Flights (and hotels) behind the fancy

Flicking through all the pretty pages in a magazine it is easy to take for the granted the enormous amount of work that goes on between the seams. Even as a writer the process is fairly easy – you’re briefed and commissioned for a piece, you write it and you’re done. Then you just have to wait a couple of months to see your words printed on glossy paper and maybe a few more months to actually get paid!

As an editor, things get a little bit more complicated. Fashion and Beauty editors are notorious for spending their days running here and there; to and from shoots and when they are in the office they’re frantically calling in samples and more often than not asserting down the line to a designer’s PR that clothes or shoes have been returned. For some reason said-PRs always call before actually looking for the pieces in question.

For the Managing editor it’s all about ‘the Budget’ (that will never be met) and reigning in copy that is way overdue. And then there’s the Bookings editor… the poor soul who is in charge of all the nitty-gritty. When Fashion decides that they want to shoot with a Shaman in the rainforests of the Amazon it’s her job to book the flights and transfers, find accommodation (and a Shaman!) and organise the model/s, the photographer and assistant/s, hair and make-up, a producer and all the extras – because there are always little extras that need to be factored in. And this is one person’s job. And it’s a nightmare. I know, because at the moment I’m helping out our BE.

This is a job that doesn’t stop at 6pm. In fact, the past two nights I’ve been online until the wee hours confirming accommodation in the States before all the PRs head home for the Thanksgiving holiday. Our BE, however, is in the office most nights until after 10pm. Crazy and thankless, it’s a job that can drive even the most organised individual completely bonkers. I have spreadsheets and costings coming out my ears and am racking up a pretty hefty international phone bill (Natmags account, of course!). So keep in mind next time when you ponder about how glamorous the mag-life is, because the prettier the pictures the more troublesome the shoot – believe me!