Eloise Lomax is a participant of our No Barriers project and wanted to share her experience of the project. No Barriers supports a group of young adults aged 16-25 years old who meet regularly at The Met to learn about working in the music industry and gain practical experiences of a live music venue.
Being involved with No Barriers is such a phenomenal experience for me! This project is the kind of thing I’ve dreamed about, but not believed could actually existed! It’s a course which is so tailored to the needs, interests and skills of the participants and really values young people! Getting to work one-on-one with Katie has given me confidence in my own skills as well as the confidence to identify things I’m struggling with and ask for help. Getting to meet and learn from people with such an amazing skill-base at The Met has been amazing and I’ve learned so much, everyone is really lovely and chilled.
I got Long Covid in 2020 which made me ill for a while and I’ve only been able to partially recover in the last few years which meant that I wasn’t able to study conventionally and it’s still something that I struggle with which has sometimes left me uncertain of my future. Working with Katie has really reaffirmed how important the skills I do have are, like communication, organisation and developing creative ideas, and made me feel a lot more confident. Having meetings with and shadowing industry professionals who work at The Met has been invaluable as someone who learns better by observing, and I’ve appreciated the space and generosity of people sharing their time.
I was excited at the prospect of getting to create a project, and wanted to do something that would really grow my skill set and use the support of No Barriers. I decided to make a narrative short film set between a modern-day universe and a fantasy universe that takes heavy inspiration from worlds like Middle Earth and stories with parallel timelines. I’ve always loved fantasy settings and the rich and creative designs and focus on nature that often accompany them and am really excited to use the architecture of The Met as part of this.
I have just finished what feels like the first creative phase of the project which has been focused on creating the story and design of the film and how I communicate and create that and I’m excited to now be starting to create a more detailed plan of the film. I had a workshop with Beth and Katie last week to start talking about filming and it was really amazing to feel like it would be possible to make all my notes and ideas into an actual film and I’m so excited to start the next phase of the project!