The Media Odyssey

TMO - Career Episode (audio)
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Evan Shapiro: [00:00:00] You were helping the other departments tell their story externally. Is that an accurate?

Katrina Craigwell: Yeah. Yeah, because I was sitting in a corporate role and so it was a really interesting experience in that respect. Because the first time you call up like the jet engine factory or the gas turbine factory and you're like, Hey we just, we'd love to bring a drone camera through your factory floor if you wouldn't mind 'cause we have, you have a great story to tell there. We gotta get some like engines off the lot

Evan Shapiro: Welcome back to the Media Odyssey Podcast. My name is Evan Shapiro, and this week there is no Marion Ranchet. She's on vacation as folks from Europe do now and then so I'm hosting solo, but rather than host solo, I wanted to talk about something that's super important to me, which is career sustainability, career development.

Right now is a really hard time in the media universe. Last couple of years we've shed more jobs in media and entertainment and tech than the five years prior to that combined. And so whether you're thinking about changing your careers or you're starting your career after graduating college into [00:01:00] a really interesting economy, or you need to change your careers because you lost your job or laid off or you quit.

I wanna talk about two ends of the career spectrum here, the earliest and then the middle. So maybe not the ends, but the beginning and the middle. And we've got two great guests, Jazz Pitcairn and Katrina Craigwell with us to talk about two different stages of careers and how important it is to maintain a network, to always be no open to new opportunities, and to continue to have enthusiasm and a curiosity for the things you do in your life.

Let's start with Katrina Craigwell. We've known each other for how long?

Katrina Craigwell: Like almost 20 years.

Evan Shapiro: 20 years. And your current title is what?

Katrina Craigwell: I am MD Head of Product for Chase's at consumer branded credit cards. It's a bit of a mouthful, but it's a great job.

Evan Shapiro: And when we first met you were doing what?

Katrina Craigwell: I think I started as a marketing intern and then became a PR [00:02:00] coordinator at the Independent Film Channel.

Evan Shapiro: At the IFC, as we used to call it.

Katrina Craigwell: At the IFC.

Evan Shapiro: So you look through the perspective of your career from PR intern or marketing intern at a television network and now heading a whole department of customer relations and marketing at Chase. At chase, at the client really in a.

Katrina Craigwell: And I'm actually doing product. I've moved away from marketing, which will always be my first love, but I'm now doing technical product and program management for the platforms that power a good chunk of Chase's credit card. So it's I keep thinking it's a long way from home.

Evan Shapiro: It couldn't be more different than the first thing you did when you entered whatever industry it is that we kind of share. And so I thought looking back at that trajectory and figuring out how you got from there to here could be a good lesson in really thinking outside of the box about yourself and about pivoting when you think you need [00:03:00] to, when you need to, before you need to.

You worked at AMC, you worked in marketing there for a little while, and then you went to GE. Is that right?

Katrina Craigwell: I did, I actually had a couple of gigs in between the time at IFC and GE. I worked for a group of startups for about six months. That was the, I've been let go from my job three times in my career.

That's something I need to talk about really. One was from the retail floor at Lululemon during college. The second was from this group of start. I do, I still love Lululemon, swear by it. This group of startups, which was a really important lesson. I was, I think about 25 at the time. And it actually might have been like right around my 25th birthday.

But I had jumped in and taken a job that wasn't really well defined and I was still very young in my career and what I didn't do a good job of was being clear about what am I bringing to this company and how am I like defining that and articulate, articulating that and agreeing on that with my stakeholders. And then driving that.

I was flying a little bit by the seat of my pants and so that was a really important lesson. Then I went to work [00:04:00] at a social media agency, Attention, and that was, and I think the team at IFC actually helped me get there, find my way there. And what I love about agency experience, it's similar with consulting experience, is you get to learn a lot.

You get to see different industries and you get to be executing and making sure that the work that you're doing is getting to the customer is one of the principles throughout my career that has been really, really important to me. And then after that I went to GE.

I've always been a bit of a nerd and I've always loved big machines and sci-fi and all that kind of stuff and I've always loved storytelling. And at the time GE, which is much different now, it is broken into three companies, but it was a big conglomerate that did a lot of things that you know. If you've flown on a plane, if you charged your phone, if you'd gone through a hospital, you had very likely been on the other end of a GE machine.

And so it was this invisible layer of beautiful technology that people didn't really understand. And so for me, there was so much to learn. It was like a playground and an opportunity to continue with [00:05:00] storytelling.

And so we launched GE on Instagram and got GE into virtual reality and YouTube and working with creators and all these things that actually connected back to a start in television in a really nice way. And so spent seven years there and throughout my roles there, I always looked at well, okay, what's the next adjacent area of capability that I can learn? How do I bring what I'm really good at, trade it and then learn something I don't know anything about.

And so I spent five years at GE Corporate doing brand storytelling. And then I moved over to GE Digital for two years where I ran, that was my first team of a meaningful size, where I ran brand and eventually demand generation. And GE Digital was focused on selling software that would work across these big machines, across wind turbines, across jet engines, et cetera.

And then I had to start to learn things like Demand Gen and really connect marketing to commercial impact.

Evan Shapiro: A huge transformation of your career and ergo your kind of entire worldview I would say over the [00:06:00] course of this time. I think it starts with the idea of discovering your transferable talents.

Katrina Craigwell: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: You talked about figuring out the stuff that would always be true. I think I love the idea of immersing yourself in a portfolio and environment at an agency. I think the difference between working at a brand or at a company and working at an agency that works for companies is a real difference in perspective that a lot of people don't understand is additive.

First of all, the networking opportunity at working at an agency. Is that how you met the folks that eventually brought you to GE?

Katrina Craigwell: It actually is. It's always like a relationship here, a relationship there. And so it was

Evan Shapiro: Right. The ability to have that kind of portfolio, network versus a singular, vertically integrated network at one company really does offer a different perspective.

Not one is better than the other, but having both in your careers is very, very useful over the course of time. And then you made this huge leap. At GE, were you internally [00:07:00] faced for storytelling at first or was it an external operation?

Katrina Craigwell: It was always external storytelling.

Evan Shapiro: Okay, so it was you were helping the other departments tell their story externally.

Is that an accurate?

Katrina Craigwell: Yeah. Yeah, because I was sitting in a corporate role and so it was a really interesting experience in that respect because the first time you call up like the jet engine factory. The gas turbine factory and you're like, Hey we just, we'd love to bring a drone camera through your factory floor if you wouldn't mind, 'cause we have, you have a great story to tell. They're like, we gotta get some engines off the lot, so.

Evan Shapiro: Who is this?

Katrina Craigwell: That's right.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, but that's super interesting. So here you are working in marketing, and this is something I've talked about a lot in the stuff that I've written is, which is be if you're in marketing, you're in media, you can apply those skills on gen ed engines, on abstract concepts. But you have to understand the relationship and you have to divorce yourself from the practical limitations in front of you and really look at it as to your point, storytelling in this case, or marketing, generally [00:08:00] speaking, and market fit. And the more kind of zoomed out versions of what you're doing as opposed to forgetting for a second that they're jet engines that you're working on and then, go about the science of it.

And so that first conversation, starting to work on jet engines and creating demand generation right, for a wide array of kooky products at GE really taught you what? What did it teach you?

Katrina Craigwell: They first, like at its core, there are a couple things. A lot of the work, the soul of the work and the spirit of the work was if you spend a minute understanding how any one of these machines work. If you spend a minute with the humans who are building these machines that are like.

I mean, when you think, like these are incredible things. There's like a spark there, right? There's some magic there. If you're at all curious about the world around you. And so it was feeling that spark and figuring out how to bring it to people in a way where we could share that. [00:09:00] And that was like, that's a core principle that you can take to anything.

There is a story anywhere. At the core of so much of what is around us as a human with a vision, maybe a little help from AI these days, but who has brought something right that's close to their heart to market, to serve somebody? And so that is one of the,

Evan Shapiro: But that becomes a universal, but that becomes a universal tenet of your work. Right?

Katrina Craigwell: Yes.

Evan Shapiro: No matter, around then emerging through all these varied stories that you need to tell, these varied practices that you have to jump in and out of on an ongoing basis. Internally, at a company, at GE, you brought this kind of, I don't know, meeting the bridge on the half, more than halfway. The empathetic understanding of the world around you, but this also general curiosity of what makes an a consumer and a product match, right?

That you now apply to products. So you're doing this across an array of internal clients for external audiences at GE, and then you make a [00:10:00] leap.

First of all, how do you make a leap from GE to JP Morgan? How do you go from GE to banking? It theoretically, I guess it's not that huge a chasm, but it does feel like different worlds.

Katrina Craigwell: They are different worlds. Again, it was a relationship, so it was my network being incredibly supportive. And there was, the first time I went to Chase, I went to run marketing for a product called Fin, which was an experimental mobile only deposit product. And it was a small team running end-to-end marketing, but another new type of opportunity.

Then I ran employer brand marketing for a year. Then I went to Meta for a few years and then I came back to Chase.

Evan Shapiro: You left Chase and you went to Meta.

Katrina Craigwell: Yeah.

Evan Shapiro: And again, is this, this all comes from, are you, you're not applying for open jobs or are headhunters seeking you out, or is it, this is almost entirely driven through this network of humans you've woven together over time?

Katrina Craigwell: It's almost entirely driven through the network of humans. It's interesting, the Meta role, a [00:11:00] recruiter reached out and that was probably the only example where it wasn't like a personal relationship that brought me in. Which I just think back, I'm like that's interesting. As one point of difference.

But yes, the rest is all personal relationships and there are incredible leaders at all these companies. If you're not spending time getting to know the leaders at the company that you're at and that's just such an important part of the experience and it's been a gift to me.

Evan Shapiro: Internal marketing? Internal marketing at the companies you go to.

Katrina Craigwell: Yeah. And so they can be marketing leaders, they can be leaders that are in functions that are, that you're interested in, that are adjacent, because you always have something to bring, right? There's always, if you have knowledge and spark and passion and curiosity, like curiosity is the key.

There's always a way to sit down with somebody for 30 minutes and share what you know.

Evan Shapiro: Well, and it's kind of like a market at that point. You're exchanging your enthusiasm and value add for theirs and that's how we agree to cooperate with each other as members of this huge community. But how did you create a community that has that [00:12:00] kind of varied source of folks?

You know, you have banking, you have GE, you have Meta, and now you do, but how do you take care? How do you caretake that network? You seem to have a more vibrant and active and organic nurturing of your network than a lot of people I know. What's your, what is your secret or how is your, how do you approach this?

Katrina Craigwell: A couple things. Do what you say you're gonna do. Show up prepared and with enthusiasm. Deliver. And also share your wins. Go back to the people who have supported you. It doesn't matter if they supported you last year, five year, or 10, five years or 10 years ago. Let them know how you're doing. Let them know what's great. Let them know how what they taught you or inspired in you is still serving what you're able to do today.

And I think that's a really, that's, and it's not, it's meaningful to me. To be able to do that and to say, Hey, we haven't talked in a couple years, but I just wanna let you know what I'm doing today and I'm so proud of it and I couldn't have done it without you, and I'm still doing things that I [00:13:00] couldn't have done without you.

And I think that's a lot of the kind of heart and soul of these relationships. Use their time wisely. Be prepared, deliver, and share the wins.

Evan Shapiro: And that's the kind of nature of our relationship. We, you do a check. You're much better at this than I am. You do a check in every so often.

We get together, we have breakfast, we do, we compare notes and then, frankly, something I don't think you just gave yourself credit for, which you do. Which is you then value add value back. So you're not just checking in and saying, Hey, here's my progress. Thank you so much for your support over the time, but how do, how can I now help you?

I went on your podcast, you're now coming on mine, but also just, frankly the, in the sharing of this story, in watching you traverse these interesting hoops over the years. It's just been fascinating as someone who studies this type of stuff, to watch someone progress the way that you have, not in a linear fashion, but really truly, it seems like not [00:14:00] just organic, but also purposeful.

And you have an intent, even though you're not necessarily planning every step all along the way. 'cause you couldn't, if you tried, really.

Katrina Craigwell: You couldn't and for me, it's stay open because I, my goal is to be a lifelong learner, so you never know where you're gonna get the opportunity to learn next.

And I just hope I continue to get invited on the ride. I think one of the other principles that I have learned throughout my career is I want the opportunity to go to the core of a problem. And that's part of why I think I've grown, tried to learn different disciplines and adjacent disciplines and feel really grateful right now to be in product management as well.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. So, you made this leap from consumer or from marketing and messaging and storytelling. Now your storytelling is at the heart of the product itself. You are helping to build products at Chase that affect millions of people's finances and lives. And what made you move from messaging to product?

What [00:15:00] compels someone to make that big a leap? That's huge.

Katrina Craigwell: Yeah. I think, so first of all, again, Chase is yet another place with incredible leaders to learn from. And so like you choose the people you choose the problem to solve. What I love about product, first, there are similarities across both product and marketing.

You have to know your audience. You have to understand what they want. You have to ship, like ship work, ship features, ship things. Get the feedback back. And sometimes I say, and while there are certainly many differences, sometimes I say that when I was doing marketing and storytelling, I was working with filmmakers and photographers and editors, and now I work with solution architects and engineers and UX/UI designers.

And so they're, but we all have to put an experience together that is gonna light a customer up. And then it was just like picking probably one of the steepest learning curves I could find and seeing if I could make it.

And that's always fun provided that you do. But that's what I love about it. And the last thing I'll say is [00:16:00] I, as I build my career, I always want the opportunity to go to the core of a problem. So sometimes you get like a marketing project or program and you're like, okay, I could tell the story about this, but if I could fix this little thing about the thing that I'm marketing, or you're building a product and it's amazing, you're ready to go to market and you wanna be the one to tell that story.

And so I love connecting those puzzle pieces over time and being able to fix the core of a thing or work on the core of a problem first or opportunity, and then build out the concentric rings from there of how to go to market. And that's something that I'll continue on my career.

Product probably won't be my last stop in terms of new function.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. You're making a podcast now. Tell me about that real quickly.

Katrina Craigwell: So the podcast is called Am I On Mute? And I started it with my co-host, Annalise Campbell. And we started publishing episodes in 2020.

Evan Shapiro: She's an expert in social media marketing, correct?

Katrina Craigwell: She is. She is. And so I had a big kind of corporate background and she started on the agency side and then started her own company called CFG. And so she had the [00:17:00] entrepreneurial background and the first season was really about work culture in a hybrid world. Because that's, we were immersed in that and we had just done a panel about it and everyone had a question in the room that we were in, and every question was different.

And we got off stage and like a true storyteller content creator, I was like six episodes just came outta that panel, so maybe we should try this out. And also it was just a joy to do.

And so one of the things that I also say is whatever kind of side project you can carve out the time for so that you can create on your own schedule, you can feel the feeling of making the edit on the episode, the social post hitting publish, having to respond to that feedback and just keep that muscle going is a great opportunity.

And so every episode we talk to a guest. We're on season three right now. We just spoke to you which was wonderful. And we're focused, we're actually focused on, left turns in your career. So people who've had amazing first chapters in their careers and then just done something completely different in a second chapter and it's been a real joy to do.

Evan Shapiro: And that's what [00:18:00] sparked me to ask you on for this episode in particular, Marion, my co-host is out, but I wanted to do an episode on career pivots and your ability to stay curious and engaged and enthusiastic at every stage.

I mean this in the kindest possible way, you're not as young as when we met. I am.

Katrina Craigwell: No, I'm not.

Evan Shapiro: I'm the same exact age as when we met, but you.

Katrina Craigwell: Whatever you're drinking, I'll take it.

Evan Shapiro: Okay. But you're still as energetic and enthusiastic about the curiosity of what the fuck you do on a daily basis, which is I think one of the key drivers that have moved you from marketing intern to PR to rocket science. Literal rocket science, right. To banking, to product.

But also to this side hustle, like you talked about the, this endeavor that is purely theoretical and artistic and creative for you. And it can be different for anybody, right? It can be different. It can be a podcast, it could be knitting, it can be cooking, it can be your Instagram feed, whatever it is that keeps [00:19:00] you engaged and learning and challenged, right?

Katrina Craigwell: Absolutely. It's whatever you want to do. But never stop learning. Never stop learning. And also don't forget what you're good at. And Evan, I think you spoke about this on the podcast with us, which is as you go on this journey remember what you're good at and who you are, and stay anchored in that because it's also easy to start pivoting and pivot away and get a little bit, go a little too far afield.

Evan Shapiro: Try everything just for the sake of it.

Katrina Craigwell: Yeah. Yeah,

Evan Shapiro: In your case though, there was that crucial moment. I think there's a really good case study here, which is why I'm glad you came on. You had that critical moment of discovering what those transferable superpowers were that were gonna come with you wherever you went.

One of them being your curiosity I believe. But this striving to learn something new, this caretaking of your network. This ability to be open to new things on an ongoing basis. These have been basic elements of your career all along the way, and they've served you incredibly well.[00:20:00]

Katrina Craigwell: They have.

Evan Shapiro: Cool. Thank you so much Katrina Craigwell. We'll put a link to your LinkedIn bio in the show notes. Thanks so much for coming by. We really appreciate it.

Katrina Craigwell: Thank you.

Evan Shapiro: I've known Jazz Pitcairn for a long time. She started as a student in my NYU class, and she's got a really interesting way of driving her career and she's also doing some really cool stuff right now.

How long have I known you? How long have we known each other, Jazz?

Jazz Pitcairn: I'm gonna say six years.

Evan Shapiro: Okay. And we first met how?

Jazz Pitcairn: You were one of my great professors at NYU.

Evan Shapiro: And you're a filmmaker by trade. You were first nominated for best filmmaker at 17 years old in the Cayman Islands, which is where you're from. Yeah.

Jazz Pitcairn: Yes. I was, sorry, excuse my voice. I'm losing it a little bit.

Evan Shapiro: You have a cold like everyone else in the world. And you came to NYU from the Cayman Islands to study film. What was that like?

Jazz Pitcairn: It was a huge shift. I'm from a very small island, a small [00:21:00] community where there is no existing film industry. There isn't really that many examples of people pursuing film, but I knew it was something I was interested in.

And I think something I learned pretty early on, kind of to what I think is a practice that you preach is you have to own the path that you wanna take and not follow in the footsteps necessarily of other people. Because working in film is such an individual pathway as collaborative as it can be in practice. So I knew NYU was one of the best film schools. I knew that I didn't have any existing connections to the film industry. And so why not shoot my shot and go to NYU?

Evan Shapiro: And you're not a nepo baby by any stretch of the imagination.

Jazz Pitcairn: No.

Evan Shapiro: Our industry is full of, like that must have been very exciting, but also really terrifying to a certain extent. Coming to New York City from such a tiny place.

Jazz Pitcairn: Yeah, I didn't know anybody in New York. I have a few extended family members, who I knew were around just in case. But beyond that, I didn't know anyone. But I figured it's no different than gonna any [00:22:00] college or any school. You're the new kid. Everyone's kind of new. Everyone's figuring it out. It's fine.

Evan Shapiro: And then you came here, you really jumped into the program with both feet. You stood out in my class 'cause you made a, you made an effort. You reached out to me. All my students need to do office hours with me, but you went above and beyond.

And then you were the first person to convince me to go on TikTok. So the world has you to blame for that. And then we worked together over the years. But you went on your own. And I know you've had help from, and advice and things like that and mentors and people who recommend you, but pretty much as a self-driven person, again, non nepo baby from another country.

You got yourself a series of great jobs in the industry at A24, Apple TV plus, and then you became the first Caymanian. Is that how I say it?

Jazz Pitcairn: Yeah. Caymanian.

Evan Shapiro: Caymanian to write for an American Television network show. The Black Lady Sketch Show, how did you even get that gig? How did that [00:23:00] even come about?

Jazz Pitcairn: I think something I learned very early on was we're all qualified to do the same thing.

I think once I started putting away that sort of imposter syndrome and started realizing I'm a capable person, and everyone gets where they get because of who they know. I was very diligent about networking within my school. That was the network that I had. I stayed in touch with professors. I stayed in touch with guest speakers.

I reached out. I let people knew I existed. So that by the time I got to graduating, I had a group of people who supported me and wanted to at the very least, put me in a group of people they would then recommend. So after I completed my degree, I was an assistant on Dickinson, which was an Apple show. I got that job through.

Evan Shapiro: How did you get that job? Yeah. How did you get that job?

Jazz Pitcairn: It was through recommendation of a professor. He put up, I think 10 different students and was like, Hey, they're looking for an assistant. I happened to be the first person to email back. I was on a call with the line producer that night. I was talking to the director the next day, and I started on Monday.

I think [00:24:00] the turnaround time was like three or four days. Meanwhile, I remember getting the job on this Monday, now being in the assistant email and seeing people who I recognize sending their resume in that day, because they figured they had the weekend to update their resume and send it in. Which isn't a crazy thought, but it just goes to show how quickly things move and that was my first acknowledgement of yeah, I'm doing the right thing by being really diligent and I see something come my phone, I do it then and there.

So I worked for on Dickinson for about four months in the pre-production and production stage. I remained great friends with that director. I continued to assist him privately, and then another person who was a guest speaker in a previous class of mine who I. You know, I update my network, hey, I'm doing this job and I'm an assistant.

She happened to work for a production company that was making a black lady sketch show, and so she was aware of the opportunities there and reached out to me and said, Hey, we're looking for writer's assistant. Is this something you'd be interested in? Happy to at least put your name in the ring.

So that's how the writer's assistant job for that came about. [00:25:00] Now I'm in a writer room. It's, now I know that to be a writer on a show, it's who, times a hundred. And a lot of the times they like to promote the writer's assistants if possible. And so I was in a position where I could, I knew the showrunner personally.

I knew the show very well, so that when the following year came around to submit to be a writer, I had the advantage. I knew exactly the type of sketches to write. I knew what they would look for, and I had the personal relationship.

Evan Shapiro: So let's double click on a couple of those things. First, you went out and you were actively engaged with your professors, especially those, and I don't mean to say this in a Machiavellian sort of way, but especially those that could help you in your career. So those who

Jazz Pitcairn: Sure. But I will say

Evan Shapiro: Were great professors, but also that also had a really good network of their own. Go ahead.

Jazz Pitcairn: I was just gonna say that, I will say though, that I didn't know which professors would be helpful or not, and actually it was the professors who I took business of entertainment classes in who don't have the titles of working in film, [00:26:00] working in TV shows that ended up being the most "helpful" thus far in me getting jobs.

Evan Shapiro: Not the ones on the creative end, but the ones

Jazz Pitcairn: Yeah, they weren't the people that had huge credits on IMDB. They were just people who I connected with and enjoyed being in their class. I didn't know that this professor who is in marketing happened to be great friends with this line producer on this Apple show. I had no idea.

Evan Shapiro: So you went out and you networked with your professors. You made personal contacts. You really took advantage of the situation that you put yourself in by going to NYU.

Then you diversified the inputs by going into the business school and taking a lot of classes there. You became, you got a minor in the BEMT. Which is the business of entertainment, media and technology and then wound up finding by accident that there was a really good resource there. Then you were the first one to answer that email.

That I think is really crucially a nice moment to recognize that being diligent. Being the first of the office and the last [00:27:00] to leave, that shit does still fucking matter. It impresses the right people in the right way and it puts you, the early bird gets the worm is a cliche for a reason.

So you get the job on the Black Lady sketch show.

Jazz Pitcairn: Yeah. And so that was an experience on its own. It was incredible. I was 23 at the time. So I was super young. I didn't even know how big of a deal it was, to be honest, I just, I was an assistant for six months. I was also in the process of trying to get a visa. I'm not, I'm an international, I was an international student. I'm currently an immigrant, and so that whole process, I was just so determined. Like I have to keep working, I have to keep proving that I deserve to be here to qualify for these visas and stuff.

So once I got the writing job, that was the biggest like okay, it's an HBO show, it's an Emmy winning show. I'm around all these awesome people. So what next?

Because now I'm a "writer," I'm in the WGA. Theoretically I should have jobs lined up waiting for me to keep walking around [00:28:00] shows.

Evan Shapiro: That's not how it works.

Jazz Pitcairn: I had representation at the time. They were very optimistic. You, this is great. You're off the show's super hot, you're gonna get put in stuff. And I'm like, cool, I'm gonna let my reps do their stuff and while I wait to get magically put in a room, I'm gonna pivot to what it is I really wanna do, which is direct my first feature film.

And so I had graduated during Covid, so I didn't leave NYU with anything. I had no direct examples, no nothing. So I took the time to go back to Cayman. I spent six months there and I raised $60,000 to make a short film as proof of concept for this feature because I knew I needed some sort of directing calling card.

It was a lot of work because like I mentioned earlier, Cayman doesn't really have a film industry, so I'm also actively teaching people how to be a gaffer, how to do this, how to do that. How am I raising money, getting the local airline to give us money.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah, you raised this money. How did you raise the money? On, on? It was Kickstarter, or just friends and family?

Jazz Pitcairn: It was a mix. The [00:29:00] Cayman version is, I asked the government to give me a grant. I asked my mom to WhatsApp people we knew were wealthy and like money privately. And then I had another friend who had money that said they would support.

Evan Shapiro: And then you're building a film industry if by, you know by hand there as well.

Jazz Pitcairn: Which is also something I'm very impassionate about. So it's like I'm making this film also about a subject that matters so much to people in Cayman. So from all these different angles, I knew I was, well I didn't really know, but now I know I was not only creating job opportunities, but I was doing something people were passionate about. Being an inspiration to things that people might wanna do. And now I'm in the process of really trying to get the feature off the ground.

Evan Shapiro: So you made the short, you raised the money. The short's called Ivan. About the hurricane and the effect and the aftermath there and in Cayman. And it's a beautiful piece. But then you pivoted again.

So the magical placing in rooms didn't happen from your reps because the industry is on fire and there aren't a lot of writing jobs right now.

Jazz Pitcairn: Correct. [00:30:00]

Evan Shapiro: So you pivoted again and you reached out to me a little while ago and we talked about a bit, but, so talk about what you're doing now and why.

Jazz Pitcairn: Yeah. So I think in this whole process, I'm still so passionate about becoming a filmmaker officially, whatever that means, and that making my first feature and continuing to work as a director. But I think in this process I've also learned that I'm incredibly passionate about global affairs, generally speaking.

Like I want to, I work with the government often to create conversations between different Caribbean people. I think so much of storytelling affects the sociopolitical environment that we're in today. I have spoken at different climate conferences around the Caribbean, like through this film, and so as I continue to pursue making this feature film, I also was like, I've been so in love with political science and international relations. I wanna actually have an educational foundation on that so I can speak well and eloquently to that and see.

I'm the kind of person who thinks 10 years from now, my job's gonna be something that doesn't exist today. So [00:31:00] what could I do today in the time that I have to best prepare myself for that?

So Cambridge University has an international, a part-time international relations program that allows me to travel back and forth. I don't have to pick up my life and press pause on the things that I'm doing to go. And it will allow me over two years to get a masters in international relations. Evan so kindly wrote a letter of recommendation and I found out recently that I was accepted.

And so that was a huge thing because obviously, I studied film so I had to prove in my application that I was still smart and could do academia and wanna pursue it, and very excited to parallel path and both study international relations and still shoot my feature.

Evan Shapiro: Yeah. And so inside there, there's a number of things I wanna unpack very quickly, which is, you're not independently wealthy, you have to work while you're doing all this. You had to, you had to work on television shows while you were figuring out your visa so that you could stay in the country and you had to keep the jobs in order to get the visa and then [00:32:00] you had to go back to Cayman and come back and make that all work.

So you've been parallel pathing, all that stuff, all that time. And now you're gonna continue to pursue making this feature, but you're going to get. You're going to this Cambridge program simultaneously while you're continuing to work as a writer and as an artisan in the industry itself. And so this kind of walking and chewing gum.

A, it comes naturally to you, even though these are very complicated things that I think a lot, just figuring out this, that this master's program exists. Many of us don't even understand a lot of how this higher education programming works. This is something that fits right into your life.

It's amazing. I didn't even realize you could go back and forth. So this, I, the idea that I'm gonna, I'm planning for a job 10 years from now, that doesn't exist now is just brilliant and it's something that I want other people who strive to pivot in their careers. You're still in the early stages of yours, but so many people I teach at university, and so many people in early [00:33:00] career that I meet don't necessarily understand how much work it is to be this competitive, to be this smart about the sustainability of your career.

Jazz Pitcairn: It's a lot and I'm still figuring out, I'm the queen of saying I don't know what I don't know, but I know what I'm good at. I know like I'm, I love teaching. I love public speaking. I love learning new people and new, different cultures. So what are different ways I can combine those things that I enjoy into something else?

So we'll see. We'll see what happens. I have no idea.

Evan Shapiro: Well, you're, I wanna put a link to your site in the show notes, but also a link to Ivan, the film, so everybody can see it. Thanks Jazz for being here and offering your lessons on staying out there and anybody out there who is a student now or is just graduating into what is an interesting economy, there's a lot of lessons to be learned by Jazz.

Check out her site but also she's incredibly generous with her time if you reach out to her, I'm sure she'll offer some advice.

Jazz Pitcairn: Yeah, absolutely.

Evan Shapiro: Thanks to Katrina and to Jazz for [00:34:00] coming on the pod. Thanks for Marion for giving me the keys to the podcast this week.

My name is Evan Shapiro. My newsletter is Media War and Peace. You can check it out wherever you get your newsletters. Marion's newsletter is streaming Made Easy also on Substack, and you can get information about Jazz and Katrina, Jazz's film, Katrina's podcast, in the links in the show notes.

Thanks so much.