On a blustery July evening, a group of members joined an enthusiastic panel to discuss work-life balance. Generously hosted by Panavision, and a big thank you to Wes for hanging out for us, the panel included Ainsley Calderwood, Nina Wells, John Toon, Jo Raj and was moderated by Mark Minors.

The discussion was a great success, but perhaps just the start of what’s needed. Our panel were all keen and passionate about the topic with members of the audience chipping in with their own thoughts and ideas. Discussing things like 4-day weeks, 8-hour days and rolling lunches there was agreement amongst all that improvements in whatever form could be made to help improve the balance. 

What was clear was that Covid lockdowns have forced us all to slow down and evaluate our own situations. Ultimately this is an industry of passion and we should all assess our own values to decide where we draw that line between work and our personal lives, it’s not easy to do. Mental health is as important as ever and maintaining a healthy and happy pool of crew is crucial to a functional and successful industry.

As is always the case we could have gone on for ages and the surface was barely scratched. The important take away was to firstly to be aware of the issue and then encourage discussion amongst our peers. Talk about these ideas, push to try them out, and give feedback. It’ll be a long road to improvement but we can start by having more discussions like this, talking to one another and being more aware of our own work-life balance. 

We were able to record the audio of this discussion and aim to publish it as a podcast in the coming weeks, stay tuned! Finally a big thank you to Ainsley, Nina, John and Jo for being a part of this interesting discussion.