Wow... and just like that, the 2024 season is ending. Goodbye, 2024... Like many others, I think 2024 has tested my willpower to exist.
This year has felt like a complete shift to survival mode, and it feels like I am just constantly being faced with adversities that I need to confront and learn to adapt to in ways that I have never had to do in the past.
I started the year by working in independent film for a while. Putting myself in the driver's seat of being a Prop Master for the first time in my career. It was rewarding to learn how far I could push myself, but I felt like many factors were working against me, and it wasn't where I saw myself succeeding. Also, being in IATSE for so long, I could not justify the crucifixion of my boundaries for the demands of producers, directors, and executives who didn't take care of their crews.
Also, balancing my work and educational life was hard as I have been focusing on my studies and putting my ECE (Early Childhood Education) first to start building the daycare for Film Families. While my partner has been able to start the daycare and is instituting a pilot program in the Langley area... the film industry has been slow in the Lower Mainland since the strike, which has lowered the demand significantly. I had to put my schooling on the back burner as I needed to return to work in June when circumstances at home changed.
I worked on Animal Control - Season 3 and while I was extremely grateful to have had work this year, regardless of how challenging it was with smaller crews and budgets. But I definitely cannot gloat because I feel the pain of my brothers and sisters in IATSE who have been struggling. Including my own family, as my partner has been one of the film workers affected since the film strikes.
I also worked on a Feature on the Island this year called One Mile/One More Mile and the stress of going through that, travelling back and forth from the Island and going through a mental health crisis with my partner... while also going through the elopement took a toll on my mentally, emotionally and financially.
There's been a massive shift in the family dynamic with my now husband's side of the family, where an event happened that fractured all of us. I have not recovered from feeling like my life is irrelevant, and I fear for the future. My husband and I had been toying with the idea of moving somewhere where we might find more stability for ourselves and the kids, but everywhere in the world seems to be coming apart at the seams.
I feel like the world I grew up in doesn't exist anymore. Canada's economy and government are on the brink of implosion and I feel like I am drowning.
I've been applying for jobs left and right outside of the film industry because, honestly. I don't know if I can mentally handle the instability of the Film Industry right now. But it's been incredibly rough to be rejected repeatedly from jobs I am overqualified for. Nobody understands what I have been doing as a Prop Master/Assistant Prop Master and how that translates into the administrative jobs I have applied for... How can I properly explain everything that I have been doing? Nobody seems interested in hiring film professionals either because they are so scared that we will leave when and if the film industry comes back.
However, despite all the seemingly negative feelings I have been fighting with. I feel like my mind has been working overtime, forcing me out of my comfort zone to fall back on my photography. I got a big commercial contract with a Studio Salon company out of Alberta, and I hope to fill my books more and more in the coming months. I could leave the film industry and work for myself? I do have to thank my husband for helping me through this all, as he has been an emotional rock navigating this difficult time for us.
Anyway, I hope that 2025 has something to offer. May the next year bring some blessings... not just for me, but anyone who may be struggling as well right now. May we all find some form of joy in this diffcult time.
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