AZ is Empowering Next-Gen Creatives with Relentless’ Freeform Forum

I think initially it was a natural connection that was the conversation starter. I saw the project last year and I know a few of [the mentors] and I was just like, “This is pretty cool”. It felt very current and like ear to the ground, as opposed to people that always get put in these sorts of pedestal positions. That drew me into it and then the connection too. Actually, in hindsight, I always talk about relationships in terms of work – how often work comes through natural connections or like people that you meet every job that I’ve ever got. I’ve never applied for a job; I’ve always met people or networked in that way, and I always built work off of organic relationships, so it just kind of felt right. That’s something always people always ask, “How do you network?” and I’m always just a bit like “Hmm…” Because it’s a different era now: back when I was learning how to do things, there were events and there were places that you could go and meet people, then those people pass your contact on. It was very simple, but now it doesn’t feel like that. So hopefully the programme also will ignite that a little bit between the mentees as well. Hopefully, they’ll get to work together and form their own little community, which I think is important. Organic relationships and ear-to-the-ground mentors I feel were right, so when I got approached for it, I was like, “You know what? I think I should be a mentor”, but I don’t think I’d normally be considered in those kind of categories with that sort of title. But this felt right.

Yeah, I definitely think social media’s got something to do with it. I also feel like – not to bring up COVID, I hate when people talk about it because it feels like an excuse – but there was a time when we were just told to stay inside and after that, everyone kind of stopped what they were doing. I had a lot of momentum before: I was putting on my own events and I haven’t put on another event since. It’s been years, so I do feel like there’s been a shift.

With social media, it is so easy for you to be something. Everyone can be a photographer if you put a page together and it looks right. I run photography competitions for festivals and I always want it to be people who haven’t had the opportunity to shoot at a festival before. But going through everyone’s applications, I’m like, “You all look so much more professional than me!” because if you can package yourself in a way online where you look so put together in whatever field you decide to be in. And you can jump in multiple fields online! You could be a baker on one account and then be something else the next day. There is something to do with that perception and people not feeling the need to be professional. You don’t need to go out and network because you can set up an account that looks so professional, and things will come through.

Maybe I’m not the target audience, but everyone I speak to who’s younger doesn’t feel like the spaces exist like they once did. There were a lot of creative spaces when I was younger, and there were loads of collectives that felt very open. There were definitely cliquey elements, but it was a different time.

My sister is 22, so she is the target age for Freeform Forum. I’ve taken her under my wing a little bit and she’s worked for me; giving people that age the opportunity for organic networking is key. She struggled straight out of uni, she felt like she was supposed to be thrown into the London creative scene and be successful, but that’s not the reality. You still have to climb and prove yourself. A lot of the younger generation, without building a foundation, expect that doors will be open for them and they will get paid straight away for all their work. I do obviously think people should get paid, but you can’t expect to be at the highest rate if you’ve just started out. This mindset comes from the lack of spaces where people can be transparent with each other and chat. Those natural conversations aid the culture of the community, like “How much did you get paid for that?” and “Oh, they offered me this”, those kind of natural conversations are what aid the culture of the community in a way. Or I’m just a bit older and don’t get invited if they do exist!

So true! I do feel like there is such an importance in the tool that is social media and online. Those communities obviously do exist online, but I don’t think there’s anything more powerful than an IRL connection and building something organically in real life. Obviously ‘AI’ is something that everyone is using now, but that will never be able to replace me and you actually sitting in a coffee shop chatting. Do you know what I mean?

I think all of the mentors will give it to them, me especially. I plan on being able to open up my world to the mentees, and that is a world of sharing and connecting with people. If my mentee wants a really specific type of graphic design or whatever, then I can show them loads of references to people who do it and then maybe eventually link them up further down the line. I think it is the duty of a mentor to look after them, in a sense, and help open that door. The platform itself is a huge door opening, but I have my own doors and my own little black book that I’m willing to open up and share.

I think and hope there’s a level of professionalism they can take away from it. If it comes naturally to you, it’s really easy to do it: you love to write, so you’re a writer. If all you think about is writing, or if photography is in your blood and you love practicing it, that would be easy for you. But there are a lot of people – especially the ones who will apply for this – that want to make a hobby and a passion into an occupation. Making a passion into an occupation sounds easy, but it’s really not. You have to learn paperwork, like how to invoice and have a tone of voice: you have to learn how to be a business. Whether you want to be a faceless business or not, if you’re applying for something like this, I’m assuming you want to make money and share your passion. The bottom line is you’ll probably have to be a business at some point, and a lot of people struggle with that. Even sending an email to someone, there’s a level of professionalism that can be gained by learning from someone who has done it before and made mistakes along the way.

I had people older than me who really helped me and showed me the way, who took me places and I learned on the job. If I had someone I could speak to about my passion and how to move forward with it, it would have been helpful. It’s like having a personal trainer – not that I have one now, but I had one for two weeks, and it felt nice. He wasn’t my friend, but he checked in on me about that specific topic. It made me take it more seriously. I thought I didn’t need him after a while and decided to do it myself, but I needed the tools to have those conversations and find my confidence. We only spoke about that topic, not about other distractions. If you streamline your conversation around what you want to focus on, it’s really useful, especially if it’s with someone you admire and who is successful.

100%. I mentioned earlier, I’ve never applied for a job and I’ve just always bounced off of organic networking. I was born and raised in London, but I went to uni in York to study Film and TV Production. When I was there, I would come back to London every now and then because I’d get offered to be a runner on music videos through people I knew in London. Then I’d get back to York, and everyone else on my course was from around other parts of the UK and didn’t have access to the media hub that is London. They’d be like, “Oh my God, how did you get on a Skepta video in first year?” and I’d say, “I met this guy back in the day hanging out at The Ace Hotel”. The access to the culture and the scene, which I had at my fingertips as a kid, was something many people I went to uni with or anyone not from London, didn’t have. Access to that is super important because you get complacent if you’re from here. You think, “Of course, I know a lot of creative producers or rappers from London”, because you’re from here and mixed here.

Many people come to London, and I’m assuming many people applying for this probably live in London, but might not be from here. It’s important to offer access because everything is happening here. People move here to get into it, but it can be hard to navigate or find people to bounce off or even let you in. Offering that space to people not born into it is key. I feel like everyone I’ve met in the creative worlds I’m in – the makeup artists, the producers, or any of those roles – the people I think are absolutely killing it are not from London. They’ve come here and really grafted, navigated it, and it’s probably been a lot harder for them. They’ve absolutely smashed it and have to be more resilient, pushing a little bit harder. It’s expensive to live here, so you really have to want to do it to make it.

I personally think absolutely yes, but I only really had that perspective shift a few years ago. I used to think I was a failure because I wasn’t at the top of my game in one box. If you want to be a director, you should be pushing to be a director and only a director.  For a long time, I didn’t think the fact that I could do quite a few things was a good thing, which sounds weird in hindsight. But once I shifted my perspective, I felt it’s absolutely a superpower to be able to do more than one thing.

Before lockdown, I was very heavily into photography, but then I couldn’t be on a photoshoot because we were all inside. So I used my editing skills that were just in the back of the locker, brought them to the front, and became a full-time video editor. I was making the most money I ever made. The ability to pivot and change your focus is crucial for the creative ecosystem we’re in because people expect you to do a lot of things now. I mean, when it comes to money, people would rather hire one person than four because it’s cheaper. Instead of just being the photographer, I offered to make things as well, and eventually, they put me to do both. It was a big workload, and I learned the hard way, but I’ve found a good balance now.

I also think it’s important to respect other roles. When you’re a runner and work your way up in the video and photography world, you understand and respect those roles more. I’ve assisted stylists before, and that helped me respect that role. Any role that’s not yours, you see it one way, but when you dive into it, you understand it more and become better at your role. Then I started hosting and being in front of the camera, which was a complete pivot. It wasn’t in the plan; it just happened, and I ran with it because it made sense. I got signed to Nike, so I did that full-time, and everything behind the camera took a backseat. But then there are downtimes, and I switch it up. Because I’ve spent so long behind the camera, I understand what everyone needs when I’m in front of the camera. I can’t write a script to save my life, but my sister is amazing at writing. I’ll get her to read her work to me because I have so much respect for it. I know I can’t do it, so I want to help her in the way that works for me. Knowing and respecting other roles is so important.

I think I was one of those kids that always had a gadget. My dad came to this country from Cyprus, and he was obsessed with kit and always had a little handycam. So, I was always making stuff when I was a kid, and I never necessarily thought that was a career path, it was always just something I did. In secondary school, I made all of the leavers’ videos. That, to me, wasn’t a job; it was just me doing stuff. Then it came to uni, and it was like, “What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?” But I thought, “I guess I just do this stuff anyway”, so I decided to do a film degree at one of the best unis that offered a creative course. From there, I don’t even think there was a point where I felt it was going to be a job. I just continued to have a tool in my hand because that was natural to me. I remember taking photos at the uni rugby boys’ social or something: they needed a photographer, and I offered myself. It was one of the weirdest things, but they said they had £200 for it. I didn’t even ask for money; I just thought I would take the pictures. Then I realized, “Wait, you’ve got £200 for it?” When you’re at uni, that’s mental. I realized, “OK, there’s some money to be made.” Then I started working in Yeats’ bar, taking pictures for free but selling them on keyrings for £1 and keeping all the money. I was making £200 a weekend, which was mad. I thought, “There is actually some money in this… maybe this is it.” So I kept following that, and it naturally progressed into people asking me to come and take photos at their gigs.

When I came back to London, I ended up doing BTS on music videos, and that was a natural progression. But then I was interning and working. I worked at a radio station and a football club while I was still at uni, and they offered me positions. Once I left uni, I was freelance. When I was at Rinse FM for a bit, I found a lot of people there didn’t get paid, and it was something I didn’t enjoy. People would ask me to take press shots for them, shoot their shows, and make album covers. I was excited and wanted to do stuff, but they’d ask me to go to Hertfordshire and never talk about money. I’d think, “Maybe some of you guys need to pay your shooters”, because, you know, hello! Then my friend suggested I make a t-shirt with that slogan. That developed into a little mantra that I kept with me and it’s still running. It’s now pivoted into a bit of an agency, where I run photography competitions and have merchandise that I call a shooter’s uniform—basics that I feel everyone should have. It’s a big middle finger when someone reads your t-shirt, and it says, “Pay Your Shooter”. If you’re the photographer there and they’ve tried to pay you 50 quid for the day, you know what I mean? Being taken advantage of when it came to money made me take it seriously. I thought, “I’ve been grafting all day. This is a job.” It was kind of an accident, but through frustration with people’s expectations of free work, I decided, “No, actually, you should pay me £500 for the day.” It isn’t always the case, especially when you’re starting, but if you can get there, it’s real. That was probably the switch.

I cannot wait to chat with people younger than me. I’ve mentioned my sister a few times, she is six years younger than me, and we work together now. We’re going on tour with an artist in the US at the end of the year for a whole month. I wouldn’t have thought me and my little sister would be doing that, but she’s not just my little sister, she is a young creator and she has taught me a lot. She has a completely different perspective. I really love just getting to know people, so I feel excited to build new relationships with people who are clearly creative and have passions. When two passionate people come together, sometimes you’ll never shut up, and I’m looking forward to maybe going over the allotted time we have with them. Hopefully, there will be something at the end of this. Maybe they’ll assist me or maybe they might need me to assist them on something in the future. Do you know what I mean? I’m just excited to speak to people. I don’t want to keep saying younger because it’s not an age thing, but as I mentioned about my sister, I think that is a good perspective change. I like change and seeing things differently. I think it’s important to be ever-evolving, and they’ll probably help me on a journey as well. So I think that will be nice.

What am I doing next? I’m making a documentary with Mahalia for her next project, which is really exciting. The music she’s been making is sensational, and I love the creation process, not just of music, but of anything. When people are ideating, I could just watch them make ideas; I love that. So, being a fly on the wall for her next project has been lovely, and there’s a lot more to come from that. I’m looking forward to building on that and delivering a beautiful piece.

I’m going on tour with Elmiene, which is crazy because I met him on the NOTION shoot. That was the first time I met him, and we got on well. Since then, the conversation has been developing, and we’re going on his world tour, which is mental. That is going to be cool, with my sister as well. So it’s like, what the hell is this? A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m just running with what’s coming, not trying to block any blessings, and being as open as I can while always making sure I’m capturing organically. I’ve said it like ten times, pretty boring now, but natural, organic things – relationships and these moments – are what got me here. Recently, I’ve rediscovered that about myself, and I’m following that. It’s got me here, on this tour, and doing this documentary. I’m really excited for those.

I just opened a photography studio a few months ago in Dalston. It’s called ‘Open,’ and I want it to be a space that will open out to the mentees as well. I want to build on Pay Your Shooter being more of a community and hopefully get some funding from somewhere, giving people the opportunities to shoot and have access to things because I didn’t. If you can’t afford a camera, you can’t really be a photographer. Do you know what I mean? I’m building a community within that and the studio space, which hopefully becomes its own community and allows me to keep travelling the world some more.