Biography

 " I dream for a living"
- Steven Spielberg

About this girl.

I can't quite remember the day I wanted to be a film-maker. I wish I had a story I could tell of some euphoric moment when everything fell into place and my dream became clear. However that's not how my life turned out. Storytelling surrounds us, from communication to entertainment, and I suppose that's where it began. Hearing stories and then telling stories.

I originally started out as an artist, that was my expression. Then I dabbled in poetry as every hyper-emotional teen does. However my first experience as a director was very young. I had attended a creative after school club during my primary school years. I discovered a cupboard full of costumes and convinced a few of the other children to dress up and put on a performance on the stage for the adults. We didn't plan anything but dressed up and then froze on stage. An early life lesson in planning for a 5 year old! 

It first occurred to me that I could work in film in comprehensive school when I took Media as an A-Level. The analysing of texts was fascinating to me, much like my other passion of psychology. Both consisted of analysing, One the human mind and the other the representations or expressions of humans. It was when we were given a film project to create that I realised I enjoyed the process, however at that point in my life I was too timid for a life as a film-maker. 

I ended up transferring to college and studied Media/Film as well as art and psychology. Life, unfortunately got in the way of education, and I left College at 18.

It wasn't until I moved away from Wales to Yorkshire that I reconsidered education. I had made small projects over the years by myself, purely from my own interest and experimentation. I began to enjoy editing and would hungrily research and watch tutorials on film creation processes. Once I discovered After Effects, I was certain this was what I wanted to do. I then attended York College, enrolling in a Film and Television Diploma. It was during this course that I developed my film making skills, from close textual analysis, stop motion, camera operating, pre-production and television broadcasting. 

The course was quite intensive and well structured, however I yearned for more creative opportunities and to express myself in film in a less corporate manner like I had been taught. From there I applied To Manchester School of Art for Film-making, which is where I reside today. 

This blog is the documentation of Second Year Film-making at MMU, and The Reflective account of Jackie Hodge.