A Challenge Between Friends

 Me and my friend, Faythe, recently decided to task each other with creating a short film centred around three words. She allocated me 'lonely', 'delivery' and 'road'. The below short, Billy, is the culmination of these three words.

In case you're wonder, the words I allocated Faythe were 'brown', 'fist' and 'clock'. I look forward to seeing what she creates.

Water, Water, Everywhere

During my 3 weeks off for Easter, I was doing a lot of prepping for my final submissions. I also got a job as an editor for a local independent production company. But I really wanted to make something for myself, something for Winward Studios. So I looked through my backlog of note books and ideas. When I came across ‘Water, Water, Everywhere’. It’s one of several that were intended as short horrors to submit into the, at the time yearly, 15 Second Horror Film Challenge. This was an idea I liked at the time but knew it was longer than 15 seconds despite still being very short. So I decided to finally tell this story as I knew it wouldn’t be too strenuous or invasive on my uni prep and work time.

So this is ‘Water, Water, Everywhere’. A psychological horror, I think.

Not All Stories are About the Living...

 For my final task of university Bootcamp year 1, I was tasked with creating a short with the theme 'Teesside Stories'. So I decided to delve into the supernatural and explore Middlesbrough's ghosts.

I found this deeply fascinating, because although I've never witnessed a ghost encounter I know people who have, and it's an area that's always peeked my curiosity. I recalled reading about local ghosts in the books 'Haunted Middlesbrough' and 'Haunted Teesside', so I reached out to a couple of the establishments that claimed to have ghosts, according to these books. The Central Library weren't able to help, unfortunately, as the members of staff that had witnessed phenomena have since left, and the Ghost Room itself is now used for storage. But the Dorman Museum staff kindly allowed me to film around the building when it wasn't open to the public, and even answered my questions about their resident ghost; The Curator. Sadly, they didn't want to appear on screen but I was able to get a voice actor to read out their answers, so it was all good.

Furthermore, I reached out online for more local ghost encounters. I posted in the Facebook group 'Memories of Middlesbrough' and I received a massive outpouring. All the stories I received were intriguing, but due to my time limit, that I'd already gone over, I couldn't use them all in a manner that I would have liked to in order to explore them all. But I did choose one specific experience to get another voice actor to read, it was a poem written by Ian Hall-Dixon to make sense of his ghost encounter when he was a child.

Amongst the replies I received, I was contacted by a local ghost investigator (Kindred Spirit Investigations) who offered to answer my questions, but also sadly didn't want to appear on screen, so I got another voice actor to read out her answers for the film. Again, it was all good. The answers I got, like the Dorman Museum ones, are deeply insightful and fascinating to listen to.

The film had a working title of 'Ghosts of Boo-ro', but as much as I like playing with words this title seemed a bit daft. Then I came up with the title I used for the finished short; 'GhosTees'.

Below you can watch the finished short. Enjoy.

Headspace

 The following video, Headspace, I created over the weekend. It was made for my university Bootcamp task, which was to make a 2 minute film demonstrating the various editing techniques we'd learnt over the past several weeks. These included colour tints, dubbing audio, using After Effects etc. Now, I've been wanting to make a film about my mental health struggles for some time, something that lets audiences hear what it's like inside my head, and until now I'd struggled to form anything other than a basic idea. For whatever reason, now seemed to be the right time that my brain decided to pump out ideas for this film idea that's been on the back burner for a long time.

Incase you didn't already know, I struggle with anxiety and depression. These affect me daily, sometimes severely and sometimes only minutely. But they're pretty much always there. So to help me take the edge off of these I have to take medication every day. Duloxetine for my depression and Aripiprazole for my anxiety. As I said, they don't "cure" it, they just take the edge off.

In terms of new editing techniques, I've used a colour tint on video properly for the first time, I've also used a visual effect from After Effects to illustrate brain synapses at work (also for the first time), and I recreated the audio for the outdoor scenes, as I was some distance from the camera and the wind distorted the audio.

So here I present a glimpse inside my head as well as a look at some new editing techniques I've learnt recently.

Reinventing Myself

I've always loved films and since 2011 I've been making my own short films under the banner of Winward Studios. These have all been made on little to no money, using equipment and props I already own or can lend, and my cast has always been made up of friends and family. All my skills have been self taught through trial and error as well as the aid of YouTube tutorials. For all of my films, I have acted as the sole crew member. So I've been responsible for writing, directing, editing, and even starring at times. This hobby has been the escape needed for me and my mental health.

In the early days, I had this dream of making a "proper film". I dreamed of being able to go into HMV and see a DVD on a shelf with my name on it. As the years went on, my faith in myself waned and I had a "reality check", I accepted my limitations and that my filmmaking skills would go no further than my own YouTube uploads. Despite having won several local and more widespread awards for my shorts, I came to the conclusion that this was it. Filmmaking for me would go no further than being a passionate hobby.

Life continued on, over the course of the last 10 years I had moved from working in a shop to working nights in a factory, and became a father TWICE. Then lockdown hit, my mental health deteriorated further and I began to struggle at work. All I had in life was home and work, I had no escape anymore. During this time, I got new ideas for shorts, I was limited to filming in my home and having myself, my partner and children as the stars, but this worked. I even made a project called Isolation Compilation where I asked everyone I knew to participate by filming themselves catching a toilet roll from off screen and then passing it on, showing what they're doing to survive lockdown. This was pretty successful, not everyone participated but I was happy with the turnout. But even with these new projects, I continued to struggle at work.

In 2021, I was officially diagnosed Autistic which allowed me to access help I hadn't previously. This helped with limited success. Then I made a decision I never thought I would make. I decided to quit my job, and return to education. I decided to do another degree (my previous one being in Photography), but this time in what I should have done 13 years earlier; Film and Television Production.

I was very anxious about this decision, constantly questioning whether it was the right move. But so far, returning to education has been the best decision I could have possibly made at that time in my life. Sure, I'm one of the oldest in the class. Sure, the age gap is practically a generation difference. But, everyone has been lovely and inviting, and made me feel like one of them. Social skills are not my strong suit, but I feel so at ease with my fellow students. It's great being surrounded by such creative types. I love spending time with them and being creative together. I even have plans with some of them to make short films together, but in a much more professional capacity than I've ever been able to manage in the past, i.e. not just me acting as the full crew, and the ability to loan out professional equipment from the University. I feel I'm reigniting my decade old dream and reinventing myself at the same time. I feel like I'm in a good place.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Lets celebrate by watching some valentines films from yesteryear. Feel free to drop a comment letting me know which you prefer.

Rubik's Cube Promo

I enjoyed the product promo task so much that I made a second promo video, but this time for Rubik's Cube. I achieved this with a very basic DIY set up, using a black hoodie, and my phone torch as the light.