Compton Unedited

This Is What Happens When the Microphones Are Off
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-0-6480240-0-2
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 246 Seiten

When Maz Compton sets her heart on something, it can't help but manifest. She dreamt of becoming a fixture in Australian media and has done so with sass and style for the best part of a decade. She's hosted tv, radio and movie premiers and has witnessed oh so much; and most of her favourite moments happened when the microphones were off. In her first book, Maz candidly overshares what it's been like meeting loads of famous people, living her dream and dealing with reality. Unedited is hilarious and heartfelt; through her unpredictable journey Maz has acquired a wondrous sense of character. She sprinkles some wisdom among the mishaps that evolved from living her life on purpose.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Compton, Maz

Leseproben

DREAM JOB How I wound up on MTV When I was 15 years old, I wrote in my diary that I wanted to be TV Presenter for MTV. A VJ, that’s Video Jockey for those playing at home. I wanted to host TRL. WTF is TRL? It stood for Total Request Live. It was a daily music countdown show hosted in New York City. Why? I remember watching the VJs host the show live from MTV HQ in Times Square, interviewing celebrities and showcasing incredible live performances, and I thought I’d be alright at it. I love talking to people and I love live music. That was cray. Like beyond cray. Not only did MTV not even exist in Australia, I was a late bloomer. I don’t think I had boobs until I was 17. I didn’t know the first thing about being on television and I had a terrible hair cut at the time. I had taken a razor to the front part of my slicked back up-do one lazy afternoon, just to see what would happen and accidentally shaved off a small tuft of hair, which was finally, but only just growing back, so I had a unicorn horn of hair that I embraced, much to my Mum’s despair. When I proudly announced to my parents that I had decided what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, after the long blank stare, they shared with me some risk-adverse advice: “Well darling, you need to get a qualification, so you have something to fall back on.” Geez thanks guys! Way to believe in your baby girl’s dream. I get it now. Hindsight is an incredible thing, much like a V slicer; those things are magic. I realise now that they had no idea what that even meant and so passing down the career advice they were given was the best way to divert any attention away from, “what the hell do you mean you want to be in television?” and more towards, “just in case your insane Plan A doesn’t see the light of day, have a Plan B.” I am sure they were both hoping that Plan B was a little less outrageous. I used to watch Catrina Rowntree present Wonder World in the afternoons on TV after school. I thought maybe I’d get a job on Saturday Disney first. My brain was hyper and full of ideas and dreams. There were no boundaries or limits to what I thought I could achieve. I was young, naive, and daring enough to dream big. Big dreams. Impossible dreams. Outrageous dreams. I took my parents’ advice, reluctantly, and enrolled in a fast track Business college so I could get into the workforce and start saving some cash. After all, I’d most likely have to go to New York if I was going to end up being Carson Daily’s co-host. He was the host of TRL in NYC on MTV, BTW. A PR Diploma felt like a good Plan B. I decided to get a PR qualification because I liked going to parties and I figured organising them for a job would be fun. Fun has been a consistent factor in every one of my job applications. The reality of PR was less shiny that the glamourous picture I had of me being flown around in private jets, drinking champagne out of a pimp cup and wearing a fur coat. The clients were not the rock and roll, super stylish, and oh-so fabulous ones I had envisaged. There were no weekend-long cruises, or celebrity guest DJs when I was planning a PR strategy for “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” and “Feltex Carpets,” the first client briefs I worked on as a PR Assistant at Burson-Marsteller, a global PR firm. Little did I know, ten years later Burson-Marsteller would win Blackberry as a client, who would throw a huge party. Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy would be the star act, DJing an exclusive set, and Maz Compton from MTV would be hosting. The corporate world was interesting. I was young and impressionable and learnt how to “PR” people very quickly. I made a mean pot of tea and learnt to stack an entire Family Pack of Arnott’s biscuits onto one dinner plate. I would present it, with a smile, for the meetings that the “real PR” people were having. Still, I had this crazy dream with no clue how to get even close to achieving it. It wasn’t long before I realised that proof reading press releases about Tamiflu and posting out review copies of Norton Anti-Virus Software to journalists wasn’t going to get me on the yellow brick road to my red-carpet post as a VJ. So, I quit. I was still signed to an extras agency from a couple of years earlier when I was an extra and played a guest role on Heartbreak High. Oh, yeah, I was on Heartbreak High as a young teen, much to the shock of my school peers who only saw me as the flat chested president of the Environment Club. Being on a soap opera while at high school did wonders for my popularity. Unfortunately, it did nothing for my bra size. After I left Burson-Marstellar, I worked as an extra on movie sets and locally produced TV shows. After being featured in a Lipton Tea ad, I started out as a “freelance,” which is code for landing a steady job answering the phones at a talent agency. I spent my days calling wannabe actors and models and making pots of tea for clients. I spent my lunch breaks wondering where my career break was. This, at least felt closer to the unknown world of television. I was meeting casting directors, making contacts, and hoping that I would somehow end up on MTV. A freakish opportunity arose just as I was tiring of saying in my happiest voice, “Welcome to TV Pro Global this is Maz” A friend of a friend had been answering the phones at Nova, the newest radio station in Sydney. Her name on air was Miss Dance and she was going away for a month, and she had asked my friend if he would ask me if I wouldn’t mind filling in for her. She knew I was a receptionist “freelance,” so I obviously had the required skill level to ask people calling the radio station what song they were requesting. I spent the next few weekends answering the studio phones in my happiest voice, “Hello Nova 969… of course you can request Riverside by Sidney Sampson.” After months of working for $50 on a Saturday night, I acquired a paid job as a street teamer. This turned into a more permanent role as an Assistant Producer on the Breakfast Show. I had no intention at that point of my life of being on radio, but for three years I sat behind the scenes and watched radio magic unfold daily. I was a part of a cast that changed the breakfast radio landscape, a show that broke the mould and achieved the number one FM position in Sydney. It was game changing, it was exciting, and it would stand me in great steed for my on-air future. I met many wonderful people at Nova. At the time, they were the rebels and the misfits of radio and it felt like family. People would leave and circle back into my life time and time again. One of the people who gave me a job would in the future have a baby with one of the guys who would become my flatmate, one would be a neighbour, one would be an ex, one would negotiate my Breakfast Radio contract, one would be fired, twice, after being my boss, twice, one would be a friend so close we could be sisters, and one would end up in jail for a while. It’s incredible who you meet along the way and how their paths intertwine, unravel, and re-emerge. One day while I was working for the Breakfast Team in the mornings and the street team in the afternoons, my fellow street teamer, Steve, who one radio announcer fondly called Psycho Steve but he just prefers Steve, took a break from practicing his stand-up comedy jokes on me and showed me an advert in Who Magazine. I assumed it was his copy; he was a bit metro. There was a half-page ad announcing a VJ Search to find MTVs next VJ. There it was. My dream job. In print. I ripped out the ad and, after my shift, rummaged through my things at home to uncover a copy of the sizzle reel I had filmed for ESPN two years earlier. Yeah, so the ESPN story. I put together a sizzle reel hosting a pretend sports show at a skate ramp and scaling a rock climbing wall which I sent in to ESPN who were on the hunt for a TV host for their X Games coverage. It was an Australia-wide search. From 4000 entries across Australia, it came down to just two people. Myself and Jules Lund. And they went with Jules Lund. Jules would go on to great things, hosting Getaway, the ratings blockbuster Hole in The Wall, a national drive time radio show and he became my career nemesis unbeknownst to him. I’m kidding, he was the right guy for that job and my path led me somewhere quite wildly different. Hosting Hole in The Wall was never on my dream job list anyway. The rejection sucked. It hurt at the time to know that I was so close to getting a television gig. I cried for a whole week, but I eventually got over it. Just like when Dannii Minogue left Young Talent Time, I had to accept it and find the strength to move on. I found a copy of the ESPN sizzle reel and sent it to the address printed in Steve’s copy of Who Magazine. Weeks went by with no word from MTV; my high hopes were fading fast. Months later, I received a call informing me that I was on the short list. Here we go again, I thought. I went in to MTV and auditioned in person. I nailed it. They hired Jason Dundas. Jason would go on to great things, Getaway, modelling,...