CONNECT WITH PROFESSIONALS: EVOKE MEDIA

Sophie and Daria are two women who took their passion into their own hands. Sophie worked as a journalist and after a while she started to get fed up of the idea that she just had to churn out stories without any depth, she wanted to look at more personal stories in the community so decided she wanted to do things on her own. Daria on the other hand was a filmmaker and was working for free for a while, but doing full time work, while her manager had less work to do but he was getting paid for her hard work. So eventually she thought she could do a business like this herself and decided to leave. They both met through a friend and they get chatting about what kind of business they wanted and alas Evoke Media was born.

It hasn't been an easy ride for them, they have both had to think about the balance of making money to put bread on the table and also making work that will fulfill their creative needs, they got away from the other places because it was more about the money, they wanted to make their business about the creative freedom. Also being two young women in a male dominated industry, they sometimes aren't taken seriously, however they have used that to their advantage numerous times.

Some of the tips they gave me were to:

Get something out of work experience, don't let them just take from you cause they might just see you as an extra pair of free hands, but you are there to take on as much as you can. Also be reliable to the contacts you get in touch with because people remember if you let them down. You have to be careful who you work with find someone who is on your wavelength.

• Keep adapting your skills, distribute yourself

• Apply for awards and competitions to promote yourself

• Do something original and not what everyone else is doing