Check out some work from final-year SAE Glasgow Film Production student Carrie Day. Her creativity has led her to complete two degrees, with this one being her third! Her love for storytelling led her to choose SAE to study a Filmmaking degree as she finds it “one of the most visionary ways of working.” 📚 Over the past few months, she has published three books!
Tell us about yourself – what is your name/current role at your business/what do you study at SAE?
I am Carrie Day. I study Film Production degree at Glasgow SAE Institute and am just about to enter my final term – eek! This is my third degree. I originally studied Fine Art. I graduated in 1989, returning to study on an MFA in film and audio in 1998. My personal journey and curiosity about how creativity works has taken me into working in education with young children, studying all kinds of spiritual practices and doing a Pluralistic Counselling Research Masters. Whilst bringing up two children, I have been running my own creative practice and teaching shamanic and constellation work. My intention has always been to go through these paths to understand art better as a communicating energy. I see us all as artists and feel art as a powerful agent that operates with communication systems within a wider, interconnecting web. When my children were finally both out in the world on their own paths I suddenly thought ‘What’s next?’ This was the beginning of September 2021. A return to filmmaking called me! But I was so out of date with the technology. After a day of researching different courses, I felt SAE was the place to come as it offered so much practical tuition. I basically found the filming course here on a Wednesday; looked around it on the Thursday; applied that evening and was accepted Friday morning. That following Monday I stepped into two years of film degree study and relocated to Glasgow. It has been an adventure. The course has really got me up to scratch with contemporary filmmaking again. I am loving being so creative!
Talk me through your recently published book – what is it about? What was the inspiration behind it?
So, I have had three books published in the last few months. The first one is called Story Compass and is all about working with story fields in therapeutic and imaginative ways. In my teaching and client work, I operate with a practice called constellation work. This sees a person as a continuum of the energy fields of their lived lives, ancestral stories (trauma passes down through a felt sense – science shows now how the genes store this too) and stories held in the mythical too. Story Compass takes people on a healing journey through their own story fields. The second one is called Trees are or Letters and is a writing book working with different trees. (Trees really are our letters as the Ogham alphabet is the names of trees.) The third book is called Shamanic Dreaming. This is all about the practice of the visionary and basically a book to help people to become more present and aligned with the world and to open up to the many realms and timelines there are. Filmmaking for me is one of the most visionary ways of working. I think whenever we watch films we are transported through time. When films are made in a way that hits chords, something freeing and magical can happen. Entering mythical story fields through watching a film takes us to a shared place. I don’t think we are conscious of this enough on the whole and life changing opportunities are missed. I hope my books and films can work together to help us to be more visionary in the way we all interact and help healing. The inspiration behind the books I have written is to help us to better understand creative energy and to open up minds and hearts.
How was the process of getting your book published?
In a way it just seemed to happen. Lockdowns helped. I wrote the material as courses with people through that time, with the intention of later having them published as books. So the people who signed up for the courses really helped the material to come through. I ran each of the books as online six month courses and there was a hunger then to do things online and connect with people in some way. After the videography courses were complete, I just spent hours editing the texts and getting them ready to send off to publishers. With the first two, I received a response three days after submitting the manuscripts and they were both accepted for definite within two months. With the third it took a bit longer, but I got an email to say it was being considered in the August before I started the course at SAE, then it was accepted on fireworks night. You know, the editing process has been massive on top of all of the course and my teaching and client work. I can honestly say, even with an editor, it takes such a long time. I hadn’t envisaged everything happening at once as when I sent them in to publishers I hadn’t even dreamt of them all being accepted or doing a two year accelerated film studies degree. But I feel really lucky. I love writing as much as filmmaking. Most of the help I have ever had in life has been through finding the right book at the right time. I hope my books find the right people too. And I hope reading this helps anyone who has a manuscript to birth or close on completion to just go for it!
Tell me about your practice what is it?
The practice I have developed is a project called Creative Earth Ensemble and I manage to earn a living through it! I write courses and train practitioners. That’s a very loose term ‘train’ though – as it is mainly helping people to develop their own creative practices by giving them the rudiments of a therapeutic space holding model and then passing on what I know about how to develop intuitive ways of working with earth ensemble constellation and astrology constellation work. I work to help people find their creative voice and develop confidence and skills to practice in the world in their own true way. All of my courses are set in nature. I help people to prioritise and include every part of nature as having an expression too and to open up and listen to the qualities of every living being. I think it is our cut off from both nature and the sense of being a part of a continuum of life that is behind many of the world’s problems such as lack of vision in leadership and loss of community spirit. Film making will be my main priority when I graduate in August. I think everything I work with at present will fall into the films that I make and feature in my work with land and people, mainly in Scotland.
What are your opinions on women entrepreneur representation?
I think we are definitely in the age of a return to feminine-guiding systems. I think the receptive, listening and nurturing container is the way of the future. In this age of prioritising inclusiveness, it is a feminine sensibility that can open up to and enable that. I believe there are feminine and masculine qualities within all of us. I realise that sometimes I have had to be very masculine in the directive way that I focus myself in life. I also benefit a lot from the clear, strong, holding way of the masculine. We are definitely addressing an issue of imbalance and bringing about a healthier way of operating at the moment.
In terms of my opinions on women entrepreneur representation, I wrote my creative industry comparison essay on this subject. I was really shocked to see the statistics on representation in film and especially audio. It is crazy. I guess I have always had my head in the sand about this subject as quite often I don’t really see myself as a woman. I see myself more as a creative force in the world. But it made me have a bit of a review on my life and see that it has actually been a wild journey finding a place for my voice as a woman and to be visible. I bump into this subject in the constellation work that I teach. You can get people together in a workshop and set up a constellation enquiry into things like ‘Empirical systems’ or ‘Patriarchy’, or ‘Women Entrepreneur representation’ and then ask people to stand in as representatives and see what the field opens up. With an enquiring mind and bringing in what I call ‘pillars of light’ to listen and bring in care and support, the stories we have inherited can be revisited in time and scripts can change in current times. It is quite amazing. I have done a lot of enquiry into masculine and feminine energy and how it is corrupted in our living systems.
I think my opinion is that it is important to create open-minded arenas that can help women entrepreneur representation be able to come through in a more true way. I don’t think the platforms we have inherited have naturally made space for the female voice and way. For myself personally as a woman, I know that I am more concerned about making sure the collective evolves and opens in a positive way than getting along in life, but I do want to be free to be myself. I often quote an Amber Run line on this: ‘Oh, but I don’t want to be the centre of anything – Just a part of something bigger’. Meanwhile, I think it is important to simultaneously help repressed entrepreneur representation in all different areas of life to be released and enabled too. It’s certainly what seems to be the spirit of the age right now – to release the holds of imperial power systems. I wouldn’t like to see any intelligent, caring and visionary body being stripped of voice and opportunity just because they apparently belong to a group that has been generically over-represented in the past. I see care for the planet and the inclusion of nature again as key to positive change because caring for something greater than us that is true for all of us can be a focus that will bring us together. Entrepreneur means to take forward, right? It’s important to have an inclusive collective caring vision for all of us to take forward and I believe that the presence of wise, guiding female entrepreneur representation is key to this happening.
What does female representation in entrepreneurship in 10 years look like in your ideal world?
What a beautiful question! In my ideal world it would look something like holding all of these qualities: being fair, open minded about what female representation can look like and how that can come about; well-thought out; kind and inclusive; balanced and finding its place peacefully within the equally peacefully finding themselves expressions of male/gender fluid and non-binary representation; able to be both fierce and soft as ways of expressing strength and then lastly, all archetypal representatives of female lineage through past, present and future taking their place and being appreciated and understood.
Personally, I feel myself as someone who identifies as an older woman and who is also easily able to shape shift to feel many forms. I think that’s the nature of a story creator and a film maker, we naturally have an ability to morph with a whole cast of characters! As someone who will be 66 in ten years time, then I would like to think that I am one of the open minded shapeshifting women who isn’t really invested in keeping her gender, but is clear about the knowing that holding the role of an open-minded woman is probably the best role she could personally hold for the birthing of a more inclusive, harmonious and creative world. I am entering an age of being a facilitator of what is longing to come through next and have a lot of perspective on life. Films are a powerful way to show the evolution of life. They slipstream into social consciousness and can open hearts and minds to the possibilities of change and healing. Intelligent and deep reaching script writing and film making by women will be instrumental in opening up new possibilities in ten years time. I realise that I hold the place of the unrepresented older woman. I am big on age being beautiful and valued in its own way too. So that would be part of my ideal future world: To show an example of being proud to be older, female and an unstoppable force of nature. I am thinking of rivers in old age now, and how magnificent they are.
It’s the Age of Aquarius isn’t it? This is allegedly the age when we are each called to care for the good of all rather than following egoic, guru led formats. My hope is that in 10 years time, female representation in entrepreneurism will be appreciated, cherished and hold a harmonic with all the different representations of what it is to be human on this planet in these times and that it will find its force as an instrument for loving change. There’s much to be done by the creatives of this age to help inspire transformation, hope and power in the lives of the people of this planet. Let’s do it!
Where can people find you to follow you and your practice?
www.carriedayfilm.com and also www.creativeearthensemble.com
You can also check out our Videography and Film Production Courses here.
