On set with our Pathfinders - Catching up with Lydia

The Pathfinders trainees have been hard at work on their respective placements, approaching the halfway stage on the programme. Pathfinders was launched at the start of the year by Cignpost to give back to the TV & Film industry and address the opportunity gap faced by underrepresented voices looking to enter the industry for the first time. 

This week, we checked in with Lydia to learn a bit more about her background and her desire to join the industry, and see how she’s settled into working on BBC Comedy. 

24-year-old Lydia, from Wembley, has loved watching films and TV from a very early age. Weekends, evenings and after school, she would turn to TV and film for escapism and comfort. She’d spend a lot of her free time leafing through movie catalogues and watch what she found with her brother, who often introduced her to new films. Streaming services were not around at the time, leaving plenty of scope to discover new programmes. 

Lydia’s love of film intensified during her days at university, where she spent most of her time at the Film Unit student cinema – at first going to £3-a-ticket showings, then working as an usher and finally becoming an events coordinator working with different university societies. Lydia curated and led themed events such as a mental health screening day and a Halloween immersive screening, and she realised that she wanted to see what it's like to make films and TV and be a part of that world. 

Noticing that she was one of only two Black and mixed people out of 18 in the student cinema committee, Lydia realised that the films shown, and the people attending, were not diverse at all. “I found that hard,” she says; “the films weren’t reflecting what I wanted to see. There are all these films coming out and you want to see yourself in them – it’s very frustrating to grow up with that. It was and often still is a surprise (albeit a nice one) if a director or producer is Black or Brown. I created an event at the cinema to shake things up a bit. A Black British film called The Last Tree by Shola Amoo came out in 2019 and I met some people at a programming festival to set up an exclusive screening. I noticed a change in the audience that attended the event compared to our other independent programming and the ushers that were working. I was really proud of that. 

There’s so much talent out there; things are getting made – for example, there’s We Are Parable, who do a lot of Black filmmaker screening events and opportunities – and I want to be a part of that and help make changes in different ways. 

I also just love the idea of seeing how people create. I have ideas myself of things I’d love to see on screen – not necessarily to do with race, though I don’t think that is something that can or should be ignored. Sometimes you have to do things on your own to make them happen, but there are already a lot of people out there doing things like that and making these important changes.” 

Lydia’s main motivation is to be a part of the diversity changes within the industry, combining her love for film with her passion for increasing representation within the industry. “It all starts at our level,” she says. 

Her path to the TV and Film industry hasn’t been direct, though – Lydia took a gap year before attending Sheffield University, where she studied politics, and then took various internships – even working at Test and Trace for a brief period. This was followed by a move to Liverpool, where she did an internship at The Everyman and Playhouse Theatres. 

Her next step was a move back to London. Here, she became a trainee production coordinator at the Mama Youth Project, which is the Pathfinders programme's charity partner, who share Cignpost’s aim of providing greater opportunities to people from underrepresented backgrounds in the media industry. This is where she found out about the Pathfinders scheme. 

Lydia didn't enjoy doing politics at university, instead yearning to do something related to TV and Film. For her dissertation, she chose to examine the politics of colourblind casting and its advantages and disadvantages. Starting to form an idea of how she wanted her future to look, she tried applying to beginner runner roles but found herself blocked by barriers at every turn; she needed a Film and Media degree, experience, a driving license and more. She also found there was a huge amount of competition for these roles: “I wasn't going to back down, but it was very intimidating. COVID was happening so everything was remote, and I couldn't afford to learn to drive. Contacts are hugely important in the industry, but I didn’t know anyone, so I found myself wondering, where do I start? How do I get in?” 

Lydia’s family have drilled into her since before the end of university the importance of getting a job or work experience to learn transferable skills. She applied for an internship with a charity, working remotely due to COVID, and gained skills in admin and marketing, which she used combined with her experience from university to apply to a film festival assistant role. She applied to around 10 jobs per month, using websites such as My First Job in Film and Creative Access to find roles. “I was really lucky in lockdown – I applied to a lot and every now and again I would get something back. I went from internship to internship learning different skills and taking what I could, and going from there.”

Lydia was selected for the Pathfinders scheme after submitting her CV and a short script, beating over 300 applicants to obtain one of the five coveted places. She started working on Ladhood S3 as a production runner, where she went on location in Hemel Hempstead and gained experience on set, in the costume trailer, and meeting people on the creative side of the show. Now, she works on the show Black Ops and has already had experience as a base and floor runner, as well as in her office role. 

Lydia says, “It’s been amazing. I thought I was on track to getting into TV with Mama Youth, which was based at Sky and helped me make lifelong connections while gaining media experience. But getting into Pathfinders – I’m literally in the TV and Film industry now. My foot is very firmly in the door. I’m still at the beginner level, but in six weeks' time, I'll have two official BBC credits to my name.” 

“I'm excited every day to go to work. I work in the BBC studios most of the time, when I’m not on location, and it’s so much fun. Just being in the building is amazing. I’ve met so many cool people. I also love being part of a film crew - so many people coming together to make something. It was weird at first, seeing actors and supporting artists walking around, but you get used to it!”

She has now been asked to stay on at BBC Studios Comedy for two more months – a huge achievement for her – but her big goals for the future are to become a development assistant or producer. 

“I’m very ambitious and I feel really excited about the future. Pathfinders has been a great success story both for me and for Cignpost, and I’m just so happy to be a part of it.”