She owes her break to the Danny Cohen led BBC3 and the show: Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts. At the time working at Luton Airport and sounding a bit like Lorraine Chase in the famed Campari commercials, she was whisked off to India to film with workers in textile factories. This was after beating “thousands” of other hopefuls in an auditioning process. Brian Woods suggests it was a bit like “Sliding Doors” how your life can change with one casting decision.
Like many people, seeing a video of us in our youth, doesn’t bear scrutiny by the accomplished talent she has become. At only 20 years old at the time she really didn’t know very much about the world and didn’t really appreciate how the producers were getting a performance. However she was told that her style was exactly what the channel wanted and that she should not “start mimicking these traditional high brow middle class journalists, we want you to keep on doing what you’re doing. We want you to go into unusual situations and ask what is at the forefront of your mind”.
She would do a lot of things different now but regards her emotional intelligence over academia. Of course now she has traveled all over the world and met lots of people in different circumstances. Not all of her films are based in foreign places, one of her favourites was set in Luton. She was to interview extremists and had the benefit of knowing some of interview subjects from her school days! A clip was shown of her interviewing islamic extremists on their march. It showed how aggressive people can be and the importance Tracey places on standing your own ground.