You’ve Got A Friend In Me
Meet London College of Communications very own MA screen-writing graduate, Lara Barbier. After graduating, Lara has achieved many brilliant things, including the 2019 artist in residency award at LCC. As well as being part of the Cornish BBC’s writers room, she is also a mentor for UAL students. Sharing eloquent words of wisdom and drawing from her own personal experiences in the creative industries, Lara discusses all things mentoring and post-graduation.
It looks like you’ve had a really good year, achievement wise. What has been your favourite?
I was accepted into the Cannes series institute program and that’s been a really amazing opportunity. We got wonderful workshops with people, who digitally showed up in our rooms with loads of advice. It was amazing to work with other fantastic screenwriters and have a chance to run ones own writers room. I can’t speak highly enough!
How did you get involved with the graduate residency award?
I’m of the mindset – just apply for everything! I had worked with a private commercial company doing some VR and my husband had recently re-trained in software engineering. We were both interested in VR as a new medium and what that meant for both of our careers.
What does this award mean to you?
Having the support of the university itself. We worked towards a final exhibition which was such a great opportunity for us to be profile raised. I invited guests from the industry, friends and family, students and all of the lecturers. I was really proud of what we achieved.
How has your experience of mentoring been?
Theres been lots of really good things about doing the mentoring. It’s unavoidable, when you start mentoring someone you form a relationship and become protective and proud of them. I tried where possible to be a friendly ear, eye and a safe space for her to try stuff out. It’s more important that she says something wrong with me and I can say ‘maybe next time why don’t you try this’.
Why is mentoring important to you?
It’s important to me because first of all, I’m not sure I would be where I am today without the mentor I had through LCC. Without him I would have fallen on my face and missed out on some important connections which are really vital when you have just left university and you’re starting out in an industry that you don’t know yet. It was amazing to be given the opportunity to then pay that forward.
What advice would you give yourself as a newly graduated student, looking back now.
Grayson Perry spoke at my graduation and he said ‘the thing about a career in the arts is that it’s a marathon not a sprint’. Like a horse at the start of a race, you come out of the starting box, you bolt down the run and you start running as fast as you can. That’s just a one way ticket to burn out easily. Be patient, work hard but also pace yourself.
Have you had any big challenges with mentoring or in your career?
The thing about writing is that it is unrelenting in terms of rejection. I know that when you read my bio it looks like I’ve had success here, success there. I wish I could create a digital wall of all of the rejection emails and letters I’ve had, because it far outweighs the success. I think you have to have so much resilience and grit to keep going. Learning how to move on from those disappointments and having thick skin.
Another challenge which is a very personal one but I will mention because I think it’s important to mention these things, I have a disability. I don’t like to use that word because I feel like I’m almost not disabled enough to claim that title. I have a chronic condition called type one diabetes. I’ve had it since I was a little girl and it takes up a huge amount of mental space to manage this very difficult disease day in day out. Sometimes I have to turn up to meetings and I’ve had a terrible night up and down with blood sugars or I’m having a hypo and I’m too scared to tell someone in a meeting that my blood sugars are dropping because I’m worried they will think I’m weird if I stop and eat some jelly babies – it’s that kind of thing. So I tried to hide it and sometimes it has effected my ability to work or I’ve gotten ill. That can be a challenge sometimes, but I’m trying to be better at talking about it.
Do you have have an example of how mentoring has benefited both you and the mentee?
Mentoring is a two way street, you will get out of it as much as you put it. In a way, talking with someone else and giving advice almost illuminated things in myself. When I met my mentee she was still very much at the start of her course and I think that was difficult. I think mentoring is most helpful in the liminal space when you are just leaving your course or University, just starting to take those baby steps out into the industry or field.
What tips would you give for anyone entering the creative sector?
Although there’s this narrative that London is the centre of the creative arts, and it is, lets not detract from what an amazing place London is having the amount of theatres, museums, it is phenomenal. But, there are opportunities outside London and sometimes there are even more! A great example of this is the fact that I have been invited to take part in the BBC writers room Cornish voices. I have been applying to the BBC writers room for five years, ever since university I’ve been banging on that door. I moved to St. Ives, contacted them and they put me in touch with screen Cornwall who are putting together this group to elevate creativity in Cornwall.