Micaiah Dring, Twist and Shout

Two years ago Micaiah Dring was a student at Confetti and was sat in the audience listening to guest speakers in industry week. She is now the Assistant Producer/ Assistant Director at Twist & Shout productions and this week returned to Confetti as a guest speaker.

She started out acting in indie films in and around Nottingham alongside studying at Confetti. After completing her BND and foundation degree at Confetti she decided to gain some work experience and took up the roles of a runner to camera assistants, assistant in an art department, third assistant director and working in wardrobe departments.

Micaiah was keen to pass on her knowledge and says her three major tips for gaining work experience are;

1) Don’t ever walk off set out of pocket.
- Never use your own money to buy things for the production, always ask for the money before going out.
2) Decide what you want to achieve through work experience
- Decide whether you want to make a start at getting into the business or just gain an overview of how a set runs.
3) Assist a particular person or department.
- If you want to assist a certain department then don’t ask the producer, instead ask the department that you want to work with.
While working as an assistant director on a set, she was given the opportunity to take control of a scene which resulted in her being given the opportunity to be the assistant producer.

Micaiah now works at Twist and Shout, a company that specialises in business to business marketing, and has worked with such companies as Warner Brothers, Michelin and Sony. Working with global companies means she has to budget in Pounds, Dollars and Euros. This also means that she sometimes has to work outside the normal hours if she has to work with foreign clients such as Warner Brothers.

Companies contact Twist and Shout with an idea. The production team at Twist and Shout then workshop the ideas and return with a proposal of three options for the company to consider before deciding on the final brief. The company can decide on the content and the message of the video, however, Twist and Shout form the creativity for the video.
When asked about her future she said she is happy where she for the moment but may consider project management, advertising or she may even decide to start a family.

As her talk came to an end, and as an ex-Confetti student, she left us with some good advice. Deadlines are vitally important and if you can get used to working at odd hours and outside your comfort zone it can be really helpful, especially in the film industry.