THE RORY PECK AWARDS 2004
Sponsored by Sony

The Freelance World

In Pakistan

Working freelance, especially as a sole operator, can be difficult, isolating, tiring and at times lonely. It can also be a profoundly cathartic and rewarding experience. Most of all, you have to think independently.

Being a freelancer is like walking a perpetual high wire. You have to strike the right balance between having a clear idea of your project or purpose, yet never pre-judging the situation on the ground, and being willing and able to respond intuitively. That often means abandoning scripts made up in London, and keeping your ears open to catch a story crying out to be heard - one that you may not have anticipated when you left Heathrow!

Against the perennial freelancer problem of limited resources comes the advantage of independence. Yet with personal freedom comes a sense of responsibility - both to the viewers, who need a complicated and often seemingly alien world explained clearly, and to the subjects of your documentary, for whom your film is often their only window to the wider world.

In 2000, as a single camera/director I was asked to make a three-part series about the courts of Pakistan, the land of my ancestors. I soon realised that I had arrived in a world that was unknown to me. In Lahore, where we filmed, a single woman operating a camera is not a normal sight, and especially not in the criminal courts - a male-dominated world inhabited by judges, lawyers, murderers, drug traffickers, adulterers and feuding families.

“Lahore Law” was a baptism of fire, as I soon learnt that freelancers have to work in less than perfect conditions. Spending endless hours in +40 degrees heat filming in sweaty courtrooms is a far cry from a BBC studio. Patience, flexibility and sensitivity - ultimately intangible qualities - are as essential to the freelancer as his or her camera.

At all times, I remind myself, one should be aware of the potency of the visual image in television. Yet I never want it to overwhelm the essential message I see. A simple documentary cannot change the world, nor should it hope to do so. But in the hands of a sensitive freelance producer, it can tell a damn good story and, at the same time, help to shrink our world a little bit more. I feel I am learning all the time. For all the frustrations and challenges, the work is never less than exciting and gratifying.

Ruhi Hamid
Freelance camerawoman/director

The Rory Peck Awards Brochure 2004

• Programme
• Why Freelancers Matter
• A Year of Growth...
• ...and Freelance Achievement
• From Sony
• The Overseas Project
• Reporting Iraq
• The Freelance World
  An Iraqi in Iraq
  An American in Iraq
  In Pakistan
  In Haiti
  In Zimbabwe
• Report on Safety Training Course
• Trauma can get stuck in the system
• For Roddy - and Helping Others

The Rory Peck Awards

• Winners
• Finalists

  
  

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