Caroline Wilson

Hi, my name is Caroline Wilson. I'm based in London and I am a creative producer, which helps creatively on projects in film and television.

I spend most of my time at work coming up with ideas, organising them, putting them together, and really motivating to bring the project from start to finish.

So it's a combination of coming up with the idea and organising it so it becomes a reality.

A typical day looks for me looks like...

Waking up in the morning, I'm kind of very big on setting an intention for the day because I know during my day I'm going to have to push a lot for projects to get done or to chase up on things. So I need to, I need to set my day off positively. So I always like to journal in the morning.

Then it's just going through emails, meetings, online, in person. In the evenings, I do go to quite a few events like screening events and things I have to get through.

Probably my day is probably like 10 to 12 hours. Anything shorter is a luxury but it's normally like a long stretch of day when I am properly actively working on projects.

So I work mostly with a variety of people in the industry. So it's really dependent on project, but it could be crew. So I could be working with editors. I could be working with other producers. Talent, which basically just means anyone on the forefront we're featuring, that's what we call talent.

Alongside that my slate of projects... when I say slate it just means the different projects I'm working on at the moment. It could also be with community groups, also people who work in other organisations who are a bit outside of the industry. So it's a real variety.

I think anytime you're working behind the scenes in more of a production role, even creatively producing, you have to be a people person. It's not just enough knowing about the technical skills you have to build relationships with people and know how to manage them in a way.

The best thing about my job, alongside the interesting people I meet, is when an idea up here becomes reality. That's very fulfilling because you realise, I wasn't just daydreaming that day. It actually did have a purpose.

So that's always, I know people talk a lot about manifesting these days, but when you see something that you saw in your head come into reality, that never gets old at all.

The hardest part of my job is pushing these projects to get finished because so many things can happen. It could be budget, could be timelines, could be things needed to get sorted.

And sometimes you have to really push, you have to chase people through emails, you have to check on people sometimes, so it requires a lot of energy.

That's probably the hardest part is to keep your energy where it needs to be for the job to get done.

It wasn't a conventional route.

So I did like film studies for A-level. So one thing I would really suggest to young people is get involved in any school groups could be like a film group or a society because that's where you're going to meet your tribe.

And at school, I think I was more into creative stuff. So when I was in secondary school, I didn't really feel like anyone really, you know, understood that.

t wasn't until I went to college and then there was a film studies course and I took that. And that's when I really found my tribe and even staff members who really championed that.

So following on from that, I really got involved in my local community whenever there was any community groups, it was young producers groups, other creative stuff and I was just getting involved and one thing led to another.

So following on from that, I got into a few programs and they offered work experience alongside that. So when I was on work experience, I met a few people in the industry who mentored me.

And then from that I was offered jobs and more opportunities.

So it was definitely and alongside that I was also working part-time jobs. I've done everything so I want people to know it's never like a linear path and it's never like, you know.

And as a freelancer sometimes you're going from job to job so sometimes you might complete one job and then you're thinking okay what project do want to do next or do I want to rest for a bit.

But looking back on it I actually think those skills of me multitasking back in those days gave me a different kind of resilience and a different kind of motivation so now I'm kind of more equipped even when I am talking to young people or people from different communities because I understand that that access point into the industry is not the easiest.

Education and my support definitely during I would say A-level time was really important to me when I got to pick my options. I think that was the first time I felt like I had some kind of agency over my education and I could really show what I could do.

So I think once I went to college and I was around different people, I felt like I found my tribe. It was like night and day difference, it went from you're so weird you're so different so like you're so interesting like the outlook, the optics had changed.

So that was really a crucial experience for me. It wasn't necessarily like getting the qualification. It was the whole experience of the two years of even widening my, I thought I knew everything about film because I was obsessed, but we were learning about world cinema, Iranian cinema, authors.

It really pushed me to wanna be very well-rounded in what I knew and to know more than what people thought I knew.

And alongside film studies were also the classes next to us would do media and other creative subjects. So even just during the down the corridors, I really got to socialise with different creatives.

And I think from that experience, I knew that those environments were the ones that I thrived best in.

So I would really encourage young people to really look at different educational routes whether or not it's arts education or traditional routes with courses and find the one that best suits them.

I think when I met Daniel Kaluuya for the first time, that was a pretty good experience because I remember I did work experience for a producer and I was just submitting my ideas and then they were like, there's someone we would like you to meet.

And at the time I was doing work experience plus I was working in the nighttime as well. So I felt like kind of Montana. It was like two different worlds for me and I would literally have my work uniform on and then I'll be rushing out to make my money. So it was always like that juggling thing I was talking about earlier.

But then when I met Daniel, it was around about the time that Get Out had come out. And I remember I was sitting in like some fancy restaurant in the South Bank and I was just like, why does he want to speak to me?

Like, I don't know if that's imposter syndrome but when I met him it really did encourage me and it encouraged me after like so many years of like, even though I was really young when I met him, still at that point, I probably had already done like maybe close to a decade since I was in school, just going to different workshops, being like a self-starter, doing a lot on my own.

So I think when I finally met him, it was kind of like, anything is possible in this life. So, getting to talk to him about films and stuff. And that was something I didn't predict. I didn't go into that placement thinking that was going to happen.

In my head, I was thinking after that placement, I was like, I've got to pick up some extra shifts. I've got to make some money. Like I was just in survival.

But then when I met him, I was like, things in life can happen.

You've just got to stick with it. So that's, I think that was the lesson I learned in that whole experience is it's not easy, but if you stick with it... and it wasn't just that. I think it was like finally feeling that I had been seen.

Cause I think like a lot of my journey was feeling like, okay, are people going to understand what I'm doing? This is a bit like not the usual path that all my friends are going down.

So I think it's the first time I felt like, okay, what I was doing was being seen in the right way.

The advice I wish I received when I was younger... to be your own person and stick with your path. I think whenever I've done a project and it's actually bore fruit is when it's just been authentic and I've done it out of love.

Those are two things that I think I would just encourage young people to do. Even if it seems like, you know, no one's checking for it at the time, you don't know later on who might revisit it. So keep it on your page.

You know, I think one rule I now have for socials is like, I have to post with the right intention. If it's not with the right intention, I don't post.

So I just want to encourage young people to just stay authentically true to who you are because through that, it might not be now, but maybe later on, that's where your breakthrough is going to come through.