March 25, 2006
HOW I GOT STARTED IN TV
RANDY TARTT AND POMPOUS ADVICE
Every now and then I get letters from people asking me for advice about getting into TV. I never really feel qualified to give any advice but I thought I’d show you how I got started and go from there.
This is my video Randy Tartt that I made in early 1993 when I was at studying sculpture at Cheltenham & Gloucester College Of Higher Education. There’s a clip of it on The Adam & Joe DVD in the extras section but this is the whole thing. It was sort of inspired by some footage of Henry Rollins I saw on the Late Show in 1992 and Lou Reed in general. It’s very much the work of an art student for better or worse. Some of you may recognise the backing track but don’t shout about it or I’ll get sued! I never made any money off it anyway, but it does represent the beginning of my ‘career’ in TV.
During my final year in 1994 I tucked Randy Tartt on the end of a tape of juvenile bollocks I sent to the production company World Of Wonder after I saw an ad in the NME asking for tapes to be used in a kind of public access show they were making (originally called Box Pops) eventually called TakeoverTV. I didn’t hold out much hope of hearing anything back.
Around that time I used to send out a lot of letters and tapes to all sorts of people in TV that I admired hoping to get some work. I wrote to Chris Morris, Vic & Bob, Harry Enfield, Janet Street Porter (the most important woman in TV back then!) as well as producers and executives but no one wrote back. Here’s one I wrote to Armando Iannucci in 1994…
I don’t think it’s too awful a letter but there’s nothing there that would make anyone think ‘wow, this guy’s got something! I’d better call him right now!’ and stabs at wordy humour like “I will contribute in such an inspired and innovative, yet obsequious and obedient way…†say nothing really, except ‘nerd here!’ maybe. Was I being ironic about “pursuing a career in light entertainmentâ€? I honestly don’t recall. If I were writing the same letter today I’d keep it really short and just hope they liked the tape (which was probably much too long as well. Keep it all super short is the key!) I don’t know if I would still call him ‘the hooty mac’. I might.
Anyway, the summer after I’d left art college I was sat in my room one afternoon when I got a call from Fenton Bailey who co-owned World Of Wonder productions. Fenton said he loved my Randy Tartt video. He thought it was ‘genius’. It turned out that ‘genius’ was a word he applied to almost everything, from bad music to hair do’s and cups of coffee, but I didn’t care. A real TV man liked my stuff and I was going to get a job watching clips for TakeoverTV and maybe even present a show too! The next day I probably started worrying that I wasn’t up to it, or he was ripping me off, or it was all a front for a sex slave ring or whatever, but for a few hours after that call I was amazingly happy and excited. It turned out that it actually was a front for a sex slave ring, albeit a fun one.
Ten years later I got to work with Armando Iannucci so there you go. My advice then is: keep putting things out there if you want opportunities to come your way but even if they do, it usually happens at such an imperceptibly slow pace that it feels as if nothing’s coming your way at all. Except for that one call from Fenton in 1994 I’ve never had a ‘eureka!’ moment in TV. I don’t think many people do, because like any other job it’s about boringly plodding on and slowly improving until someone notices, ie. the opposite of the Pop Idol philosophy of sudden bitchy-judge-based dream fulfilment. But I imagine there wouldn’t be a huge audience for Boringly Plodding On And Slowly Improving Idol would there! Ha ha. What a clever thing to say! Thankyou. Now I’d better do some real work or Armando Iannucci is going to make sure I never work with him or anyone else ever again.