Many years ago my sister was at a school careers night. She was in 4th form (as it was then called) and the school had invited a range of local business owners and other professionals for the kids to talk to about life after school, ie, work.
One of the invited was a B-grade Australian TV celeb. And B-grade is rating him really rather high. He was then a weatherman for the ABC. In fairness, this carried a little more kudos in our family as dad worked for the ABC too, behind the scenes. Although, for many years I did think my father was the ABC 7:00 PM news reader. Follow my 5-year-old logic here. 1) Dad was never home at 7:00 PM. 2) Dad looked a lot like James Dibble who really was the ABC 7:00 PM news reader. Ipso facto, my dad was James Dibble. Not so much it was pointed out to me. Dad was actually moonlighting in a second job as a projectionist around Sydney’s drive-in theatres.
Anyways, my 14 year old sister strikes up a conversation with this wannabe meteorologist. He asks, “So little girl, what do you want to be when you grow up?” My extremely creative sister responds, “I want to be a graphic designer.” “Really?” says the dude who now has to work for a commercial network and hasn’t got a creative bone in his body, “that’s hard to get into. Maybe you should try something else.” Can you hear the dreams of a little girl’s balloon popping? It was 1980 and if I had a time machine i’d go back to that moment and punch him in his nose so hard it would go back into his brain.
This is not to say my sister’s life and career haven’t been fantastic and she enjoys her role as the registrar of a private girl’s school very much. But still, that bloke’s a cunt.
Fast forward a couple of years and I had a similar experience. Dad had taken me to Film Australia’s Lindfield HQ where he was catching up with some of his old mates. I was there because it was school holidays and couldn’t be trusted alone at home. Like history repeating itself one of dad’s mates (whose only experience in film production is showing the finished product on a big white sheet) asks me, “So little boy, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Firstly, I have never been a ‘little’ boy. I answered, “I want to be a cinematographer”. Like a ninja decapitating an enemy’s head he quipped, “So, you want to be unemployed.” My dreams were dashed at the same rate that laughter filled the air. Their rationale was Australian cinematographers rarely worked professionally.
Six months later Dean Semler wins Oscar for ‘Dances with Wolves‘.
Fuck those fucking fuckers. Now in those days I didn’t know an aspect ratio from an ISO so I’m not suggesting Kev Costner should have called me to shoot Dances for him. But in that short time, my course was readjusted down a very different path. Which has still been amazing and I wouldn’t swap for anything… except maybe an Oscar.