much doing the three commercial films at the same time like two months was difficult enough and then I'd picked Pottie the Plan again to do a TV show pitch for. Honestly, I think a part of me was like a little bitter that it was, it kept being called like a difficult project to translate onto TV. But I was like, nah, fuck you. I'm going to make this work. I spent months working on it.

Starting point is 00:44:56 Developing the story, it went through like three solid overholes at once. But I ended up being able to adapt it in like this weird bastardization of like an early 2000s cartoon network kids show. But still have it musicals, still have it dark comedy, still have potty doing all of these scenarios. And as well, I do a lot of drawing and a lot of illustration. I have done since I was about 12. And I've been very involved in that side of things. I did video animation, film and video games in college. And I animated the intro to the film.

Starting point is 00:45:31 Yeah, I took the opening song from the short film and I animated it. I did a draft animation in the style that I wanted it to be because for anyone who hasn't pitched a TV project, one of the options that you have is to create a, it's called a sizzle reel. It's essentially a short one to two minute, like video that sums up your film. It gives you a taste of it, but through an actual scene. Some people make these, I've made them before by cutting together eggs. existing footage. I did that for LGB&T. Some of them do it by doing a, like they'll film, maybe a scene of it, or like the first five minutes of the pilot, and they'll use that as the

Starting point is 00:46:13 sizzle reel. And for myself, for Pottie the Plan, given that it was an animated TV show, I created the animated intro just to give an idea to the people who were seeing it, an idea on the style, and it gave them a much better idea of how that format would translate and how we could abuse the world of animation and the endless possibility it brings up the bizarre atmosphere of this. Was it 3D animation or

Starting point is 00:46:41 stock motion? Handron. Handron, yeah? Well, it must have set a lot of time to do all of this. God, yeah. I think the animation alone probably took me of the three months that I was developing the dissertation, the animation had to have been

Starting point is 00:46:56 at least three weeks. And it was just rough. It was just rough animation. I didn't even get the chance to do like the nice smooth lines and the colors. It's terrifying. But it was really fun. And is that something that everyone had to do or you did it as extra for your pitch? I did it as extra. For most people.

Starting point is 00:47:17 I mean, I was only one of two producers to choose to do a pitch as opposed to a short film. But that was mainly because I already had quite a healthy backlog of short films to rely on for my show reel, which is why I took the pitch instead. So it was only, yeah, it was only a couple of the producers that were doing pictures. But I believe the other person, they did a cut together of existing footage for some other TV shows and made like a trailer. So I guess I don't need to ask. And I expected to receive the best grade for it. Yeah. Yeah, I was very lucky.

Starting point is 00:47:53 Sorry, I guess it's so awkward talking about stuff. It's so difficult. No, based on what you said, it's well deserved. Thank you. It was a fun project. I was really proud of the work that I finished for it, even though I remember uploading it. And I was so stressed out. I was so burned. I was so like, on the edge of insanity that I emailed my tutor just like, I'm sorry for what I've uploaded. It's garbage and I know it. And he replied just like, Talia, what are you on about? Like, great. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I was the highest performing student of that year, which was well done now. And to get an idea of it, you develop the pitch. So basically, is it like something that it's like a complete pitch that I can take and pitch to someone to get it commissioned? You know, just to understand what is the pitch or what person needs to do with that

Starting point is 00:48:49 for someone who doesn't know anything about this? So pitch is actually the final stage of selling something. The first step when it comes to pitching TV pilots is coming up with a pitch deck, which is essentially a paper version. They tend to be much wordier. They tend to be a lot longer. Pitch decks can be anything from two sheets to 120. It can be completely dense because it doesn't just include the story.

Starting point is 00:49:20 You will have separate sheets for the characters for the world development, for the costuming, for locations, for all of these different. things you'll incorporate every single part of this TV show and you'll make it very, very clear the intention for it. Most pitch decks, I think, probably aimed towards the 20 page mark, but it all depends on the project. It's something like New Girl compared to Game of Thrones is going to be completely massively different. Yeah, yeah, perfect. But more often than not, you'll send like an elevator pitch or a one or two page pitch deck first, then you'll send them a full pitch deck of however many pages that'll be, and then you'll do a final pitch,

Starting point is 00:50:06 which will be, yeah, you in person, PowerPoint presentation, Cisle reel if you've got it, and fingers crossed, they buy it. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like amazing work. I wonder, how did you start planning your way into industry after Masters? After Masters, if I'm honest, after Masters, I actually took a little break. it was a really full year was my master's and I think it's a lot out of me I graduated in October I think no I graduated in November

Starting point is 00:50:39 and I took a few months after that honestly just to take a breather to wind myself down a little bit but in the beginning of this year even though I was like no no no I'm going to rest I'm going to take a step back I started working on two TV pitches started reaching with a couple of writers one of them was LGBT the other one is a separate concept that we're still

Starting point is 00:50:58 sort of playing about with so I and give out many details on that one. And with another one of my writers were talking about a fun little short film, a who done it, sort of situation that I'd like to get made. That one again is still early developments, but I think it would be really fun.

Starting point is 00:51:13 It just came out of this idea, this like joke of it being like New Year's Eve, and everyone does the whole like, three, two, one, happy New Year! Someone drops dead. Like, we thought that it'd just be something fun, something cool that we could explore. So we've got one of them,

Starting point is 00:51:28 and I think I've got another short film. that working on with another writer. But these have been some really lovely projects to work and develop with. It takes a lot of time. I feel like that's another thing people forget about when they leave uni is, yeah, because you're going to be looking for investment from other people. And especially when people are like, oh, yeah, I'll get funding from the BFI. Thousands of people are going to be doing the same thing.

Starting point is 00:51:52 So you've got to develop your projects so, so, so well and so far in. but also to a point where you're not going to feel upset if they ask you to change things because it's very rare that they're going to take your raw project and go, yes, I want this exactly as it has written on screen now here is the money for it. There will more often than not say people being like, can we take this bit out, can we change this? So you've got to be attached to a project to put all of that work in, yet not so attached that you're like dissuaded by the idea of changing that project.

Starting point is 00:52:28 Yeah, yeah, understand. Because I guess they can tell you, if you don't do that, there are thousands of people waiting in line. So we can just pick someone else. Exactly. They're going to be completely heartless like that, especially if you come across as a university student or someone who's like fresh out of education sort of thing. You tend to be able to tell that though through the ideas. Those tend to be your edgy university, emotional films. Sundance cans, you're going to see hundreds. of him. Yeah, I understand. Well, can you share not maybe university advice, but some advice or tips or tricks in general from your career? From my career, honestly, one of the best things I've learned is patience. The film industry moves very, very quickly. But in the beginning of your

Starting point is 00:53:21 film career, it's going to move slow as fuck. It is going to put pressure on you. You're going to feel stressed. You're going to be like, oh my God, no, no, no, I should have done this at this time. I want to be like directing my first feature film by the time I'm 30. And it's like, for a start, do not set yourself a deadline because you're setting yourself up for failure. Because if you do not meet that deadline, you are going to completely lose your motivation. You're going to feel crushed and you're going to feel like, oh my God, why didn't I do it? Oh, I'll never be a filmmaker, do-da-da-da-d-d-d-d-and-respect yourself. But also these steps, building these connections, takes time. It's baby steps. So you just have to be patient and you just have to keep in your head.

Starting point is 00:54:05 My time will come. Doing the work, keep putting in the effort, build up your tolerance for rejection and just keep making those baby steps. It's difficult starting out. It's always going to be difficult. Sometimes you're going to have brilliant ideas that never get off the ground for like eight years. And that's just one of those things. But it's important to stay patient, bide your time, play the long game. So what do you do when you face such a situation, when you've got doubts, or you're not patient, maybe sometimes? Oh, I have those times for sure. I keep forgetting that I'm still a young adult and I'm not like 40. I keep you like, oh my God, I'll never be in. this industry, it doesn't even want me in it anyway. The thing that helped me, honestly,

Starting point is 00:54:53 was like, one, having a very supportive partner, because when I felt real down about whether or not I'd be able to sell my first TV show or what have you, he was so supportive and he was like, I wouldn't blame you if you stopped trying to get into the film industry, but I'd be disappointed if you didn't at least try every avenue first. And also having a part of the film industry, but I'd be disappointed. time job helps because God knows I do not want to like because if I'm not in the film industry then it's like okay when I want to like progress in the part time job I'm in now no I don't want a regular office job the idea of being in insurance or banking or like I don't know because it's like at the end of the day if you want to be in this industry hard enough it makes it much easier

Starting point is 00:55:45 to get in it doesn't guarantee it but having the motivation, knowing it's something that you want to be in, and that you're willing to put all of this work and time and effort in, then it's worth all of that trouble. And that's what separates probably the canals from the serious, especially if, like, me, they're from backgrounds that, like, I can't fund my own stuff. I don't have that money. Like, you'll get the people coming in who are like, oh, yeah, my dad will fund this or whatever.

Starting point is 00:56:15 man and they get these like... Then they start crowdfunding and it's done in a few days. Yeah, exactly. Crowdfunding as well. People think it's this easy thing. That's another thing that frustrates me sometimes with the whole like, oh yeah, we'll just get funding. And it's another thing that's so saturated.

Starting point is 00:56:36 And if people aren't interested, if your work isn't good enough, there is a thousand other projects that are. Yeah, exactly. And you end up, you don't want to back your family or friends to donate there. But usually they end up being people who donate the most, I think. Or at least back at uni that was like that. Oh, yeah. 100% I agree.

Starting point is 00:56:58 I was lucky that my dad helped. I think he pledged 500 quid for each of my short films and my dissertation films at uni. So in third year, yeah, I got, I think, 500 quid from my dad for each of them, which, yeah, compared to everything was only a small amount. but it's... But if I donated so much money and I saw the results, I would be happy for them because such amazing project, well-spent money.

Starting point is 00:57:24 Thank you. It felt well spent. Just to respect your time, do you want to promote yourselves, maybe your work, yourself, where people can follow you? Well, for the moment, if anyone wants to support the work that I've uploaded before, then I know you said that you'd pop in the link for Potty the Plan

Starting point is 00:57:43 in the description below. which would be fantastic. They can also check my LinkedIn page, which is just slash Talia Lamon. And they can find my show reel. They can find all of my other work and my experience. Those would be the best places to find me. Otherwise, they can look up Talia Lamont on YouTube,

Starting point is 00:58:03 find me that way, or even through Instagram if they want to. I mean, that's more of my personal stuff. I'm on Instagram at TaliBops, T-A-L-I-B-O-P-S was a nickname someone gave me but yeah they want to find me

Starting point is 00:58:19 them find potty of plan and LinkedIn I'm always share it though and I will also have a look because you made me curious about your work your projects and show real

Starting point is 00:58:29 so I will check it out this one oh yeah by all means I've got the commercial work that I talked about they're in there as well yeah that's one's excited

Starting point is 00:58:36 so I would just like to thank you I must say that I didn't expect the such ambitious and inspiring projects. So you've got great credits. It was nice to get to know and to have a chat with you.

Starting point is 00:58:51 And I will wish you good luck with your another amazing projects. Fantastic you two. I've had an absolutely lovely time. I hope everything goes well and that you just have a lovely time in general. Hopefully we can, yeah, hopefully we can catch up again soon. Of course. I feel like there is still plenty of stuff to discuss. So thank you.

Starting point is 00:59:11 and we'll stay in touch. Definitely. Thank you. See you. Bye. Thank you for listening to Produce by. Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast at, leave a review or send us your feedback. For more information about the host, links from the episode and ways to connect with us, visit the show notes.

Starting point is 00:59:33 If you know someone who would be an ideal guest for our podcast, please get in touch. Thank you and see you soon.

Produced By - #SPECIAL - Taliah Lamont: Role Model Filmmaker at University and Beyond

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