We have been meeting and chatting with some of the team over the last few months, and this time we spoke with Josh, our Creative and Operations Director, to find out what got him started in the industry and what his role entails.
Content in whatever form is usually a catalyst for creatives getting into the video industry and that was no different for Josh. “The reality is, that I was very much into a lot of TV shows growing up. When I was at school, I got introduced to a TV show called Spaced, which changed everything because I thought it was the best thing I’d ever seen. I then started researching editing, which then led to doing a BTech at college, which was purely media. My love for film and television, animation, and all that type of stuff as a kid – I was trying to work out how I could make some money or maybe even a career from that. I decided to go to uni and do television production”.
Whilst London feels like the hub of television and film within the UK, many people don’t want to relocate to the big city. “I worked out that I didn’t want to go to London and was like, right, cool – how can I use the skills that I’ve got in the local area of Gloucestershire? And that’s sort of how I got here.The original inspiration 100% was just things that I enjoyed watching as a kid”.
Before Bex, Josh spent a lot of time post-university doing work experience for different companies all over the country. After deciding it was time to turn things up, he made his way to London working in Live Broadcast (Sport). “I did a lot of live vision mixing, editing and filming for some live sports shows, and then realised I didn’t like London, didn’t want to do everything I’d studied and was in a pure panic that I’ve maybe wasted my whole life”. This is a feeling that I think a lot of young people starting in the media industry face, what avenue do I want to go down? Is this dream I have unrealistic given the amount of people trying to break into it?
A lot of the skills we use daily at Bexmedia (aside from perhaps the more technical camera/drone operations and 3D animation) are transferable skills that we’ve picked up from sales and hospitality roles that have been honed by our experiences at Bex. It was interesting when we chatted more about his past work in sales teams, it’s from here that Josh says a lot of his business knowledge came. “I was an account manager essentially, but I had resources. I had a certain amount of spend and how much I could make. I was really drilled over two or three years in that aggressive sort of sales market, I sort of ran my own mini business”.
So many of the business skills and account management processes that we have implemented have come from not only our experience of working at Bexmedia, and understanding what works for the business but also our past work experiences, be that in industry or not. All of the skills and knowledge is transferable and valuable.
Realising that he didn’t want to stay working in London, Josh moved back to Gloucestershire. “I went freelance, did a whole year essentially networking. A few people I knew in the industry, kind of got by, and really enjoyed it.” We had a laugh when he told me his plan was to go freelance and stay freelance for a while at least but enter Craig (our boss) and plans changed. “Craig found me on LinkedIn, that’s sort of how I stumbled into talking to Craig. I thought it was a freelance job. Then when I first met Craig, I came in here and it became apparent it was more of a full-time role.”
6 years later he has found his role has evolved completely (again) from starting out helping with video editing and filming to now using the skills and knowledge he has collected over the years to become Creative and Operations Director (and someone who everyone relies on for everything). His new role encompasses all of the skills he learned working in the many different arenas he has found himself in over the last 10-12 years. “I think the business needed a bit of love in terms of putting in targets, working out how we use our accountancy firm, how we changed some internal stuff. So then my job just kind of grew over time, I suppose, improving the business side as well as the creative side”. I think it’s important to note that all of our roles are constantly evolving and growing and that’s the beauty of working with a smaller team. We get to know and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the team and who can jump in and support where others may not be able to or may not have the time to.
“My role is split between two different parts of the business. The operational side of it, so I help with all of the mini departments within the business. That could be the finance, marketing, sales, creative output, staff management. As well as still creatively pitching, coming up with creative ideas, editing, filming, all those other bits. My job is very much split down the middle, and I think that is purely because we’re such a small business”. It is also because Josh is good at both sides of the business, and can generally be relied upon to know stuff (or if he doesn’t know he’ll find someone who does know), but he doesn’t like taking the credit so he’s not going to tell you that.
The key takeaway from this conversation is that it’s important to remember that if you want to work in or move into a creative space, a media or videography space, all of the previous skills that you have, be it people skills from working in hospitality, account management skills from a sales past or a finance brain, are valuable. Especially in a small business, being able to juggle a variety of hats can be a vital tool.
Written by Lexy Condick