The Summer Update 2022

    Well, it’s officially summertime, although it feels a little cooler today (which is somewhat of a relief, as the effects of global warming came earlier than expected earlier this month). I always aim to release a summer update blog post, to fill you all in on what’s been happening with me and my work. I wasn’t sure if I'd have chance to write anything this time – the world definitely feels like it’s opened up again, post-pandemic, and the past seven months have been jam-packed full of many exciting but exhausting things. But I've ended up travelling a lot this week, with variable WiFi, so it seemed like the perfect time to jot down a few thoughts.

   The dominating project for the first half of the year was definitely the BFI NETWORK funded short film A Different Place (formerly known as Room 515). The film went into production at the end of February, running until the start of March, but pretty much all of my January & February were taken up by prep – which was time I gave gladly. Having support from the BFI NETWORK was literally a dream come true for me, and I was so grateful to be back on set after the ‘drought’ of the past two years, but there was a lot of work involved and I really pushed myself to do the best job I possibly could. I promise I will write a blog post about that process and my director’s prep when I can, as I really learnt a lot.

    The film is so nearly finished now, a day or two at most is needed to complete it as soon as we can book a time that works for everyone’s schedules. But I am so happy and proud of everything we've done so far – the film’s incredible performances are an element which really stand out, thanks to our perfect cast, Michelle Darkin Price and Adaya Henry. I don’t know yet if A Different Place will be seen as the best film I’ve directed (I’ve asserted for years that Night Owls is still my favourite film of mine), but time will tell. It’s looking likely!

[Above: A Different Place's WIP preview screening led to us getting this fantastic laurel! Background image by Shelley Richmond.]

    And then in Spring, the film’s producers, Charlie Clarke & Katie Smith, and I had an incredible opportunity. Thanks to BFI NETWORK and Film Hub Midlands, we were invited to show a work-in-progress version of A Different Place at non other than the BAFTA-qualifying Flatpack Film Festival in Birmingham – a festival which has particular poignancy for me with this project, and where I’d never been lucky enough to have work screened before.

   The screening was a little nerve-wracking for me; as a serial perfectionist, it was totally out of my comfort zone to share unfinished work with the public (even though A Different Place was already 90% finished at the time and, as I said, I was mega proud of the film and everyone's work on it). And of course, I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to screen at Flatpack, as it was a real honour and great for everyone involved. But then, as the lights went down, I tried to settle my nerves and decided to just focus on the sounds of the crowd as they watched the film... and wow, that was an incredible experience. I heard little ripples of laughter, followed by what genuinely sounded like sniffs and sobs, which shows that the audience felt all the emotions we wanted them to feel. It’s given us a really good indicator of how the film is going to go down when it starts its festival run in earnest.

    Also in Spring, Stop/Eject turned 10 years old – which made me feel ancient in the process! I’ve definitely lost no love for the film in the past decade, though; I remember the shoot so fondly, like it was yesterday, and the film remains Triskelle Pictures’ biggest success story. To celebrate the anniversary, we re-shared the behind-the-scenes videos from the shoot (an example can be seen here – it’s crazy how young we all look!), plus the much-requested video where Georgina Sherrington shared some memories from her best-known work in The Worst Witch, and then we had a mini reunion with some of the cast and crew in London. It was so lovely to catch up with the team and to reminisce, as some of us hadn’t seen each other since the film premiered at Raindance in 2014.

[Above: Stop/Eject's co-writer Tommy Draper, me, director/DOP/co-writer Neil Oseman, and lead actor Georgina Sherrington at the film's 10th anniversary reunion dinner]

    (Next month my other ‘2012’ baby, Ashes, has its tenth birthday too, so you can expect some nostalgic posts about that film on Triskelle Pictures’ social feeds as well!)

    The day after the Stop/Eject anniversary reunion, I began my journey to Cannes for the first time since 2013. This time round I had A Different Place's lead actor Michelle Darkin Price with me, who was lovely company and possibly the best networking buddy a person can have! I wont say too much about Cannes in this post, as I went into great detail here, but I will say that the festival has transformed in the years since I was last there! Regardless, I had a great time, and I made at least one contact which could lead to some exciting things.

[Above: Me in Cannes, where I took time out from networking to make a pilgrimage to one of the first cinemas which screened a young Peter Jackson's films! Thank you to Michelle Darkin-Price who indulged my geekery and also took this photo]

    And then the very next day after I got back from Cannes, I had to go to Birmingham for the aforementioned Flatpack screening! So it was probably one of the busiest, most ‘travelly’ weeks of my life, but it still felt very much like I was living the dream, so I wouldn’t have traded it!

   The other bit of short film news is that Lepidopterist has now been released online, so you can watch it in full on YouTube and Vimeo. As the film was completed during the pandemic, it hasn't had the easiest festival run, but it still made us proud, and it's lovely to be able to share it with the world now. With Lepidopterist online, it also meant that it was time to make my 2020 director showreel public, which you can see here, but of course I'll be working on a new one soon, to include A Different Place, when it's finished, as well as some other bits.

   Since Spring, I've very much focused on work for Triskelle Pictures’ clients, as I'd taken some time ‘off' while prepping for A Different Place. Not that I’m complaining in the slightest; June 1^st marked exactly one year since I left my day job, and I’m so grateful to have had work booked in almost constantly since then. I’m doing what I love and keeping a roof over my head in the process (literally, as we had to hire a roofer for the cottage after the extreme winds did some damage at the start of the year – another effect of climate change!). Furthermore, as Triskelle Pictures’ clients are predominantly arts-based businesses, I still get to flex the creative muscles when I work with them. 

   There were a few new clients I worked with in the first half of 2022, alongside repeat work, but I particularly enjoyed creating this gorgeous story film for Beautiful Things Antiques, shot by guest DOP Will J Carman (in the incredible Derwentside Antiques centre where Chris Newman and I also shot Halo Haynes' music videos in 2013). I’m also very excited to see the triumphant return of Towersey Festival next month, fully operating in person (and in a fab new location!) more than two years since the pandemic forced their tents to close. I've got quite a bit to prep for that job, but I can't wait to join them in the field again.

[Above: filming for Beautiful Things Antiques, photo by Isabel at Derwentside, and for Beat SCAD, photo by Ian Cudmore at I C Things Photography]

   Also, in April, my time on the Prince's Trust mentoring programme came to a close, after two wonderful, genuinely life-changing years. My mentor, Simon, kept me going when times were tough in 2020, as well as encouraging me to finally live the life I wanted by going self-employed (well, technically employing myself) again, which was such a scary decision and I'd struggled to make it for too long. I am so grateful to him, and to the Prince's Trust in general, for everything they did for me. 

    In other work updates, I was paid to do a bit of teaching, sort of, at the start of the year. In January, I gave a lecture on production design for the BFI Film Academy (it was the first time I'd ever delivered a standing-up presentation on my own, without stopping or forgetting what I was saying, which shows how far I've come in my confidence journey), and I did a talk on indie filmmaking for Nottingham College in February as part of their International Women's Day celebrations. I was also a guest on the Not So Trashy podcast earlier this year, where presenter Johann Chipol and I did a deep-dive review of Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive.

    As you can tell, I haven’t had much time off so far this year! But the return of live gigs did present a couple of opportunities for me to have mini breaks – first to Birmingham in April, where my partner Edward and I finally saw Goldfrapp, one of my all time favourite bands (talk about a bucket list moment!); and then earlier this month, my regular co-writer Tommy Draper and I watched Haim in Nottingham. The latter gig also ended up being a sort of filmmaker reunion, as we ran into Solomon Rumney-Scriven and Chris Millross from the Lepidopterist team (2^nd Unit Director of Photography and Supporting Actor, respectively), and Night Owls' Holly Rushbrooke was also in attendance.

   Finally, just to end the recap of what's happened so far, I have a tiny bit of personal news. Edward and I are now owners of a cat, a white Turkish Angora named Falkor. I have never been a cat fan, and the personal space invasion is taking some getting used to, but Edward won me round with that wonderfully geeky, 80s-fantasy inspired name. And so far, you all seem to be loving the Falkor pictures in our Instagram stories, so we'll keep them coming (without forgetting about Alan the Guinea pig in the process, of course!).

[Above: The Covid-delayed concerts finally happened: the bucket-list Goldfrapp gig on the left, photo by Edward, and Haim in Nottingham on the hottest day on record]

   So, what’s coming up for me in the last half of the year, once A Different Place is completed? Well, a lot of that is quite hard to predict right now, and I certainly don’t have any concrete dates to share. In the current economic climate, it seems like filmmakers are finding it harder than ever to get their films funded and off the ground; crowdfunding campaigns aren't reaching their targets like they used to, industry funding bodies are closing down, and the number of filmmakers sharing their rejections online seems to go up daily. I've had an absolutely tonne of rejections myself this month (I've had four in the time it's taken me to write this blog post!), but since making A Different Place and ending my director's drought, I am in a happier place and can take the rejections a little easier, even finding happiness in the useful feedback some of the rejection emails share.

   But I do have a good indicator of where my focus is going to be in the coming months. Everything is telling me that it's time to take a risk and push the features again. I've been having some amazing meetings lately with directors and other industry figures I really admire - partly off the back of my networking at Cannes, and partly because of the wonderful support I'm getting from Directors UK at the moment - and all of them have encouraged me to get back to writing my feature scripts. I even had a meeting with one of my filmmaking heroes, probably my favourite British director, on my 33rd birthday in April! It was incredibly nerve-wracking but wonderful too, he kindly guided me through some things that I've been doing wrong but was also really complimentary of my ideas, which gave me an incredible boost and certainly made for a birthday I'll never forget!

    The main feature project I've been working towards in the last two years is The Barn, based on mine and Tommy's short screenplay which did well at screenwriting competitions in 2018-2020. As many filmmakers did, we submitted that project to the Creative UK x Netflix Breakout scheme when they did an open call-out earlier in the year (along with sending it to some other funding bodies), and we didn't win that one but it did give us chance to gather some new marketing assets as part of that application, and my plan is to search for different funding options in the coming months, even if it means thinking outside of the box a bit.

   However, as many of you know, my lifelong ambition has been to make my film Night Owls & Early Birds - the feature-length version of Night Owls. I started writing it when I was 15 years old, even shot an unfinished, amateurish version of the film with my high school friends when I was in my late teens, and I had interest from funding bodies off the back of Night Owls' decent-ish festival run in 2016. But then, when that interest fell through, I just stopped pitching it. I let the rejections burn me up and shelved the project. My intention was to go away and make more shorts and become a better director, which wasn't a bad plan, then return to the script later - but I never did. I even stopped telling people about the project, although I'd always be making notes on my phone when I secretly thought of more things to change or add to the script.

   But thanks to the conversation with one of my favourite directors on my birthday, where I tentatively told him the story (because heck, I wasn't going to miss that opportunity!), it encouraged me to start pitching the project again. I did so at Cannes, at other meetings I've had in person and on Zoom, and not only have people responded to the story well - which feels fecking amazing! - but I now have three people interested in reading the next draft of the script. If I can make time to write it! I'm now almost the same age as the male lead character, Kent, whereas I was Mari's age when I wrote the first draft, which gives me quite a unique perspective on the material and really makes this the perfect time to return to it.

[Above: The Centerframe networking event at BAFTA. You can just about make me out in the top right quarter - with the dark hair, long purple skirt and folded arms!]

   That doesn't mean there won't be any more short film projects in the future. I'm currently attached to produce two, including my first animation, Contamination, a Cronenberg-style body horror with an eco conscience, collaborating with Hipster Films. I was also lucky enough to be shortlisted for the Centerframe Get It Made competition, which teams up directors, producers and writers then gives them the opportunity to pitch a short film, with one lucky team winning £10,000. The shortlisted filmmakers all got to meet up at a very swanky networking night at BAFTA's refurbished HQ last week, and I teamed up with writers Carla & Gail Hart and producer Pinghei Wong. We'll be pitching for an adorable, whimsical little short film project called Call Me J, so expect updates about that project in future blog posts - and wish us luck!

[Above: Strong hat game at Patchings Art Festival with my Mum, photo by my Dad. We also attended the Belper Arts Festival around Easter time. Proof that I can be social sometimes!]

   That's almost everything to update you all on, and I'll wrap things up now before this post gets enormous. As I said, I don't know how the next few months are going to shape out, with the upcoming household bills price increase and the likely recession that will come with that, and the repeated signs of a climate crisis are particularly terrifying for a nihilist like me. But this year, along with the previous two, has taught me how much you need to focus on what matters, and put all your energy into the people and projects you care about the most. There may never be a better time. So, once A Different Place is complete, I will be making time to write another draft of Night Owls & Early Birds, hopefully The Barn as well - and if there's somehow any hours left in the day, I want to get back to exercising and spending time with my family and friends. And hopefully finish reading The Silmarillion.

   I'll report back at the end of the year, if not sooner, and let you know how I got on with those goals. Hopefully I'll have ticked at least a couple of them off by then!

Sophie