How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Fearne Cotton

After going to 'How To Fail Live With Elizabeth Day' at The Sage a few weeks ago I subscribed to 'How To Fail With Elizabeth Day', the podcast that celebrates the things that haven’t gone right. Every week, a new interviewee explores what their failures taught them about how to succeed better.

Guests have included the chef and cookery writer Nigel Slater, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the creator and star of Fleabag and writer of Killing Eve as well as the politician Jess Phillips.

I recently listened to the episode in which Elizabeth Day interviews Fearne Cotton. Fearne began her extensive broadcasting career as a TV presenter at the age of 15, and has since established herself as a radio presenter, a designer, a writer (of 2 cookbooks, 'Cook Happy, Cook Health' & 'Cook. Eat. Love' as well as 'Happy', in which she writes about her own experiences of happiness & unhappiness), and a social media talent who has her own podcast called 'Happy Place', after which the Happy Place festival was born. She has spoken openly about mental health, specifically her own experiences with panic attacks and anxiety.

The 3 failures that Fearne chose to talk about are

1. failing most of her GCSE's

2. a failed engagement

3. failure to be herself in her 20s

It was when she was discussing her third failure that Fearne broached a subject that she had previously avoided talking about publically, namely her previous experience of living with an eating disorder. I found her honesty deeply moving and feel a real connection to what she shared.

My Mind and Me on Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 have a programme called My Mind and Me which covers topics relating to mental health. 

Episodes include:

Dealing with depression

Tips to beat stress

What is mental health?

Dealing with abuse

The latest set of episodes is all about hearing voices. Over 10 episodes the story of Alice is told.

"Imagine hearing voices in your head. Alice does. She’s a 27-year-old mum who’s had different characters in her mind since she was about 15. They all have names and personalities and they can be hard to ignore. Alice wants to tell you about them so you can understand what it's like to live with schizophrenia."

- Donna - Join Alice as she invites you to meet the very first voice she ever heard, Donna. Welcome to her inner world.

- Rose and Rachel - Join Alice as she gets her revenge on a couple of voices in her head. They're a tricky pair, Rose and Rachel, but Alice has worked out how she can get her own back.

- Michael - This is a love story between Alice and someone very special to her. You'll find out what happened when the voice she loved the most in the world turned into one of her most frightening.

- Mum and Dad - As if things weren't confusing enough for Alice, she started hearing her mum and dad's voices in her head. But, they weren't exactly like her parents in real life.

- Celebrity voices - Alice's voices are often frightening, but in this episode she reveals how she hears celebrity voices which lighten the mood. She even has a bit of a crush on one of them.

- Tony - Leaving the house can be hard sometimes for Alice because that's when she'll hear muffled voices from crowds in the street or supermarket. It's confusing and makes her feel paranoid, but she's learnt over the years how to cope with it.

- Ricky - Alice talks about how sometimes when she's feeling low, she self-harms. But there's a voice which can lift her mood and sometimes she pines to hear from Ricky.

- Joshua - Alice's positivity oozes through this episode. She's in a good place in her life right now and she talks about the voice which reflects this and that's Joshua. She also reveals her plans for the future, which include maths... and bras. Prepare to be inspired.

- Stigma - We're nearing the end of Alice's story and she wants to deal with some of the stigma surrounding schizophrenia. Some people assume those with the illness are deluded all the time and that they never have any sense of reality. In this episode Alice explains why that's actually far from the truth.

- Last voice - Over the years Alice has experienced positive and negative voices, in this final episode she reveals whether she'd get rid of them if she could. It's a difficult question and her answer might surprise you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05q82d8

Me Too Project

Mental health problems are often treated as a taboo and brushed under the carpet, despite the fact that an estimated 1 in 4 people will experience mental health issues each year. The Me Too project was set up to see a cross-section of the people affected by these issues and hear their stories. 

The Me Too Project is a creative collaboration which seeks to encourage discussion about mental health. The aim is that by doing this, the stigma surrounding mental health issues can be tackled and some of the many who are affected by them can be helped. The Me Too project has brought together portraits of people who have experienced depression, anxiety and OCD and sought to tell their stories.

The Project is the brainchild of Zofia Sagan and Fran Cresswell who met at a personal development group and immediately bonded over their drives for social good and our own personal experiences of mental illness. Their aim is to promote healthy conversation on the topic and bring hope and courage to those who maybe suffering in silence.

My text, Session 1 is featured on the Me Too Project website.

Read it here:
me too project - session 1

Film and video production workshop

Cecilia Stenbom lead a film and video production workshop which I attended today. Cecilia is a Newcastle-based artist filmmaker who is currently undertaking a PhD at Newcastle University. 

“My work is focused on media saturated, consumer driven everyday environments and how they affect human response, notions of identity, behaviour and interaction. I examine collective experiences through moving image content by reinterpretation and appropriation, using narrative and plot as tools.I examines anxieties and desires, reinterpreting scenarios within entertainment, mass media, retail, and domestic life. I work predominately with moving image content through film and installation by re-contextualize narrative for the gallery space or adapting it for the cinema screen.”

Cecilia Stenbom

The workshop covered all aspects of film and video production from preproduction, fundraising, casting, legal requirements, through the types of equipment (video cameras, microphones, lighting) and to postproduction.



Cecilia began by showing us SYSTEM, a short film shot in a shopping centre featuring two sisters, each with their own neurotic responses to everyday life. Through the experiences of these two characters, SYSTEM explores collective anxieties, irrational behaviour and the quest for control in public space. The plot is loosely based on a number of one-to-one interviews that Stenbom conducted with people about everyday behaviours and habits in communal spaces.

Throughout the workshop we referred back to the SYSTEM footage to demonstrate how certain results were achieved, or to explain a concept or technique when put in practice.

When we were discussing how to achieve the kind of image desired, Cecilia showed us a very useful diagram to illustrate the relationship between the ISO, the aperture and the shutter speed.

For more information about Cecila's practice visit 

http://www.ceciliastenbom.se/index.asp

https://systemthefilm.wordpress.com



Artist Films 2014 - Cecilia Stenbom from CVAN, North East on Vimeo.