After dreams of becoming a zoo keeper were dashed by the realisation that caging animals might be a cruel pass-time, GCSE music had me creating with eight tracks and looking to a future of mixing desks and concerts. My secondary school science teacher concluded “sound engineering” and I enrolled for Maths and Physics A-levels. Quite removed from my idea of jamming in a studio I promptly failed all of my end of unit tests and lost my way somewhat. After a few half-hearted months, I dropped those subjects and moved onto Media Studies, scoffed at by some but, it opened up unexpected avenues and developed my critical thinking. 

 

This is when I first picked up a video camera (imagine a VHS tape player, but on the shoulder, and if you don’t know what a VHS player is then you’re too young to be reading this) . Off to London I went, on the train, to shoot a music video, having no clue about filming permissions, just me wanging a camera around using all the built-in camera functions, like posterise and negative, you get the idea….if it was done today it would be seen as innovative, ok?! Then there was the editing; no FCP click of a button here, this was a linear ‘start all over again if you make a mistake’ vibe. Frustrating, yes, but ultimately very satisfying, especially the surprised (I’d like to think also impressed) look on my tutor’s face when I explained I’d done it all single-handedly. 

 

It wasn’t quite enough to get me to my first choice university (Royal Holloway to study Media Arts), and failing my German A-level didn't help (from A* GSCE student to a 'U' for ungraded...or is that ungradeable?). The news arrived over a crackly phone line whilst I was on safari in Tanzania with my Dad - an extremely generous treat to celebrate me finishing my studies. Our accommodation didn’t have a phone so we had to drive to the next lodge to call my mum. It was hard to shift the feeling of failure even in such an incredible place, but on the drive back to our hotel, we were delayed by elephants crossing our route; sometimes you need a bit of perspective. Being there ignited something in me. Years later my Dad would remind me of that trip, where I’d made a quietly confident statement that I would be back. 

 

An unintentional gap year followed. Whilst others were sunning themselves on the beaches of Thailand and visiting temples in Cambodia, I was working various jobs - salad packing (I lasted two days), cleaning a hospital maternity unit (that one lasted a week) and bar tending (better!). Along side that I was off to night school once a week to complete another A-level. This time, Film Studies. Now, this one really was for the slackers. But Westerns?? Come on! I can get onboard with Sergio Leone, but John Ford was so dry. The Searchers bored the pants off me. All the same, I diligently attended and landed an A at the end. Go me! 

 

University was in my sights and I headed to UWE for an interview for a BA in Time Based Media. Yes, I didn’t know what that really meant either so I asked them to explain and got the genius reply of “it’s all the media you take time over”. So I relied on the fact it had ‘media’ in the title and assumed I would fit in somehow. Surprisingly, I got in.

 

“It’s all about team-work” and “ this is the best bloody industry to work in” (what, university lecturing?) was repeatedly drummed into us whenever we had lessons, of which there seemed very few; perhaps not unsurprisingly when the curriculum set out that the course had a lot of “self-directed study” (not sure that would hold up so well with today’s costly tuition fees). Some seemed to confuse ‘team-work’ with hierarchies and so the blueprint for working in the media began! It was probably about half-way through the course that I realised maybe I should’ve done Fine Art, as going off on my own and making a film was ‘not in the spirit of the course’. Still, I fulfilled my duties working on my peer’s projects, completed a dissertation (which, when I read it back now, makes absolutely zero sense to me; it’s just a bunch of words strung together, but it did what it needed to do). For my final piece I went rogue echoing my A-level days and presented an experiential piece made up of what I can only describe as some sort of crazy curtain cave, a little den that you entered to sit in and watch my ode to nature - my solo project where I went off and filmed pretty things, recorded various sounds, and mashed them up into a juxtaposition of nature Vs industry (how very..…post modern?) My mum loved it. And, surprisingly, I got a 2:1. 

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More to come......