A week working with BFI, O2, GoThinkBig and London Film Fest 2015

During this year’s BFI London Film Festival, we gave three crews of 18-24-year-olds the amazing opportunity to write, produce, film and edit their own short films with the BFI Film Academy and O2, inspired by the rally-cry of new film Suffragette ‘The time is now’.

Our chosen 24 young filmmakers had their work premiered at the festival yesterday, before an exclusive screening of Suffragette. We were incredibly impressed by the standard of the work they produced – especially as they only had one week to create their films!

- from GoThinkBig site

A few months ago there was an open call for submissions from O2's Creative Scheme GoThinkBig.co.uk looking to assemble a team of 18-24 year olds to produce a 3 minute short.

8 roles were on offer; Director, Cinematographer, Writer, Sound Designer, Production Designer, Assistant Director, Project Manager, and Editor, with the chance to work with a Producer currently working in the industry and have the finished film screened at London Film Festival before Suffragette.

I successfully applied for the role of Cinematographer and was paired with Director Jimmy Dean and BAFTA member & nominated Producer Michelle Eastwood for the script Grace (written by Helen Pickard).

Synopsis:

An intimate insight into the differing lives of two teenage friends. The film follows their contrasting morning routines and depicts the unknown challenges one of them faces in her daily life as a young carer.

(Above: picture of all three crews together)

We were told in the opening introduction that a thousand people had entered.

At the end of the screening during a networking event at BFI Southbank, I was selected at the end to be a part of the Q&A with O2; I discussed with Alison, the Director of VividEcho and an amazing person to have met and worked with, that I have always felt a stronger public speaker than one-to-one; being offered the platform to say how I felt about the experience was the perfect opportunity to express and demonstrate how much in confidence I had grown.

In the Q&A I was asked: "if you could speak to yourself at the start of your journey a week ago, what advice would you give yourself?"

I said: "Be open to new experiences, meeting new people, and except that you don't know everything."

I have directed in the past and now am beginning to produce but I applied for Cinematographer as this is most commonly what I have been able to offer a crew. I am very confident in my insight into Camera and knew my thoughts on this would be something that would grab GoThinkBig's attention.

For instance one of the questions I was asked during the Q&A was regarding my unsolicited praise from Blackmagic Design.

Jimmy Dean (our director) was the right man for the chair and was very supportive of my input, encouraging collaboration. By the end of the third (and final) shooting day already we had developed together a continuity of lens choice and framing so that conversations became:

Jimmy; "Wide on this", Corry: "24mm?", Jimmy: "yeah great"

I remember when we first discussed the look and I suggested lens choice Jimmy said he wasn't too familiar with making these decisions; I hope by the end of the process he shared my passion and understanding of how the lens "shapes" the look and feel differently.

I learned a lot about Producing as well from Michelle; it was a great learning experience just to hear her insight when talking through a decision; most importantly I felt Michelle always had "my back".

I must also mention Sagan who was our groups tutor; it was very inspiring to watch how he supported the team and was constantly there for us; I told Alison this and she described his role as "the ground troops". As we continued on the shoot he began to tune into all of our personalities and idiosyncrasies and again I felt a strong feeling there was a constant safety net of support behind us.

I feel I have made some amazing contacts in both the people I worked with and those who worked on the other 2 films, whose approach has inspired and taught me new perspectives.

For instance among the many friendships I will take away from this, I must mention the other 2 cinematographers Becky and Willow. This comes back to my answer in the Q&A; before meeting them I anticipated our similarities would bring conflict but as soon as I opened up to meeting them and discussing cinematography I discovered our shared passion was wonderful a thing. I'm already thinking through when next we can all work together.

It has truly been an amazing experience and something I will never ever forget.

Here is the finished film "Grace":