Reflections & Resolutions 2022/2023
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| [Above: on the set of the BFI NETWORK- funded A Different Place, with actor Michelle Darkin Price and DOP Luke J Collins, who are both wonderful. Photo by the also-wonderful Shelley Richmond!] |
As I write this post, I'm sat at my desk, thinking back on the past twelve months and taking stock before the Triskelle Pictures office officially re-opens tomorrow (Tuesday 3rd January), and the madness starts all over again. The sun has actually shined today, for the first time in over a week (wasn't it a grotty Christmas??), and as I look out at the first pleasant evening sky of the year, things feel slightly hopeful.
There are, of course, many terrible things that 2022 will be remembered for, even though the effects of the Covid Pandemic finally started to wane. This world has never been good to women, but it felt even worse last year, with inconceivable actions taken in both Iran and Western America. And at the very start of the year, we had Russia's invasion of Ukraine, resulting in a war which is still, unbelievably, going on today. I have Ukrainian family members, who I love, so we've had a personal connection to the horrific events, but I know that the war had an impact on a global scale; the day we went into production on my latest directorial short, A Different Place (more on that later), Putin had just threatened nuclear action against numerous countries, so we all started work with an immense sense of dread, trying to live for the moment in a creative way, but also scared and unsure if we'd even have homes to go to.
2022 was also the year the UK's Queen, Elizabeth II, passed away. I know people have varied opinions of the Royal Family these days, but I've always liked Elizabeth; she was the ultimate matriarch in a patriarchal world, with incredible dedication to her work, and she was a steadfast presence in my life since it began. The UK's current government, however, is the polar opposite of steadfast, with a revolving door of prime ministers in the last few months alone. I have never intentionally voted for the Tory party (the very first year I could vote, aged 18, I accidentally put a tick in their box because I saw the tree and thought I was voting for the Green Party!), and it has been incredibly difficult to watch their tirade of corrupt policies, tax avoidance and Covid rule-breaking; the country has fallen into poverty, with many people - myself included - afraid to even put their heating on, and it feels as though we are powerless to make a difference until a general election somehow, finally, happens again.
In the world of music, Kate Bush - one of my musical heroes - found herself at number one, 30 years later, thanks to Stranger Things' heavy use of 'Running Up That Hill' in their latest season. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing it in the Summer of 2022, and that was an unusual feeling, particularly seeing younger people going wild for it. But then, towards the end of the year, Christine McVie, one of the pivotal members of my favourite band, Fleetwood Mac, sadly passed away. Our fantasy film Songbird was - and will always be - named in honour of her work.
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But for me, personally, within my home life, it has been a relatively uneventful year - particularly compared to 2021, when myself and my partner Edward Harvey bought our first home. The cottage was a fixer-upper when we bought it, and it's continued to need a lot of work (particularly with the heavy winds that came at the start of the year, one of many effects of global warming, which brought down part of our roof!), and sometimes it feels like my money is going on home improvements faster than I can earn it - but we are making progress slowly, month by month.
We also had a new addition to our household - which I didn't expect, particularly after we lost a beloved pet over the Christmas of 2021; I felt that loss very deeply, as it was a result of sickness and euthanasia rather than old age, and in all honesty it took me until late Spring to feel happy again. But then Edward and I opened our hearts and homes, in Summer 2022, to a re-homed cat, which we named Falkor (as he's long and white like the luck dragon in The Neverending Story). I have never been a cat person, and he's taking a lot of getting used to, particularly when he jumps on the furniture, knocks over my action figures, and leaves his fur everywhere! But he's very settled in our home now, him and Edward are incredibly close, and it feels nice to have given a new, happier life to a pre-loved pet. And he does like tummy rubs, which is sweet. Plus we still have one little lovely guinea pig, called Alan, who's starting to get some very distinguished patches of grey fur now. We also raised & released a batch of butterflies in the Summer!
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| [Above: our cottage has been taken over by a very active and noisy but happy cat called Falkor] |
I didn't lose anyone in 2022 - no family, no friends, no pets - and I know that makes me one of the lucky ones. I certainly don't take it for granted; I'm thankful for all the people I have in my life, whether or not we have time to see each other these days! Both of my remaining Grandparents are in their nineties now (Grandma turned 90 in the Autumn), in spite of them both having had health scares in recent years, and I'm so grateful to be able to spend time with them and to still have them in my life even though I'm in my thirties (I turned 33 in April of 2022). And my oldest nephew is now 10 years old, which I can't believe; he's just discovered D&D and is reading Lord of the Rings, and I couldn't be more proud of him or my other nibblings!
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But in terms of my creative life and career - as I know that's why most of you read my blog - 2022 definitely was eventful. It was, perhaps, the biggest year to date! I know I say that every year, but 2022 really was one to remember. Every time I thought, "that's it, I've had all my luck for this year, nothing else is going to come along now," I'd get another email or invitation which blew my mind.
Let's start with the aforementioned A Different Place, as having the opportunity to direct a BFI NETWORK-funded short wasn't just a highlight of 2022, but a highlight of my entire career, and something I've wanted to happen for years now. We finally went into production at the end of February 2022, after a nearly-2-year pandemic-induced creative drought where I hadn't directed anything. The crew was comprised of people I mostly hadn't worked with before, for one reason or another, but all of them smashed it out of the park - all the way through to post production (the film's editor, Emmalie el Fadli, was another new addition to my team, but we got on particularly well). Above all, I am besotted with the performances of my brilliant cast, Michelle Darkin Price and Adaya Henry; both got me choked up on set, and their raw, honest portrayals of Evelyn and Cleo read perfectly on screen. No film will ever be exactly as you picture it in your head, but after months of hard prep and such a talented team behind the project (shout out to my producers, Katie Smith, Charlie Clarke & assistant producer Denyce Blackman!), I can honestly say that A Different Place is almost exactly what I wanted from the start, and I adore it.
(And yes, I'm aware that I've been promising a blog post that breaks down the shoot & my director prep from A Different Place for months! With the one year anniversary of the shoot coming up at the end of February this year, I'm hoping to finally make time to share a few thoughts then.)
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| [Above: at the Norwich Film Festival screening of A Different Place with my team, and answering questions afterwards. We had some lovely, emotive feedback from the audience!] |
Everyone's hard work paid off, because A Different Place's festival run started strong. Very strong. Our BFI NETWORK representatives at Film Hub Midlands arranged for the film to have a preview screening at Flatpack Film Festival in May 2022, before the film was even finished; we then had our world premiere at the massive Vancouver International Film Festival in October, an acceptance which we were overjoyed about, although I was battling Covid (in a heat wave - I also randomly caught shingles later in the year!) when the news dropped, so gathering the assets we needed at the time was a bit of a challenge!; and then we had our official UK premiere at Norwich Film Festival in November. None of my films have ever gotten into Norwich before (or Vancouver and Flatpack, for that matter!), plus it was the first time since 2016 that I had a BAFTA-qualifying credit under my belt as a director, and it felt like the sky had lit up again.
Another film that's currently on its festival run is Good Grief, which myself and Charlie Clarke produced for director Rob Sharp of Sirloin Films. As with Stop/Eject (another film I produced), it took the film a long time to get its first festival acceptance, but when it finally landed, it was huge: Good Grief was a semi-finalist, and therefore nearly selected, for Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival, and then it was selected for the OSCAR QUALIFYING Slamdance Film Festival, where it will have its world premiere later this month (January 2023). Slamdance might be the biggest festival any of my films has gotten into, and the team is over the moon about it; the whole thing feels like a bit of a Cinderella moment, and I look forward to sharing more information with you all over the coming weeks.
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| [Above: Good Grief 's swanky new laurel from none other than Slamdance Film Festival!] |
My short film Lepidopterist, originally made for the SCI-FI-LONDON 48hr challenge in 2019, finished its festival run with a few local short film nights at the start of the year (including Short Stack in Nottingham Broadway, where it looked beautiful on the big screen). It was then released online in July 2022, so if you haven't seen it yet, please click on this link to watch the film in all its glory. I also wrote a blog post about Lepidopterist's festival run, and the festival runs of some of my other genre shorts, which you can read here.
I was also one of the directors selected to take part in this year's Centreframe 'Get It Made' competition, where I got to collaborate with a lovely (and very enthusiastic) little team, pitching a quirky romantic comedy called Call Me J. Although we didn't win the funding, and the project is currently on hold as a result, I really enjoyed meeting and working with that team, and our pitch video was also the most-viewed by the public, so we were really proud of that achievement.
The last bit of short film news from 2022 is that two of my earliest short films, Ashes and the aforementioned Stop/Eject, both celebrated their 10th anniversaries - which made me feel very old, but also very proud, as I still see those two shorts as being the films that made me the filmmaker I am today, after years of experimenting with camcorders, mates, and university films! Some of the people behind Stop/Eject managed to meet up for a reunion dinner, in the middle of a particularly hectic week in May (more details about that in my Summer update blog post), and it was so lovely to see everyone and catch up on what we've all been up to over the last decade.
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| [Above: some of the Stop/Eject team at our 10-year mini reunion] |
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One of the biggest things that I'll remember 2022 for is how many of my heroes I got to see in person - starting with Alison Goldfrapp, when Edward and I finally saw Goldfrapp in a twice-delayed concert in Birmingham, back in April. Also in April (and actually on my birthday), I was given the opportunity to have a virtual meeting with my favourite UK director, Will Sharpe, thanks to Directors UK and the fact that I'm lucky enough to be on their Inspire programme; we spent an hour talking about my career, I got some excellent work/life advice from him and even felt encouraged to pitch some of my feature ideas to him, which was genuinely a dream come true.
Then in September, I somehow managed to book one of the last (super limited) tickets to go and see Baz Luhrmann in conversation at BAFTA, as part of their 'life in pictures' series. Although Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy made me want to make films in the first place, it was Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! which taught me to have fun with style and editing, to explore the language of cinema further, and so he really is one of my all-time heroes, and I had to hold back happy tears on the train home after I saw him.
(That trip to London also gave me the opportunity to finally catch up with my Growing Shadows producers and stars, Aislinn De'Ath and Robert Dukes, after the pandemic kept us apart for two years, so that made a great day even better!)
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| [Above: some very special trips to London - to BAFTA and Dolby's UK HQ - to see some of my all-time heroes in person] |
And then, less than two weeks after I saw Baz Luhrmann, I got an invitation to go back to London and see another one of my heroes in conversation... Guillermo Del Toro! Again, thanks to Directors UK, myself and some of my fellow directors (and collaborators) got to go to none other than Dolby's European HQ to see a preview screening of Pinocchio, followed by a Q&A with Guillermo Del Toro and his co-director Mark Gustafson (of Fantastic Mr Fox), AND they were interviewed by none other than Edgar Wright, another of my favourite directors!! Guillermo was as insightful as ever, and I was in awe; the only sad note was that, as I found out later, his mother had died a couple of days before that screening, and so now I hope that I'll get the opportunity to see him in person again, but in happier times.
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Another notable event from 2022 was my return to the Cannes Film Festival, for the first time since 2013, this time accompanied by my A Different Place star, Michelle Darkin Price (best networking wingman ever!). I had an amazing time there, and you can read more about that trip in this blog post. I met a few interesting people there, but there was one particular contact I really treasured; a freelance development producer from a big studio (I won't name them here, as I don't want to jinx anything, but you will have heard of them). We had another meeting a couple of months after Cannes, where I was encouraged to pitch my feature film ideas - as I did at the meeting with Will Sharpe - and I loved that experience.
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| [Above: snapshots from our trip to Cannes - which included a pilgrimage to one of the first cinemas that screened a young Peter Jackson's work!] |
Off the back of those two meetings, I started thinking about my feature dreams again, and about one feature in particular... Night Owls & Early Birds, the feature-length version of Night Owls, aka my dream project, the one I've wanted to get off the ground since I first started writing it 18 years ago.
I had another couple of meetings about Night Owls & Early Birds in 2022, and I got to pitch it again, this time to my dream distribution company (thanks to Aesthetica Film Festival for making it happen!) - again, I won't say who it was, and I don't know what will come of that meeting, but just having the chance to pitch the project to them meant the absolute world to me.
All of the above made it feel like it really was the right time to focus on Night Owls & Early Birds specifically. I still love it as much as I did when, age 15, I scrawled the first draft of the script in a notebook that was supposed to be used for GCSE English Literature! I have had funding bodies interested in the feature in the past, but when that fell through I lost my confidence and shelved the project for years. But, as a couple of people I really admire have said to me, the first step to getting a project made is believing it will happen... so this is me officially taking Night Owls & Early Birds off the shelf again.
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| [Above: my 'dream project' Night Owls & Early Birds had some interest, for the first time in years] |
It is so, so difficult - unless you have an advance payment, or you're a wealthy filmmaker, or both - to make time to write a feature script, as you can't always justify taking the time off when you have bills to pay. I've had another draft of Night Owls & Early Birds sitting in my brain for years, but I had to prioritise paid work (particularly now that I work for myself), and until 2022 I'd only managed to jot down the odd sentence in notebooks or in my phone, sometimes late at night. But, based on the recent interest in the film and encouragement from the meetings I'd attended in 2022, I was determined to find time to complete the next draft; the opportunity finally came in November, when a week-long job suddenly fell through, and it was too short notice for me to book anything else, so I seized the moment, shut myself in my office and let the words pour out of me, aided by Damien Rice on Spotify and a bottle of whiskey on my desk! Losing a week's worth of pay was very scary, but the script is done, I am proud of it and it's with a few people now, so hopefully it will all be worth it. And hopefully sooner rather than later.
Speaking of meetings, I was also one of a handful of people lucky enough to attend a round table with representatives of Film4 in Leeds in the Autumn! It was a real privilege to put faces to names and to hear about the work that Film4 intend on doing over the coming years, particularly with a focus on connecting with talent outside of London. That was so great to hear.
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All of the above makes for a very successful year (and a very long blog post!), beyond anything else I've experienced before, and I'm didn't think I could fit anything else in... but in October, I suddenly found myself on a plane, flying for the first time on my own (although an incident meant my flight almost didn't get off the ground!), and off to Dublin for my first ever experience on a professional studio-level television set. Once again, this was all thanks to Directors UK and their Inspire programme, as they helped to pair me up with my fantastic new mentor, the very experienced director Justin Molotnikov, and I got to shadow him on the set of his latest television production. It was an incredible week, and it really opened my eyes to exactly what a production could be like, in all the best ways. I won't say yet which production I was on, but it comes out later this year, and I'll be writing a blog post about my experiences after that release, so keep an eye out for that!
I was also mentored by The Princes Trust before that, who supplied me with an incredible business mentor called Simon; those sessions officially came to a close in April 2022, after two invaluable years, but his 'voice of wisdom' will live in my head forever more, and I'm eternally grateful for that!
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In my 'day job', creating videos for predominantly creative businesses, work also continued well throughout 2022. I was honoured to have a few returning clients, such as Cathy Hay (and her business Foundations Revealed), White Peak Distillery, and artist Sabrina Ward Harrison, and I collaborated with a few new clients too, such as Beautiful Things Antiques. But it made my heart particularly full in August when I was back on site producing new work for Towersey Festival, the first 'big' client I ever won (when I first launched my business), who were able to run their event live and in-person for the first time since before the pandemic. My camera team, Theo and Jonathan, captured some glorious footage, and the finished promo film felt like a celebration of Towersey's triumphant return (watching it made a few people quite emotional, myself included):
(You can see more examples of the work myself and Triskelle Pictures created in 2022 in this end-of-year roundup film.)
Finally, I branched out slightly and started doing a bit of guest-lecturing and mentoring, starting with a presentation on Production Design I did for BFI Film Academy in January of 2022. It was the first time I'd ever managed a full, solo, stood-up presentation, for over an hour, without stopping or getting too nervous - and having battled my inner antisocial, anxious teen for decades, that felt like a massive achievement to me. This new branch of work has been really rewarding, particularly the mentoring I've been doing, as I've got to share my stories and advice with three incredible up-and-coming new directors (all of who are female, which makes me even more proud!).
This year hasn't been a complete success story for me; I've continued to receive multiple rejections, for funding, festivals, and other things, as I always do. Mostly I've learned to shrug these off, but a couple of rejections did really sting and knock my confidence this year, notably when I was rejected for the Netflix Breakout scheme and BAFTA Connect membership, when literally all my contacts on social media seemed to have at least progressed to the next stages (I'm still kicking myself about it now, agonizing over what I could've done better with the application forms). And although I always get rejected for the Edinburgh Talent Lab scheme, this year's rejection felt particularly disappointing, as the great, legendary Edinburgh Film Festival has since been forced to close their doors for good, so I won't get the opportunity to apply again in the future.
But none of that puts me off from having a stab at a certain new funding pot which has recently opened for higher budget shorts... I know I'm moving my focus to features now, but I haven't forgotten about The Barn (aka Tokos), an ambitious short project I absolutely love and have wanted to get off the ground for a few years now... I may be about to face my first rejection of 2023, but not trying is the only way to guarantee failure, so... wish me luck!
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| [Above: my 2022 'director photo', by I C Things Photography] |
Because of that, I don't have high hopes for 2023; I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean that I don't need it to be massive year. I've just had a massive year, I'm so happy and thankful for it, and I don't want to be greedy. I don't know if anything will come from me sending the Night Owls & Early Birds script to people (I have, as Gandalf says, 'only a fool's hope'), but I'd like to continue to see A Different Place and Good Grief doing well at festivals, and there's a cool eco-horror animated short called Contamination (which I'm producing with Hipster Films) that I hope will finally go into production this year. I'm also attached to direct on another fantasy project, which I'm very much looking forward to but cannot, at present, tell you anything about!
As some of my upcoming passion projects are unpaid, above all I hope that my business will continue to do well, or at least to be steady. If I wish for nothing else in 2023, I want to keep a roof over my head (and to be honest, our roof could do with replacing!). The UK recession has barely begun, so we're in for some scary months yet. One day, I hope we won't have to worry so much about our finances, but until that day, I'll keep working hard and try to bring as much money into our household as I can.
I'd like to be more social, and to get out of the house in general, as I've been so busy lately (running my empire!) that I haven't actually been to the gym since before the pandemic; I'd really like to get my health back, which is hard when you spend every waking hour editing or answering emails from a desk - or sitting in a beloved cinema!
I also want to soak up every inch of Spring, when it finally comes back; I want to finish work on my garden, which is so close now; I'd like to read more, time permitting; I want to see the purple fields of heather in bloom again in the Autumn, rather than missing it for yet another year, due to work commitments, only to regret it when everything starts to turn brown.
So I wish for steadiness, for financial safety, and for sun - with maybe a little creative success along the way! And I wish for the same for all of you that are still reading this blog post now. Thank you for all the support that you give me.
Sophie
2022: THE YEAR IN STATS
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