Reflections & Resolutions 2021/2022
Tomorrow is the first working day of 2022. January is looking set to be a busy one, so I'm taking a moment now to quietly look back on the year just gone. In some ways, it's going to be therapeutic to put this one to bed, but there are things to be grateful for as well. It was a milestone year in my life, for numerous reasons.
It's almost hard to believe that we started 2021 in another Lockdown. The second 'sequel' was undoubtedly the worst, as we'd lost the novelty of the first lockdown, and the weather was terrible. We had possibly the coldest Spring I've experienced, and I have a few photos of my partner Edward Harvey and I wrapped up in blankets during that time!
But throughout the first four months of the year, I was kept very busy and (luckily) almost distracted from pandemic updates, as we were packing to move house. We'd bought our first home, something we'd wanted for a long time. As I covered in my Summer update, we hadn't intended to move this year, we were pretty much forced out by terrible neighbours, and there was a lot of disruption during that time; the new house needed a lot of work before we could unpack properly, and so I set up a little makeshift office at my parent's house. Since then, I have finally set up an office in my own home, but the house still needs a lot of constant work - we even lost power and had to have a new fuse board fitted in November. Even so, the place feels like ours now, and we're starting to learn to live with the DIY jobs, ticking things off one at a time.
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| [Filming A Tale of Tresses for Deaf Explorer & Maral Mamaghanizadeh. Photo by Todd Franklin] |
The other huge change this year was that, of course, I became self-employed (sort of!) for the first time in almost a decade. I submitted my 100th client invoice in the Spring, so the time felt right - although it was of course very difficult to leave my position at Dynomite Productions, where I'd been for seven years, as it had been a big part of my life with many happy memories.
How has self-employed life gone since my last update? Well, I definitely feel like I've fallen on my feet. Specialising almost entirely in making videos for creative businesses has been so, so satisfying; I've kept my regular clients like Towersey Festival and Cathy Hay / Foundations Revealed, as well as tackling some big projects for Deaf Explorer and White Peak Distillery, the latter of which I'd wanted to work with for almost two years! (There's many more fantastic clients I haven't mentioned, so please watch this video for a little rundown of the work Triskelle Pictures did in 2021). While I don't take any of this for granted, and I know that - particularly after the events of 2020 - my financial situation could change at any time, I'm already filling up my calendar and I cannot wait to continue these incredible collaborations in the coming months.
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| [A Covid-safe 'walking meeting' in the Spring, with my creative PIC Tommy Draper, where we discussed the next steps for The Barn and also decided to pursue Room 515 again] |
In terms of the narrative side of my career, it did kind of flag for a time; despite my best efforts to focus more on my director goals in 2021, the rejections continued to come, including one that really knocked me for six in August. At the start of the year, things seemed positive, as I had been in pre-production on a proof-of-concept version of my long-gestated project The Barn, called Tokos; in addition, the original script for The Barn had continued success at screenplay competitions, even receiving a finalist laurel from FilmQuest, which had been on my festival bucket list for a while. We'd also started development on a feature-length version of the project, encouraged by a little industry interest. However, for numerous reasons - primarily budgetary concerns - all three versions of the film ultimately had to be shelved. Much as I adore the story, the time just wasn't right.
Another project which struggled was Lepidopterist; although the pandemic had given us time to finish the film, it had also forced many film festivals to close their doors, and so it took us a long time to share the film with audiences. We finally had our first festival acceptance (Beeston Film Festival, online only) in March 2021, and eventually watched the film on a big screen in the Autumn, thanks to Paracinema Film Festival. Things picked up from there, as Lepidopterist screened in America, won a few awards - including Best Editing at the Midlands Movies Awards - and was our first film to be accepted into Birmingham Film Festival, which played the film on a huge IMAX-sized screen! There aren't many festivals left on our list now, but I hope we can bring the film to a few more cinemas in 2022 before ultimately finding a home for it online.
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| [A few highlights from Lepidopterist's festival run this year. Photos courtesy of Andrew Rutter, Philip Eldridge-Smith and Edward Harvey] |
Growing Shadows: the Poison Ivy fan film had also had its festival run disrupted by the pandemic, but it still managed a few acceptances in 2021, as well as winning two awards. It had its final festival appearance in December last year, and actually ended up having the highest acceptance rate out of all Triskelle Pictures' films so far. It's also doing well online, having received over 37,000 views on YouTube alone. Speaking of YouTube, Songbird was also released on there just before Christmas, as a response to Amazon Prime's decision to stop streaming independent shorts earlier this year - a decision which not only affected Songbird, but Stop/Eject and Night Owls too, which cut off a source of income for me and many other filmmakers with little warning.
So it's not all been doom and gloom. In fact, since Spring 2021, my team and I (some regular collaborators and some new) have been in development on a new short film, with the working title of Room 515. I've actually been sitting on some exciting news about that project for a while, which I'm itching to share with you all, but I'll have to show restraint for a little longer. Either way, there will be more information to come soon, as the film is in pre-production now, with a shoot penciled for late February this year. It's now coming up to three years since I directed a short, and much as I'm scared of being rusty, I'm also desperate to get back on set and end this creative drought.
I was also accepted into Directors UK last year, which was a big confidence boost for me as I hadn't even felt qualified to apply until recently. That membership has already given me numerous benefits (including an early preview screening of Dune, followed by a Q&A with Denis Villenueve himself!), and I may have more news to come on that front soon; again, I need to keep tight-lipped for now, but it's all very exciting and I'm looking forward to it being an integral part of 2022.
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| [One of the first images from Good Grief, dir. Rob Sharp, which will start its festival run in 2022] |
2021 also brought my return to producing; it was a privilege to help fledgling director Rob Sharp bring his film Good Grief to life last Summer, but even more rewarding when my long-term collaborator (and friend) Charlie Clarke stepped up to the co-producer role, even founding her own production company, Cat on the Wall Productions, shortly after. Good Grief had a private screening for its crew, investors and supporting charity partners last October, which was a rewarding and emotional experience, and I'm excited to (hopefully) help bring the film to festivals in 2022. I'm also currently attached to co-produce my first animation this year, called Contamination, working with producer Jo Lewis of Hipster Films and director Martyn Pick.
Aside from my career (and the crazy house move), the most important thing for me this year has been the act of slowing down. Yes, I'm still a workaholic; I don't exercise or socialise as much as I should, but working for myself has enabled me to set my own pace, to take charge of my schedule, and the weeks don't fly by like they used to. In other personal news, I was able to finally see (and cuddle!) my gorgeous niece and nephews again this Summer, when my Mum celebrated her delayed 60th birthday; my wonderful Grandad also celebrated his 90th birthday in April - the day Edward and I got our keys to our new home - through scheduled visits at a sweet outdoor party. And we were lucky (albeit cautious) to spend Christmas with family for the first time since 2019.
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| [Exploring the UK, from Lud's Chapel to Yorkshire for a special family birthday] |
I've enjoyed some limited travel again; I visited Yorkshire and Wales with family in August and October respectively, also took my first trip to London since before the pandemic in October, and tested out my new camera in Staffordshire in September, when I visited the magical Luds Chapel, which is said to have been the inspiration for the legend of Sir Gawain & the Green Knight.
But the biggest travel highlight of 2021 was definitely my (first) visit to Edinburgh in July, when Edward, Tommy Draper and I took a pilgrimage through torrential rain to the Ray Harryhausen exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland. I cannot even begin to describe how it felt to be face-to-face with the actual skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts, particularly as it was less than a week since I'd left my day job to follow my own filmic dreams. It was as though the world stopped for a moment, and it was euphoric, even though I was bedraggled and mask-laden at the time.
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| [Hanging out with some genuine legends of cinema: definitely one of my highlights of the year!] |
For my final reflection from 2021, I'll mention something which I didn't feel up to listing in my Summer update. It almost goes without saying that a pandemic brings multiple losses, but last year brought a lot of sadness for me, my family and many people I know, and I'm still struggling to process it all. Some of those deaths led to the standard grief reaction; a dear family friend, so beloved that we all called her 'Aunty', passed away at the incredible age of 100, peacefully in her own bed, and I hope that we can have a proper memorial service for her soon; and last week, mine and Edward's beloved pet Ziggy passed away suddenly, far too young and with no prior sign of bad health, tainting our festive holidays with shock and continued sorrow.
But some deaths brought a sense of rage and confusion as much as they brought grief; they just didn't seem right or fair, and I still don't know how to channel the emotions correctly. Two people who were instrumental in their support during the early days of my career were taken from the world in 2021 - one through contracting Covid, and one through a sudden fatal injury. In the past, I've done memorial blog posts to pay tribute to people who have died, but it just doesn't feel right to do that this time; partly because, as I said, I'm struggling to accept that these two beautiful people are no longer with us, but also because I've learnt that my way of reacting to death - by talking constantly and publicly about the person, as a way of trying to make it feel like they're still with us - isn't right for everyone, and others may want to mourn more privately. All I will say for now is that I am so, so grateful to the two people for everything they did for me, I wish I had taken more time to tell them that when they were still here, and I wish they could've had the full lives (and achieved the dream projects they were both working on) that they deserved.
Looking forward to the coming year, I'm cautious about making too many resolutions again. But, as I said before, with Room 515 and some other exciting career news coming soon, I certainly have a few good things to anticipate. In April and August 2022, two of my favourite film projects - Stop/Eject and Ashes - will have their 10th anniversaries, something I can scarcely believe, so I'm sure I'll bring some things out of the archives to celebrate those milestones. My main career goal this year is to visit more of the 'big' film festivals, even the ones that reject my work. I want to try and learn as much as possible from that experience, and maybe even to do some pitching while I'm there, if I can - to quote Macbeth - screw my courage to the sticking place.
And for myself, I want to remember the lessons of the pandemic by continuing to take life a little slower, balancing rest as well as smashing it with my business, appreciating the little things and all the time I have with my loved ones. The bulbs I planted in my new garden are already starting to pop up, giving me hope for Spring, and I want to cherish the fleeting moments of every season - visiting the snowdrops, bluebells and heather when they're flowering, and picking elderflower, wild garlic and blackberries when they're ready to harvest.
The world is still a scary place, not only with the continued pandemic but with the terrifying reality of global warming looming over our heads at all times. Whatever we have to face in 2022, may the year bring all of you some happy times and, above all, a sense of peace.
Sophie
2021: THE YEAR IN STATS
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