My name is Chelsea Mills, I grew up in Trinidad and Tobago and studied English Literature at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, graduating in 2020. I arrived in the UK in March 2020 to pursue my mission to build a career in production, to learn about British society and culture and to build relationships with people in communities.Lo... Read More

My name is Chelsea Mills, I grew up in Trinidad and Tobago and studied English Literature at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, graduating in 2020. I arrived in the UK in March 2020 to pursue my mission to build a career in production, to learn about British society and culture and to build relationships with people in communities.Lockdown required me to adapt my plans to virtual engagement. Creativity is the core of my being, while my adaptability, initiative and quickness of mind protects it. I studied French for 12+ years and relied on my communication and clerical skills to share the history of my island with a group of Guadeloupean tourists. I was recommended to the team as a tour guide after being a runner for a French event, decorating the venue and organising activities. These experiences taught me so much about being proactive, managing people, facilitating their relationships through a shared quality experience and coordinating activities within time constraints.As a Media and Journalism Intern in 2018, I researched and wrote news packages for nightly broadcasts for three months. I immediately built a reputation in the office as the proactive writer and fast learner, quick to embrace production processes that were new to me, like operating video cameras on shoots and going out into the field to persuade vox-pops out of citizens. The highlight of this internship was impressing my lead producer with my inventive ideas and being trusted to script, produce and narrate a short feature called “Natural Treasures Day”. This became the most viewed and complimented feature on the client’s Facebook page.Since my arrival in the UK, I have created viral digital content for Beatfreeks and @IN.Society; engaged in masterclasses with Homegrown31; researched and produced a documentary about the colonial legacies of the Jewellery Quarter’s Chamberlain Clock and an Australian aboriginal immigrant named Warrulan. I have also written a play followed by a collection of community short stories with The Gap. Interviewing Balsall Heath locals for the community short stories has shown me how much I miss talking to people; taking care to sit back and listen the stories we carry within the core of ourselves because this is what this industry is all about.For me, every experience comes back to how it could improve my storytelling skills. I am a writer and the cornerstone of my creative soul is conceptualising the idea and building the story. I have a chronic affliction for effervescing with ideas for stories and finding riveting characters. I turn into a mad scientist trying to translate that story into visual language through experimenting with different forms and film has always allowed me to express stories in the most evocative way.I believe my superpower lies in the layers of my lived experience as an immigrant citizen, a young black Caribbean woman and a working class creative, which give me an advantage of multicultural knowledge and an acute insight into the stories and imaginations of common people, the Commonwealth and people with intersecting identities. When I am not working, I am writing scripts about these enigmatic experiences and characters. Read Less