Movie Madness (2003)...

During my time at UEA we got to do some practical courses, the first of which was Television Studio Production. By the end of the semester we (teams of two – one editor, one director) had to put together a 15 minute long ‘live’ magazine-style show. We decided to set ours in a world where events in movies were happening in real life. I co-wrote the script and acted as editor, while my team partner co-wrote and acted as director.


During the course I discovered that I was far happier not directing multi-camera ‘live’ stuff – I guess it’s the whole problem of multi-tasking thing inside a male brain. Instead I took better to editing multi-camera ‘live’. This said I do prefer to shoot and direct single camera, or multi-camera non-‘live’ depending on the project.


Of course this was several years ago now and I’ve grown as a filmmaker a hell of a lot since then, and would no doubt be much better suited to such a task if I was presented with the challenge – even though my preferred style of filmmaking is single camera – it’s more film rather than studio television, and that’s what I dig the most.

The Uni Video Saga (2003-2005)...

While my uni mates took photographs, I shot video – initially on Hi8, and then on miniDV. I experimented with digital editing (and initially analogue editing, prior to upgrading to NLE), and importantly I was training myself as a by-product in ‘shooting from the hip’ and responding to unknown events unfolding in real time. These skills honed on a series of such videos have continued to prove invaluable, especially on projects I’ve shot for the Arts Council – big events, only simple preparation and prior planning, and a lot of ‘run & gun’ documenting.

Over the course of these videos (compiled at the end of each semester) I also improved my editing skills (both understanding various pieces of editing-related software, as well as the technicalities of editing theory). It was a great opportunity to try out ideas (some nifty, some rather daft – both in filming and editing) in a free, experimental environment. It also helped get a lot of ‘young ideals’ out of my system (certain ways of filming or editing) before I moved on to bigger and better things in the following years.