Dhá shúil romhainn

Like many in the film and television (F&T) industries, industry workers in Ireland experience precarity in their work, where the future, from an employment perspective is unknown and rarely secure. This is a sizeable challenge in the F&T industries. However, to drive through challenges such as precarity, industry workers can focus on advantages in their work, notably autonomy. Autonomy can provide freedom and agency to workers. This struggle between autonomy and precarity is common in F&T work, with the Irish F&T industries being no different. However, over time, the F&T industries in Ireland have established themselves as purveyors of quality, with financially successful and critically lauded productions. Ireland has shown its potential for success with defining features such as a strong reputation and lucrative tax incentives. With the industries growing, new developments are always on the horizon. Major new developments include more foreign media attention, increased involvement from corporate entities, and a refocus on strengthening the indigenous industries. Developments such as these have the potential to address the challenge of precarity, for example, from the stability and financial resources that traditionally come with corporate involvement. However, while this may seem positive, these developments may also impact the autonomy that industry workers value. Presently, new developments in the Irish industries may appear positive, but the future impacts are unknown, whether they turn out to be positive or negative. Because of this, it is important to keep ‘dhá shúil romhainn’, or in English, ‘two eyes ahead’ to the future. Focus and examination of future scenarios with these new potential developments would be needed to truly understand the impacts. From there, I formed my main research question: how do industry leaders in the Irish film and television industries perceive future scenarios for autonomy and precarity in the context of new developments in their industries? Interviewing industry leaders provided expertise-based data, and broader impacts that these developments have on the industry and subsequently the current experiences of F&T leaders. To approach this topic, I conducted expert interviews with senior industry leaders, which were then analysed using thematic analysis. Three main findings came from my research. Firstly, precarity was not a major issue that industry leaders would need developments in the industry to address. Secondly, autonomy was noted as an advantage of work in F&T. It was worth challenges in F&T work such as precarity. Thirdly, regarding potential developments for the Irish industries, a more tailored, indigenous-focused structure was viewed as the most suitable future scenario for the Irish F&T industries. Foreign media attention was viewed as having little impact on precarity, while providing limited autonomy to industry workers. Corporate involvement is similarly viewed as unsuitable, as it would negatively impact the autonomy of the creative workers, and their creative output. This would also come with its limited impact to precarity. Instead, industry leaders saw value in the scenario where Ireland has strong indigenous F&T industries that are financially lucrative to, but not controlled by, corporate entities or international investors. In this scenario, precarity could be mitigated, while autonomy could be bolstered. From these findings, it can be concluded that the most ideal future scenario for experiences of autonomy and precarity for Irish F&T workers would be a more sector-specific structure, that understands the nature of F&T work. With this structure, an increased focus in strengthening the Irish indigenous industries would benefit those in the industry. In terms of developments in the Irish industries, relying on external entities would not mitigate precarity and aid autonomy. Instead the best future scenario for the Irish industries would come from investing in itself.