From the brink of quitting to award-winning filmmaking with Olly Lambert

Olly Lambert ep 1 The Imposter Club

Kimberly: [00:00:00] The Imposter Club is brought to you by talented people, the specialist executive search and TV production, staffing company run by content makers. For content makers. Welcome to The Imposter Club, a podcast for people working in TV to admit that we are all just winging it. I'm Kimberly Godbolt, director Turn Talent Company founder and I glean secrets from influential figures in the creative industries every day. spoiler alert, more successful people than you'd ever realize, still feel like a fraud, but you don't get to hear their stories. That changes right here in this podcast.

 It's my mission to discover how you can carve out an award-winning career in the company of self-doubt by asking respected senior people to share their stories of career fears and failures and what they learned from them.

Come on in to the Imposter [00:01:00] club

This is it. We're stepping into the imposter suite right now

Olly: Welcome to my.

Kimberly: this week I'm talking to freelance documentary director, OIly Lambert. Olly's won over a dozen awards, including an Emmy, a bta, a Gren, and an r t s, and is best known for his films about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, particularly in war zones, including Syria, across the lines one day in Gaza and Ukraine.

The people's fight, he's a director. I have huge respect for, for so many reason. Not least his willingness to open up about his personal struggles with the industry he loves with a fierce loyalty.

Come and sit in on our chat

Hey, Ali.

Olly: Good morning.

Kimberly: How are you?

Olly: I'm exhausted. Just done a long weekend on my own with a five year old. I mean, it's, I've dragged myself to my desk, but my fingernails absolutely spent.

Kimberly: Oh, it's quite nice then to sit here and just [00:02:00] gratuitously chat about your career with

Olly: on about myself. Yeah, exactly. It's

Kimberly: Well, it's now it's not all about your five year old now. It's about you.

Olly: I know. Yeah, he's a great deflection.

Kimberly: Yeah. Well, thank you for coming to talk to us at the Imposter Club. I mean, how do you feel about being part of a club that is, um, all about people who feel like frauds?

Olly: Uh, we're all, we're all frauds. It's just a question whether we realize it or not. , I think, who's brave enough to admit , it's all a sham.

You just fake it till you make it until you die. I think that's my motto.

Kimberly: and that's the spirit of the podcast. So I was . Reminding myself earlier of all the things that you've made, I mean, they're, they're not uh, lighthearted projects, are they?

Olly: I puzzle over this because I, I regard myself as fairly lighthearted and jocular, and yet it does tend to be that the films I make are about war and child sexual. , I dunno what's going on [00:03:00] there, but I, I suppose I'm drawn to, like the limits of stuff.

I find that quite exciting, you know, to go to the edge of stuff. Uh, if it always feels like some sort of adventure, if it's not geographical, then it is in some way going to an extreme place. It feels like, oh, this is worth

Kimberly: You do realize that this isn't proper therapy? I hope you're seeing someone who's

a specialist

Olly: the thing is I see a therapist every week, so it's very hard for me to switch out a therapy mode. I'm now sitting, sitting opposite, uh, at least pretentiously interested person. Uh, so brace yourself,

Kimberly: I'm there. I'm with you. It's all good. But in all seriousness, you know Ukraine, people's fight one day in Gaza, Syria, across the lines after shock. I mean, the. , I, I had to actually scroll down three times on your website to get through all the awards you'd actually won. Not that you've been nominated for, that you have won.

I mean, you're not the top of my list of people I would assume had imposter [00:04:00] syndrome.

Olly: Okay. Well that maybe that goes to the heart of it because I, you see, I hear you say, oh, well, you know, you won all these awards. I, this isn't f faux modesty. My honest reaction to that internally is, yeah, I, I have won them, but. I didn't, I didn't deserve to get them right. I mean, I got it through so many sort of series of bits of luck.

 through being in the right place at the right time, met the right person or you know, I could feel, I could tell you all the things I didn't film cause I've just made mistakes. But no one knows about that. I've never had the moment where the sort of some, the fairy godmother appears with the magic wand and taps me on the forehead and says, you are now.

A documentary director, or at least of all you are now, you are now successful. And even when I've had that, I have had moments. I mean, I'd be like, I have had moments of like, yeah, I've done it. Like winning a baths is pretty much as big as it gets, but it lasted a matter of days. The, because you've [00:05:00] got, you can't, then the question is, could you do it again?

No. . And, and you have to, how do you follow that? And, and also, I'll be really honest, when you win a big award, the phone does stop ringing

Kimberly: Really..

Olly: I mean, I haven't worked for three months and I've, I've received three calls about work. So in a sense it's like, well, what, what has that achieved?

You know, is that because people just think I'm really sniffy or won't be available or wouldn't do it? Or it might be that people think I'm grand. Oh, he's won a bath, he's won an

Kimberly: gonna be really

Olly: You.

Kimberly: now.

Olly: it'd be really expensive. I won't, it's not like I'm struggling for work. I think it'll be fine. Um,

Kimberly: a bit more. Now,

Olly: wh when, when the work gets out, it's like, do you do cash in the attic?

Kimberly: love cash in the attic.

Olly: All right. Would you wanna make it

Kimberly: It might be fun. You never know what you'll find, and actually looking at some of the things that you've made in the past anyway, you've always found the human story. You've always found the fun bit or the fascinating [00:06:00] bit that other people wouldn't have. So who knows what you could unearth on cash in the attic.

It might not even be some, you know, your granny's.

Olly: Probably I Earth child sexual abuse in a sort of history of war crimes, uh, in the attic , the, the O Lambert version.

Kimberly: do it. I think someone will commission that. It's a special, a filmmaker special, but we are gonna explore your relationship with this imposter monster as I've come to calling it over the course of your career. And I mean, you've, you've said out right, you have it, but I'm, I would love to find out how that feeling has affected the decisions that you've made. , all the content that you filmed and how they were sort of intertwined. Talk to me about earlier on in your career, can you remember any specific moments where you were a wash with a feeling of

imposter

Olly: Uh, there's, I remember, very specifically the first time. I'd got my first sort of break, uh, first time I was actually sort of commissioned as a director. It was for channel four's, sort of [00:07:00] new director scheme, which was then called Alt tv, and it's now called First Cut. And I was commissioned by Peter Dale, who was then head of Docs to make a film called Four Weeks to Find a Girlfriend, where I gave myself four weeks to find a girl.

And I'd film as much of it as possible. And I remember in the fir, I think really the first week of that, I was sitting in an office at Oxford Film and Television in Primrose Hill and I was writing someone a letter. And I remember at the bottom of the letter I typed, Olly Lambert and I underlined it.

And then underneath I worked, wrote the word. Director and I burst out laughing cause it seems such a preposterous, it's like, as if, as if that's gonna make me a director, you know, putting it on a piece of paper and printing it out next door. That obviously, that's ridiculous. Right. And just because this guy at Channel four has commissioned me to make it, well that's, that's not actually being a director, that's just someone asking you to be one.

It's not actually doing it. I think to a large extent, that sense of it is being slightly. has never really gone away. I think [00:08:00] I've, I think my relationship with that feeling has changed, but I, but it always feels like even when, you know, I could make a film and I look at it and go, do you know what?

That isn't bad. And like, I've, I've had a hand on that and that's all right. But it, it's gone in a flash, you know, and, and you sort of back to square one because, well then the question is, can you do it again?

Kimberly: So you got the job title and your signature that makes it official

Olly: , I mean, literally I laughed, I laughed out loud at myself like, you know, as if that's gonna make it real, you know? Directing documentaries is such a privilege, and I don't use that word lightly, but it's something that I'm, I feel incredibly fortunate to have found myself.

Kimberly: What do you mean by it's a privilege? What does that mean to you?

Olly: It's, it's just an extraordinary honor to be, be paid as a, as a sort of your work, my working life is literally going to interesting places to meet interesting people and asking them about an extra.

element of their lives, which other people also find [00:09:00] interesting. , I just get such a thrill out of going into places that seem chaotic and extraordinary and extreme and maybe incomprehensible to some extent.

Sort of trying to make sense of them in a way and packaging them so that someone who I've never met could see it and have some sense of what that was like, or who that person is or what that very remote distant experience could become real. That ordering of chaos I find really, satisfying and really interesting, and the fact that I'd be paid to do that seems absurd often. So I feel it's a, it's a, it's something I really wanna clinging onto. So the idea that I'm actually am able to do it always seems, um, I either feel really lucky or I feel a fraud.

Kimberly: Well, especially when some people have proper jobs like saving lives in hospital

Olly: yeah. I used to live with a, with an a and e doctor Rob in a, when I was first living in London. [00:10:00] We would come back and I, I remember, I remember getting home one day, I was actually as an, an assistant producer, and I spent the day, I think, in Worthing meeting I think it was Hulk Hogan, who was gonna be in Panto.

And it was a, for a, cutting edge, a cutting edge documentary . And I got back and I saw Rob and I said to him, how was your day? And he said, you know, someone had, you know, someone had died on the ward and there'd been a massive car accident and he was doing X, Y, and Z.

He said, what did you do? And I said, well, I was trying to see if I could persuade Hulk Hogan to be in a documentary. I thought, well, he was enormously envious of my life, but I was so envious of his.

I always felt like some fickle young fickle, young pup returning with these absurd tales of how I earned a living.

Kimberly: I remember directing stuff and, you know, sitting in the front room with someone who is incredibly vulnerable or had a very difficult story and, it just feels quite incredible that I can perch on the arm of the chair with the camera under my.

and this person sitting with this [00:11:00] said camera in their face is going to talk about their most, incredibly, , challenging circumstances to me because they're trusting me to

Olly: an honor. What an honor. That's what I mean by honor. It gives you a passport into other people's lives.

 The word director under your name or the camera in your hand. allows you a sort of access to other people's lives, um, that was very privileged, uh, , but I think what's more true is it gives you a passport into your own life.

It gives you a, it gives you an ability to explore things that you're interested in. maybe for quite personal reasons, but it gives you an excuse to go on quite extraordinary sort of journeys in your own head to sort of find out how you react to certain situations and how you, how you can inhabit the space of someone else who's, who's, who's had an, you know, very different experience or life to your own.

Um, That then it becomes, not narcissistic, but it's, it becomes very kind of quite personal actually what you are doing, even if that's not explicit [00:12:00] in the film. And I found that's happening more and more in the work that I do.

Kimberly: Hmm. So at the beginning then you got your direct title, you laughed out loud, you felt like a fraud, but you must have gone on and done a directee type thing. Um, How, what were the first sort of couple of experiences like as a director and can you give us any examples of, of how you sort of handled that feeling that you probably weren't good enough?

Olly: I always felt that I was just messing around. That was, and maybe that was a, that was a good thing, but that first film, for example, four weeks to find a girlfriend, it was just, it was just me getting drunk for four weeks and going on dates , and having it filmed in various different ways.

which didn't seem remotely like work. It was pretty ridiculous and it was very good fun. Uh, the next thing I did was a, was a, a sort of historical film for Channel four about Rasputin. I have no knowledge of Russian history. Uh, I mean, this is where the fraud cut stuff comes in. I didn't even know who the Romanoffs were. I didn't really know who Rasputin was.

I was [00:13:00] commissioned to make this film about

him and his life.

Kimberly: Someone did a song

about him, didn't

Olly: They did.

I mean, that's all I knew. I had an AP working for me and, uh, who had sort of studied Russian history and the questions I was having to ask, who are the, who are the roinos? Oh, Catherine the great, Catherine the Great say, what was her role?

And I knew nothing about this. And it was, it was about six or seven months of winging it, of copying other styles of filmmaking, , frantically learning about Russian. , in, in the most sort of ramshackle way, picking up bits and bobs, you know, frantically reading books, but not really having time to finish them.

Cobbling together ideas and then producing this thing. I mean, it's, I feel slightly fraudulent about that film in a way, looking back on it, cuz I really wasn't qualified to do it. I didn't have any, I didn't have any, no, this is a film about Russian history. I didn't, I didn't even do history a level, let alone Russian.

Kimberly: That, isn't that a good thing on the one hand? Because you were kind of coming at it, as a layman, and [00:14:00] I imagine you weren't only wanting to appeal to an audience who already knew stuff about this

Olly: Yeah, I've tried that line on myself. I think it's nonsense. I don't think that's good actually. And, uh, , the positive side of it is actually that it, there's always a sense going in that you, that I don't know enough or I'm not good enough, and that's quite debil.

That can be quite debilitating. And when I made my first film, the, um, well actually it was a, it was a sort of, it was a sort of tryout film.

 Before my first day's filming as a I would, I was developing this horrendous cough, um, to the point where I would run out of air and I was collapsing. I was sort of getting, I was.

Exhausting myself and then collapsing. I went for a chest x-ray, I was given codeine and, and then when the filming was over, it stopped. And the only thing I can help with is this is just purely a stress response to the enormity of the responsibility coming my way. And I, I think the kind of sense of how can I ever prepare for this? And that nervousness has [00:15:00] become, Quite important. It's become part of the process, um, going into it.

Kimberly: Just to say, we've got a website. Head to the imposter club.com. Where you can contact the show and sign up to receive our emails. As we build a warm community of creative imposters for world domination. Why don't get FOMO and head to the imposter club.com after this app.

Surely by the time you've won ABA and you are making really, you know, critically acclaimed, single documentaries, surely by that point, even if there's a bit of creeping doubt, you have a level of confidence going into your next.

Olly: Well, two things. One, it's one, it's very short-lived because you can have confidence going to the next project, let's take that Syria film. Yes. I spent a couple of months in Syria beginning of the conflict.

It was very intense, it was very bloody, it was very dangerous and it won all sorts of awards and it would be very easy to go, [00:16:00] Hey, I've made it, now I've done it. But what I've, what I can't shake off is the memory of actually making that film, which was for example, For most of that film, most of the filming of that, I would wake up between five and five 30 in the morning with a sense of enor, like literal terror, not from the physical violence that was taking place around there, but from the enormity of the task that I was taking on.

And I would often, I couldn't sleep. This was, this happened most. Um, I would get up, it would often be half light or still dark. And I was living in a quite a remote village, um, in Italy province. And I'd go for a walk, um, up this hill and, and it was at dawn and I would, I would literally sob and the sobbing was just, this is too much, this is too big.

How can. , this guy, and I was with a, with a local fixer, , really lovely guy who spoke English and was a sort of a [00:17:00] journalist, but not a filmmaker. How can I, with this little camera, like a bag with a camera in it, possibly represent and do justice to the imperial levels of violence taking place around me in a conflict.

Capturing the imagination of the planet and is changing the face of the Middle East, how can I possibly do that? And I'd have to sort of like steal myself, walk back down the hill. ABT would be waking up and he would say, you are right. And I'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're good. Let's go and let's just, let's just crack on, you know?

Let's just crack on.

and, and The film I did in Iraq in 2003, you know, so it's 20 years ago, a sobbing in the morning in a bombed out building just outside the hospital in the Iraqi desert every morning that there's a little place I would go, I'd sit on this half broken breeze block and cry.

Kimberly: the weight of

it.

Olly: the weight

of it. Yeah,

Kimberly: you feel did you feel like walking

away at those points?

Olly: yeah, yeah. Absolutely. But I, I mean, lit. I literally. I [00:18:00] wanted to fly back. I couldn't get back from the Iraqi desert and I couldn't just, it would take me three days to get out of Syria. Um, yeah, by the time I came down, I'd make a coffee and, um, it's interesting. it wasn't the personal danger of it, which was significant. It was, I'm just not, I just, how I can't do this. I can't, there's so much happening. How can I channel it and funnel it all through a camera and then make sense of it in a way that I don't yet understand or know about in a story that I haven't yet told with a central character I haven't yet met and who might not actually exist.

It's, it's enormous. and,

Kimberly: So why did you carry on? I mean, you could have got out of there. Sure. or did you feel too much like if you didn't, you were letting your contributors, your, you know, your, you are now friends

down.

Olly: that, well of various points. I mean, you know, in a production like going to Syria at that point we burned, you know, upwards of 80 grand. At that point, you know, it, it is not acceptable to go, well, do you know what? Just can't do it. And [00:19:00] there's a certain hardness that comes a massive, In the, the film, it is called One Day in Garza, there was a huge sort of crunch point during the edit. Yeah, for about 20 minutes, I just thought, I'm, I, I'm done. I cannot do this. I cannot do this. And my wife picked me up and then the next day there was a sense of, all right, let's go to battle and I'm gonna win this.

And we did. Um, and there's maybe that's a resilience that I have now that I wouldn't have had, uh, 15, 20 years ago. . And when I've done stuff that feels, I wouldn't say easy, but like, oh, I've got this. I usually look back on it and go, well, it's not very good work. a great, I rewatching Ted lasso season

two.

It's great. Right? And he's, you know, some of the stuff, he comes out. It's ridiculous. said to someone, he said to the, the bearded coach, uh, they say, if you are, if you're riding a horse and it's comfortable, you're not riding it properly.

And I think that's kind of, well, like mo, I mean a lot of creative endeavors. But the minute I, the minute I start to feel comfortable in the [00:20:00] making of a film, whether that's in the edit or the pre-production or the shoot, I'm uneasy cuz that I, I like being comfortable, but that's not how it

is.

Kimberly: That's not how you know, uh, you are at your best,

Olly: Yeah. Or in my experience, this job

isn't easy.

Kimberly: right? So it shouldn't be easy. It shouldn't be

comfortable. Therefore, something

is.

Olly: Yeah. It's now become

normalized, so,

Kimberly: Wow. I, I wonder how many people would agree with that. I'm sure there must be some people out there who think, yeah, that, that, that scene I shot today brilliant. Got it in the can.

Olly: I mean, I've had moments of going, well, that was good. That was worth it. But it it, it's gone by the fu the next morning. That's it. And I've met, but I've met people, you know, contemporaries of mine in both drama and documentary who've in been mid production process and just said, yes, it's gonna be great.

And I think, well, you are either lying to me or yourself, or this film's gonna be.

I just don't think the process should be [00:21:00] easy. Now, I might be prejudiced there. Maybe I'm just jealous because they're finding it really straightforward,

Kimberly: Is that not something that they put out on their pr but inside they're, you know, they're agonizing over it.

Olly: Maybe, but I mean, I think by, I mean, we will never know, from my experience, the more universal experience is for it to be. I mean for me, The sooner I can kind of recognize that and hold it close rather than push it away, the better I know when I'm doing it. I, I have my avoidance strategies are very, very advanced. They're, they're really good. I mean, at the minute, at the minute I'm obsessing with, I bought a new camera, so, and I've noticed this in myself and in others, actually film students who are obsessively building their camera rig and choosing on this radio mic over that and this bracket for that. And I'm thinking, well, you start filming in two weeks.

If I were you, I'd stop thinking about the brackets. Think, start thinking about the fucking story,

you know.

Kimberly: I think there is something really, um, calming about throwing yourself into the tangible stuff that [00:22:00] you can control in a creative process. I think I was the same. I really enjoyed the tech. I enjoyed being able to shoot, I enjoyed fiddling with settings because it, it feels like a solid. Thing that you can control as well as a side skill that you can show.

Olly: It's, the other stuff is uncontrollable, particularly in observational documentaries, who your character is finding them and what they're doing and being there when they're doing something that's interesting. It's, it's so hard to control. It's so hard to, get your hands around. Whereas if you've got a physical object like a camera, I mean, I think the camera is a really good example of how, how film, documentary filmmakers in particular can distract themselves with feeling like they're actually doing

the job while not actually doing the

Kimberly: this is The Imposter Club Coming up,

Olly: I just thought, that is it. I'm not a filmmaker. I've never been a filmmaker. And it became incredibly , Just a quick message. If this is your first time listening to The Imposter Club, please hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and so that we can reach more [00:23:00] people. After all, the more people that are safe inside the Imposter Club, the fewer there are outside on their own.

Kimberly: Welcome back to the Imposter Club

when has your imposter syndrome been at its worst over your career?

Would you.

Olly: Uh, well, I did, I almost jacked it in the whole thing. When is this? Maybe about 12 years ago, 15 years ago, I was skinned. I just, I just bought a f uh, my first ever flat and as I cycled up to collect the keys for my first ever property, I was cycling up Stonington High Street and there was a evening standard headline board and it. London House price crash looms,

just as I was collecting my keys and I had massively overmortgaged myself at a time when it was, it was a really, it was really bad and I, I've taken a job it was a, it was a cutting edge and it was, the idea was traffic jams Britain stuck in traffic, and what does it look like?

Who are we stuck [00:24:00] in? We are a nation stuck in traffic jams, and I took it because there wasn't much else going and I really needed work. I couldn't just afford to sort of sit back and wait for something that really, really sort of got my juices flowing. And I took it, , it was a mistake because I, I didn't drive, I didn't have a car.

I didn't. And I was gonna make a film about people who spent their lighting, cars commuting. So my engagement the, the people and the subject wasn't in any way personal and we encountered many, many problems in it. So you, all your protagonists are stuck.

No one's actually going anywhere. So there's nothing's actually happening in it. And that is a difficult hour on channel four to fill prime time. Nine

Kimberly: Sort of watching paint dry kind of springs to mind.

Olly: Basically the edit's totally overrunning. And I have got no idea really how to solve this problem. I can't make these characters into something. They're not doing anything and the film just isn't, isn't working.

So I'm cycling back and there's no, there seems to be no solution to all of these problems, and it's [00:25:00] all on me, right? I'm the producer and the director. There's no one else really who is shouldering that, and I just thought, that is it. I'm done. Uh, I'm done. I'm done from this work professionally.

I'm not a filmmaker. I've never been a filmmaker. I can't do it. I haven't got the skills. And it became incredibly personal, like I am utter. unworthy, as I put my life's a sham. I mean, it, it became really, really, really dark. Um, really dark. And that was quite a spiral. And, it took some coming back from, if I'm really honest, ,

Kimberly: who do you talk to at

times like that? Or what do you do with yourself when you're feeling in your, in your darkest

place?

Olly: I checked myself into therapy at that point, you know, I just thought this is, this is obviously unsustainable and, and like, who am I in all this? I'm getting lost in this. My identity was completely bound up in, in whether or not this film was gonna be a success, which is a very dangerous place to be.

And I recognized that, which was, well, if you feel that your life is a sort of success or failure based entirely upon the [00:26:00] outcome of a 48 minute television documentary, then you're in a lot of trouble. .

I sort of, I sort of fantasized about other jobs. That's it. I was in a jack in filmmaking. . I fantasized about being one of those gardeners in the royal parks that I would cycle past, or I was gonna buy a Land Rover. I was gonna drive to Cape Town and learn how to be a mechanic.

 And it took a few months to come back from that, and I never want to sail that close again. But at the same time, I suppose I've, I've sort of tried to, both be cautious of and embrace that shadow that's always slightly lurking of not being good enough. And I, and I hope that it in a sense now, when the relationship's a bit more healthy, that it can give me a bit of juice.

Is the one I word, I word I wanna reach for is like a sense of, oh, let's just, you know, I want to go to quite difficult places. I want to test. .

Kimberly:

I, I'm like astounded that you are still making documentaries when it, it sounds like you've had a rather agonizing career

Olly: Well, [00:27:00] that was, I mean, that was, look, that was definitely the sort of

lowest point.

Kimberly: but at each project you're saying you have these hurdles and these demons that you're pushing through and you are recognizing when you feel like this and working out what to do and how to move forward.

But at the same time, I don't suppose that many people who work in a supermarket as a gardener have the same sort of emotional turmoil about the job that they.

Olly: I mean, that's where I think they're sort of understanding my own relationship with that, with that sort of, the anxiety that goes with it is quite important. I, I now regard that anxiety as not exactly a friend but a colleague on the road, you know? I do some, um, teaching to young filmmakers, and I often say often when they come in a in a crisis of like, I don't think I've got the film or haven't found the character.

I say, well, that feeling of insecurity and uncertainty, as much a part of the process as logging rushes. I mean, that is, that is the part of it for me. And I think you, you have to embrace that and draw some kind of fuel out of it [00:28:00] to make you do better. You know, and that's not to say it's easy, but I think one has to, except quite profound personal uncertainty as part of the process.

And then when the film goes out, I'll watch it and I'll go, you know, I'll have a moment.

Okay, well, yeah, I did that. I made that and can feel good about it. But it's, it's gone within days and I'm back to square. What, it's exactly where I'm at now. I was very, pleased with the Ukraine film., I'm now, I'm now start. It feels like I'm starting again.

Kimberly: is it that keeps bringing you back from that edge back to tv? Back to making documentaries.

Olly: well that's a devilishly. Good question. I don't know the answer really. , There's something slightly addictive about it. I mean, I, it's, it's not far away from like, you bash your head against a war for seven months and then when you stop, God, it feels good. Uh, there, there , there's, I sort of won that again. I love that, that, that week, that those kind of, that 10 days, maybe a final post where you're making the grading and the sound mix is looking really good and all the final versions of the music comes [00:29:00] in and all that chaos that I've lived through. And all that uncertainty of, is this or is this not a film and is this person a character or not?

And, and it all starts to sort of formalize and take shape. And then you've got this thing that's, you know, 58 and a half minutes long and it's gonna be seen by people and, and it might change them in some way. It might lay an egg in someone's head.

And that is enormously satisfying. Um, but then the prospect now is used to sort of pick up everything and you start again. Whole new set of tools, whole new set of people,

Kimberly: It sounds

exhausting.

Exhausting.

Olly: is it's completely exhausting.

Kimberly: wonder you need two, three months off.

Olly: But there's no other, there's nothing else like it, you know? I can't do anything else. Um, I don't feel I can do anything else.

Kimberly: Mm. Have you ever walked away from a day in the edit and gone Well, who is looking brilliant.

Olly: It's never quite like that. The, the closest , the closest I've got there's a few moments cutting the Ukraine film [00:30:00] recently where my editor and I, we were working remotely with, with one evening. We'd say, well, let's both watch it tonight and then just check in. And I think there were a few moments where I texted him to say, well, after 12 minutes I'm in, as in I'm with the.

and or the first half's almost working . That's

Kimberly: Hi, praise from O Lambert

Olly: Or basically if I'm not bored much, I would say that's high race. It's like, okay, that's, it's not gonna get any better. Or if that moments of if I feel okay, that scene is now truthful to what I think was really happening, and it means.

It's never like I've nailed it. it's, I watched, I watch my own films through the gaps in my fingers really, of like, oh, well, like I messed that up. I could have been there. I should have done that longer. I should have held that shot.

I don't have a shot of that. And so we had to cut to that, you know,

Kimberly: That will be massively reassuring for the listener because I think I, I mean, I, I've been there as a director and you've [00:31:00] faced, faced with your own footage in the edit all my life. Do you feel like you're naked? because you're suddenly like, why did I not film that wide? Why did I not ask that question?

What the hell was that person doing over there in that shot? And we all know that when you are on location, there are a myriad of different reasons why that is the case and why you didn't do those things. But it doesn't make it any less painful.

Olly: I, I think I should do a, like a, I should do a film of mine and do the director's comment. that is basically narrating all the things that I didn't do and that I messed up. And the reason why you're looking at this shot is cause I didn't get the other shot. And the reason they're looking at this is cause there's a whole other story

that

Kimberly: Oh, we're onto something there.

Olly: Yeah,

I mean,

Kimberly: would pay good money for that. Olly, maybe that's what you should be doing with

your

Olly: only about four people. , it's a niche venture. But, um, that's the internal monologue I've got. Look, there's, there's a di, a very good director friend of mine, she lit. She cannot watch her own films once they've, once she's.

she never watches them again. It's too

Kimberly: Well, it's also because you've just spent weeks in an edit staring [00:32:00] at it,

Olly: at all. I remember getting, One of the first films I did was in Iraq in 2003, like 20 years ago, and I shot for a month, uh, in this military camp. And I got back to a very wise editor, Stefan Ronit, one of the greats, you know, and I never worked with him before.

And I put this bag of tapes, bag of dv cam tapes

on his

desk. And I was really honest. I took a deep breath and I said, Stephan, I haven't got a clue what this film's about. And I thought it was a great. , like, I'm really sorry. And he said, excellent. It's a perfect place to start.

Kimberly: Really?

Olly: it. He meant it.

It's like, this is where the job starts. Yeah. That that instinct or that, um, that spirit, I think is, it's

Kimberly: That is real. That is really cool.

Olly: , This Ukraine film it was critically very well received. Um, I mean, I shot 80% of that film. I messed up the camera. I had the, i I was baking in a lot. And for anyone who knows cameras, it's like the biggest mistake you ever make.

And it wasn't until I got to the grade that the grader said, yeah, it's gonna be tricky [00:33:00] this cuz obviously you've um, you've put in re 7 0 9. I said, no, no, no, no, no. Definitely sure slog three. And he goes, no you didn't. And that was when I realized on the Thursday of the week of final post, that's a massive

mistake.

Kimberly: Holy moly.

Olly: Yeah.

Yeah. I

Kimberly: around that?

Olly: I just don't tell.

Kimberly: Except me. No one else

is

listening. Don't worry.

Olly: They're just a catalog of errors. That is what I see. Yeah. And look, , you know, yeah, it's a good film. I think it's good. , but, um, it's, it's a good film in spite of me.

Kimberly: you are the most self-deprecating

Olly: No, no, that's not, that's, that is not fake modesty. It's like I, I've dodged bullets. I mean, know, metaphorical bullets in there of, of, uh, huge errors

Kimberly:

So talking about Ukraine, then, did you go there with a plan of what you wanted to get? And then how did that plan play out?

Olly: yeah. it played out how I thought, which was I'll go with a plan and that plan will turn out to be rubbish, and then we'll have to quickly find another one. That's literally what I said at the commissioning meeting. I [00:34:00] said, let's go out with a skeleton template. And the skeleton template was a single character who was the regional governor of Nikola region in Southern Ukraine, and let's make a film about him.

and sure enough that he didn't really wanna have a film made about him and we couldn't film him any meaningful way, and he wasn't really a very good character. So, the thing is I've been doing it long enough now to, to sort of almost expect that to happen, but that was my excuse to be there.

And then, , then the nerves kick in. It's like, well now in a situation, because we had a high risk advisor with us. I had, local producer for most of it. I had a, a British producer. We had a higher car, we had hotel costs. It's, we are burning thousands of pounds a day just to be there.

I've gotta find a film really quickly. And that's when the work starts, you know, when you start hunting.

Kimberly: And where are you at at this point in your head with handling that, that pressure, that creative? I don't know what this is gonna be yet.

Olly: well, now I'm okay with. . The job is to ha have my antenna [00:35:00] out as wide as possible, tuning into every conversation. Everyone I meet, everywhere I go, every possible shot. Gv, street character, everyone's, um, up for grabs, right? And to get back at the end of a day and think, okay, we didn't find it today, but that's okay.

We've got tomorrow. Rather than, well, I've met, I've met some be list people. Let's just go for it. It's like when I, we can probably afford to hold out for another week, 10 days maybe before we have to sort of commit. I'm familiar with that space where I'm not gonna panic. Steve Standen brilliant cameraman.

When I started out, I was asking him for advisory on how to shoot, and he said the best way to shoot observ. Footage is to have a quick mind and slow feet. And I think that's a brilliant way. I, I've used, I used that phrase to myself like a

mantra.

Quick

Kimberly: turned in my

head. That's clever.

Olly: Yeah. We can scam, we meet as many people as possible. But almost just like, watch and take everything in, but process it as fast as you can. That's one [00:36:00] of my little mantras that'll keep me sane in those, in those situations.

 And also I can usually say to myself, well, I've had it worse. I've been in worse situations. I've been in more panic situations. I've been more uncertain. I've had weaker characters.

I've had weaker stories. And that worked out okay. So I can have a word with myself and say, trust your judgment here. You can probably pull this off,

you know, without anyone. No. Anyone noticing it?

Kimberly: it's only taken how many years, Ali, for

Olly: 20 .Yeah, I

know.

Kimberly: and, and all of those films under your belt. But that sounds like you've come to a sense of sort of clarity and, and confidence in being unconfident. Is

Olly: Yeah. I, no, that's a really, I, I'm confident in being unconfident. Yeah. I, I mean that's, I'm, I accept that. I mean, u the Ukraine film, the most recent thing I did, I actually, we, I discussed this exact thing with my, the commissioning team. I said, look, we'll go out with a plan. It won't work, [00:37:00] it won't be very good.

That'll happen about five days, and then we'll quickly have to regroup and then consider our options. But, but in the process of being there with some kind of purpose, that's the work. And, and that's part of it. That's, there's a cameraman friend of mine, he says, to take good photos, the, the thing you've gotta do is just, just start taking photos.

right? And then you'll work out what a good photo is. And I, I think it's similar. It, there's, that's with the photo, with the photographic element of documentary films, it's like, well, yeah, it might be a good shot, but just start filming and then you'll starting to see a good shot. But similarly, just start being with people, start having those conversations, um, even if you're not

sure, but

Kimberly: I've I've heard it's the same about podcasting.

Olly: Uh, yeah. And how's it

going for You

Kimberly: You know, it could be better to, I mean, there's, some of the guests I've got lined up

Olly: I know it's pretty, pretty low rent. Desperate to a lot of time on their hands. , these guys

Kimberly: It takes a huge amount of confidence from a commissioner as well for you to tell them you're going to take [00:38:00] their money out to that location and burn through it whilst not, whilst having a plan that you know, is not gonna work.

I mean, that, that's, I suppose, a certain level of wow, huge level of trust from that commissioner to you based on. Career and cv, which is, you know, in itself re reassuring for you, I suppose. But they wouldn't let any old person go out and do that.

Olly: No, that's a fair point. And I realize I've sort of, that's a privilege, which I, I would sort of, I would say, okay, I've earned that. Um, but no, I appreciate that And I actually said it was Joe Carr at the bbc and I, uh, there was a, we had a screening and I said, I, I wanted to say this was a very brave commission.

I said, well, more than that actually was a very trusting commission. She was trusting me. . . But the, you know, the demons don't go away. They just sort of, they just become more, visible and more familiar.

Kimberly:

Has your Demon got a name?

Olly: wow. He's me, isn't he? I mean, , he's, he's Olly, he's Oliver. There's a story I read years ago, and it's one of those little, you know, stories that will stuck with me, but it's called, uh, A Wizard of Earth Sea by Ursula Neguin. It's actually a therapist.

He said, I don't often do this, but I [00:39:00] think you might like this book. And it's, it's, it's sort of a children's story. It's sort of magical, magical children's story. Um, it's similar in many ways to Harry Potter, but anyone who wants to read the book, stop now. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it away, but the story is about this little wizard.

Who's, who's got a gift, but he uses it badly, and in using it badly, he conjures from the earth this kind of demon and this demon, he never quite sees it, doesn't know what it looks like, but he knows it's out there and he's released it, and it starts to chase him. So the little wizard starts to run, and of course, this demon starts running

after

Kimberly: Ooh, terrifying.

Olly: And the faster he runs, the faster it runs. And he goes as far away as he can and it's still there. And then it takes the, it takes the form of people around him. It takes the form of people he meets and he suddenly goes, oh, that's the demon inside this person. Anyway, eventually he meet this, this little wizard, he meets this wise old man and the wise old man says to him, uh, some simple [00:40:00] advice, which is, it's not gonna stop chasing you.

You need to start chasing it. You need to. And the next, the next day, the wise old man wakes up and the, and the little boy has left a note on his, on his kitchen table. It just says, gone hunting. And the little boy, the little wizard has, has gone off and he starts to chase it. And of course, the minute the boy starts to chase the demon, the demon starts running away.

And he chases it and chases it. And the end of the story, which I'm now gonna give away, is that he ends up chasing it to kind of the edge of the world. Basically. He's out at sea and it's in a place where the sea and the sky and the land become one and it's. It's the end of the world. He's in a boat and he's

looking for it

Kimberly: It's probably a golden hour,

isn't it? For the visuals.

Olly: it must have looked amazing.

And I thought it was colorless. It was gray and white, it kind of white, gray, colorless. It was at the end of everything and he suddenly realizes that there's something in the boat with him behind him. And it's this demonn, this shadow,

Kimberly: Oh,

Olly: and he turns round and of course it is standing in the boat with him.

And it's him. It's [00:41:00] his, a shadow of him.

And he doesn't fight it. He walks up to it and he's, he embraces it and they become, he accepts it. And that might be going up pretty deep but that's, that's how I understand this sense of

uncertainty.

Kimberly: I think the story that you've told during our conversation is, kind of that.

Olly: Well, that's, I would be touched if that is true. But I suppose that's my, my way of understanding it is that it's part of it. I can't run away from the feeling of anxiety and, and uncertainty and insecurity and inferiority to my own sort of self and aspirations. I'm not gonna get away from that. So I have sort of, I suppose I have hope I've, you know, when I can incorporate it and go, well, this is part of.

Not just the process, it's part of me. You know, that's, that anxiety is a, is a driver. And hopefully that gives me something to, to make good work. You know, and I'll, and I'll just keep taking it with me. It's not going anywhere.

Kimberly: I love that. Is there one thing that you wish you'd [00:42:00] known when you were more junior?

Olly: It's sort of that, there's not the fairy godmother who taps you on the forehead with a magic wand and says, you know, you now know how to make a documentary film. It's like embrace the uncertainty, embrace the insecurity, because that's gonna give you something just as much as being able to shoot or being able to ask a decent question in a brave way at a certain moment, that's, that's who you need to be.

Kimberly: It's a great answer. I wonder if you'd have even, you'd have been able to

understand and

appreciate that.

Olly: No, probably not. I'd gone shut up. I've just been commissioned by Channel four. . Don't need you, mate. I'm off . Yeah. Cut to Blithering. Mess in Stoke Newington. 15 years later. Exactly.

Kimberly: Oh Ali, thank you so much for sharing so freely

about

Olly: I've overshared,

Kimberly: but that's the whole point. I don't think enough people share in this industry, and we are all in our own [00:43:00] heads. Whether you're making a documentary, a big splashy entertainment thing, if you are, whether you are a writer, whatever you are doing, that's creative.

It is so personal and subjective. I do feel that we, we are a lonely bunch in an actually quite an overcrowded world. by sharing how you have handled your demons over the years, I really do think you will have comforted and reassured some, and also given, given people ideas of how to run with it, how to live with it, rather than, you know, dropping everything and letting it,

uh, d

debilitate you.

Olly: don't run away from it.

Yeah,

Kimberly: Look, Ali. Thank you so much for your time today. I've loved chatting to you. It's been just brilliant. Thank you.

Olly: Pleasure.

Kimberly: Right. Come on in post is let's get everyone talking about this stuff more. Open up your WhatsApp groups and tell your production pals. They need to listen to the imposter club. [00:44:00] Everyone loves the podcast recommend, and this is so relevant for them. So that Q dos you'll get back is a free gift from me.

See you next time.

 The imposter club is brought to you by talented people. The specialist TV, executive search and production staffing company. Run by content makers for content makers. Every day, the team match-make influence and place premium senior talent. In behind the screens roles with integrity and a human approach.

Produced and hosted by me, Kimberly Godbolt, executive producer, Rosie Turner.