ABOUT

FAQ

How did you get into filmmaking?

I didn't study film and picked up a camera when I realised that the conversations I had while photographing people could be "the work". The resulting artwork was Home-Maker, an interactive documentary made in the living rooms of older people who were housebound.

I made one short film (Love Takes) and then my first film Teenland (60 mins), was commissioned by The BBC when I was 6 months pregnant. I showed the film in a cinema and when I felt the live audience reaction, I knew that I had found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Which film school did you go to?

I went to a comprehensive school in the North East, studied art at Cleveland College of Art and Design and studied Contemporary Arts (music and art) at Nottingham Trent University. I was the first person in my family to pursue arts as a career and the first to go to university, closely followed by my sister Claire who is now a costume designer for film and television.

What advice would you offer other filmmakers that you wish you had known when starting out?

Follow your gut instinct - if you are fascinated by a story, then it's likely that audiences will also connect with it.

Don't believe the London myth - You can live outside of London and make films for an international audience.

True intimacy trumps fancy cinematography any day of the week, so value access and proximity over sliders, drones and expensive cameras every day of the week. Don't be afraid to build relationships with people and start to make your film.

Build relationships with funders, advocates and financiers. We are living in tough funding times and with that comes huge aversion for risk. I wish there was an easy answer to this - I'm in it too! How can you alleviate the risk in getting your film commissioned and made?

What’s your process when making films?

I only make films about subjects that I am deeply interested in, posessed by and can't stop thinking about. I spend a lot of time listening and I never write questions down. When I was at art school I thought a lot about "The medium is the message", a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan. When I start making a new film, the form evolves through the filming. I almost see the visuals out of the corner of my eye. I also always work with amazing people who can help realise this goal.

I don't have a lot of time for show-offs, in front of or behind the camera. I’m not especially interested in lairy people who have told their story many, many times, I’m interested in shy people who might not have told their story before and will allow us to discover the truth in the moment, together.

Which filmmakers or films have most inspired your work?

I love going to the cinema and feeling open to the emotion onscreen - for me, there is a peculiar pleasure in crying in the dark, surrounded my strangers.

My favourite living filmmaker is Hirozaku Koreeda (Shoplifters / After Life). I look forward to his films so much and savour every moment. He always follows the emotion in his stories.

I love Kim Longinotto (Dreamcatcher) and Carole Salter's (Almost Heaven) films, they make hugely powerful, intimate documentaries with a tiny crew. They're astonishing. I think about Chris Smith's film; American Movie and the profoundly human work of Agnes Varda a lot.

I'm also a huge fan of maximalist, ultra designed cinema - Max Ophuls (Lola Montes) and Powell and Pressburger. I fell in love with my husband after he took me to see a screening of Powell and Pressburger's "Black Narcissus". Brooding passion, swooning nuns in the heady atmosphere of the Himalayas, brought to life by Jack Cardiff on a sound stage using chalk, smoke and mirrors. How could I resist?

I picked my Baker's Dozen of favourite films for The Quietus

How was your experience of Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding enabled me to make SOUND IT OUT, a film that just would never have been commissioned. It was very new at the time and we were one of the very films in the UK to crowdfund. I wrote up everything I learned for Directors notes, detailing the SOUND IT OUT process and the one for Orion. It's incredibly exciting, an enormous amount of work and I'm not sure I would ever do it again.

I'm a media student, can I send you a list of questions to answer for my homework?

Please, please, please for the love of Dolly Parton, please don't send me a list of questions to answer. I know your media studies teacher set you this as homework but you can probably find answers to all the questions you need here on this site or by using Google. Just say that I answered them, I won't tell!

I'm a filmmaker - can I send you my film for feedback?

I get a lot of requests to give feedback on film projects but I am afraid I don’t have the capacity to look at individual projects.

The best advice I can give you is to go out and make your film on the best camera you can. You will learn more than you can imagine by just getting out there - make mistakes, learn from them, find out what feels exciting on camera. What is the film that only you can make?

Newcomers day at [Sheffield Doc Fest] and the year round training they offer is brilliant for both novices and established filmmakers.

How would your films be different if you were a man?

Come on now, would you ever ask a male filmmaker to talk about their gender in relation to how it shapes their work?

I'm a scriptwriter - can I send you my screenplay?

I am not looking for scripts at the moment.

I'm a composer or musician - can I send you my work?

I work with an amazing music supervisor Graham Langley at Loud and Cleared, he is always looking for new music so do send it to him.