Weekly Meander #9: In loco parentis
Or living inside someone else's life for a moment
Hello! Thanks for joining me on a weekly meander through my week just gone – with a focus on my working life (a way for me to document a time of professional transition as well as a little shot of motivation and accountability to keep me pushing on!) And in case you're new here and wondering who on earth I am, do check out this post. TLDR: I'm a documentary filmmaker coming to the end of distributing my debut feature doc and currently exploring/expanding into new professional avenues whilst also navigating parenting & perimenopause. Some balls may be dropped!
I'm still quite new to Substack and really enjoying finding my way around so you'll also find my recommendations of great reads I've seen in the past week. If you enjoy it, do feel free to leave a comment. And of course I'd love it if you would consider subscribing to get all my posts delivered straight to your inbox.
It's been a strange sort of week, this one. In case you're new here and need catching up - I'm currently over 200 miles north of my own home back in Brighton, looking after my niece and nephew at their house in Lincolnshire whilst my brother and sister-in-law are in Japan (him doing field research for his phD and her prevented from being here at the moment by the UK's income threshold for spousal visas – a topic for whole other day, that one).
I've felt a vague sense of discombobulation ever since I got here as I've endeavoured to slot myself neatly into my brother's daily schedule – close enough to my own at home, with school drop offs and pick ups, three meals to prepare, laundry to wash, kids to get ready for bed etc, but at the same time, completely unfamiliar.
The children still don't really know me that well (though one happy side effect of these past three weeks looking after them, first in Brighton and now here, is how much that's changing 😊). And I don't know how everything works or where things are kept in that automatic, unthinking way I do at home – so using the hob, the oven, the washing machine, the TV, even the coffee machine (my brother has a very fancy Delonghi espresso machine whereas at home I'm a devoted 'keep it simple' AeroPress gal!) just requires that little bit more concentration and effort.
But by far the two biggest challenges for me have been a) getting up at 6am every morning and b) driving.
Obviously millions of people - my brother included - do both these things routinely every day without a second thought. I’m aware that a lot of people get up even earlier than that and have a whole elaborate morning routine of journalling and exercising before the sun's anywhere close to rising (yes, I do consume a lot of time management and productivity content!)
But not me. I'm just not an early morning person – and nor are my partner and kids. Anything before 8am feels early to me – even our regular 7.30am wake up call on school days requires an alarm. During lockdown we all defaulted to waking up around 9am every day.
But the routine here - taking into account both the inadequate bus service in rural Lincolnshire and the 8 hour time difference to Japan which means the only time the kids can properly chat with their mum is early in the morning our time - requires a 6am start to make sure the older one gets to her secondary school and the younger one to his, closer, primary school on time.
This is no fun at all for Auntie Vicki!
And then there's the driving. I passed my test 30 years ago this year so I'm certainly not an inexperienced driver. But I am a rusty one.
Though there was a period of time when I drove every day and then a further period when I was still driving very regularly, I sold my car back in 2006 and over the past decade I've probably got behind the wheel at a rate of less than once a year.
So I was definitely a little anxious about the prospect of navigating the twisty country roads and faster A-roads of our twice-daily journey. Of course, it's been fine. But every time I turn off the ignition, I feel worn out. I think I'm just hyper-focused on the road as I'm not used to it, especially with the added responsibility of having someone else's children in the car. My poor middle-aged brain is just finding it… tiring.
Then again, on the plus side, it turns out my 6 year old nephew is a HUGE George Michael fan (props to my brother for this obviously!) Singing along to Wham Rap & Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go with him at full throttle in the car this week has honestly just been pure joy.
WORK WINS THIS WEEK
I fear I'm starting to sound like a broken record at this point, but for the third week in a row, it felt like my working week was cut off at the knees, thanks this time to my dastardly friend insomnia, which returned with a vengeance my first few nights here, plus the aforementioned general discombobulation. Trying to do a 'normal' week's work (whatever normal even is), was probably never very realistic.
Monday and Tuesday were more or less a write off. But I had a big day in London - arranged before I knew I would be up in Lincolnshire - on Wednesday and truthfully, I think knowing this was coming up was probably part of the reason I just couldn't spark my engine into life before that.
Thankfully, once I was over that midweek point, I managed to move through the gears with relative ease for the rest of the week (hmm, all the driving I've been doing has clearly wormed its way into my psyche as I keep on trotting out motoring metaphors – do excuse me!) Here's a quick run down of what I got done.
1. Lunch in London with my executive producer / MD of my distributors
I don't get to London too often these days so when I do, I always try to arrange to meet up with Christo Hird, who is both executive producer of my film and head honcho of my distributors, Dartmouth Films. Christo is a legend in UK indie docs whom I'm extremely proud to call a colleague and a friend. He put his faith in me way back when I was still early in the journey of making the film and needed an experienced producer’s guidance and he’s been an amazing mentor to me ever since.
This week the stars aligned with our respective schedules and he very kindly shouted me lunch at one of the rather fancy restaurants at Somerset House, where Dartmouth are based. It was an invigorating couple of hours, talking about the state of documentary, my work plans, politics and much more. A great way to reconnect and ground with my professional self during this time of feeling slightly unmoored personally.
2. Screening of 'The Atom: A Love Affair' at Imperial College London
I went straight from Somerset House over to South Kensington, for a screening at Imperial College jointly hosted with the London & South East Branch of the Nuclear Institute, the UK’s professional body for people working in the nuclear industry. They'd organised an excellent panel and there was a great discussion afterwards.
Seeing how different audiences see different things in the film and really getting a chance to properly dig into that with them while it's all still fresh in their mind is always rewarding. I continue to get responses and questions I wasn't expecting – the film is a fixed moment in time now, but of course events in the world are unfolding all the time and so the context in which the film lives keeps changing too.
3. Made it to the end of my list of American academics to contract re potential screenings of my film in 2024
In and of itself, I know this doesn't sound especially noteworthy. But in fact it feels like a pretty significant marker for me – like ticking the final task off a years-long To Do list.
In the almost 4 years since the film had its pandemic-time cinema release, I have of course been doing various other things too – 6 more months of maternity leave for starters, plus helping to produce another doc, developing new film ideas, mentoring, setting up and running a documentary peer support group, conceiving of a brand new life stories business venture and of course, starting to write here on Substack.
But my main priority has 100% been making sure I've done everything reasonably within my power to give the film I spent so many years making the best chance of finding its best-fit audience. This has involved directly contacting a lot of diligently researched people and places to enquire about screenings – and has paid off with all kinds of brilliant screening events. It's undoubtedly felt like quite a slog at times. But I just knew I couldn't fully move on until I'd at least attempted to connect with everyone on my list. I'd have always felt like I'd left the job unfinished if I did.
But now I've done it. Of course, there will be follow ups and discussions continuing with people who've already shown interest in organising a screening. But psychologically, it feels like drawing some kind of a line in the sand. Like I've finally let out the last breath in a very, very long exhale. And am ready to take another, new, deep breath in, before plunging in a swooping dive into my next great work adventure.
WHAT I'M LOVING ON SUBSTACK THIS WEEK
I actually first read this when it was originally published back in early March (
was the wonderful soul who first led me to Substack and I always open messages from her right away). But my experience of stepping into my brother's life this week brought it back to my mind. And it's such a beautiful and poetic piece of writing I thought it deserved another plug for anyone who might have missed it the first time around.
This piece caught my eye as most things about sleep tend to do – sleep being something I love and definitely try to prioritise, but also something that feels fragile and frequently difficult. I've suffered a great deal with insomnia since my first child was born a decade ago and perimenopause really hasn't helped. My partner and kids would I’m sure agree this sentence could equally have been about written about me when I’ve not got the hours I need (probably not as many as 9, but certainly a solid 8):
“without exception I morph into an impatient, fog-headed, achey, grumpy monster”
This piece is a rallying cry to all the sleep-needers out there - read it and sleep! (sorry, couldn't resist).
Lastly a shout out for this piece from
who’s recently joined Substack with a great new publication lifting the lid on what really goes on behind the scenes of post-production. I’ve read so many pieces about the looming, and possibly existential, threat AI poses to the film and TV industry. Not to say those aren’t important - it’s a vital and fast moving area we definitely need to stay across.But I really appreciated reading Shawna’s pragmatic and positive thoughts on how we can be using AI in good ways *right now*. And I think a lot of her suggestions would apply more broadly to many different fields, not just film. Definitely worth checking it out if the mere mention of AI at work leaves you feeling frazzled and confused.
Watch my film on Netflix (in Europe) or Vimeo (everywhere else) - or see trailer, reviews & bonus content HERE
Find me on X /Twitter & at LinkedIn
Life stories website – coming soon...
Vicki! Thank you so so much for taking the time to read my little humble article! I was so excited when Substack told me someone mentioned me in their article. Screening a project you've worked on for so long can be extremely nerve wracking but also exhilarating and like you said getting to hear from all kinds of different perspectives and how it's perceived through different people's eyes is always interesting and that's when a project kind of takes a life of it's own! I hope it gets picked up and I get a chance to watch it at some point. Congrats on getting here and I wish you many more screenings!