In early June I did the excellent and intense weekend directing course with Ruth Torjussen which was held in Cardiff. The question always arises then- how do you build on this kind of experience while it is fresh in your mind? Well, I had already signed up for a Mini Masterpieces summer program at Bristol University, not quite knowing what to expect. In short order I pitched a film, got it accepted and found myself directing this new short only a few streets away from where we had enjoyed the directing course just two weeks earlier !
Within a week we had shot, edited and done the post production necessary on Infill, Noggin, Wattle & Daub, a little fiction (barely) piece about an old courtyard on the brink of being re-developed…for something. But what? My film explored the visions of three pairs of interested parties and it premiered to an Open Day audience at the university just a few days after we shot it.
When gathering the crew, I was able to secure one of my fellow FD4W alumna, Anne-Marie Margerison as Director of Photography. We had a chance to work with a professional sound man, producer and editor on this project and found the my FD4W course had prepared me better for this than I could have anticipated too.
The directing course was just so valuable in giving me a bit of experience and confidence about what to watch out for and how to keep things moving on set. Well, so much more too really. Three days can certainly make a difference! It was a real pleasure to put the skills we had been taught to use so quickly.
Now it is less than a month since I took the course and aside from enjoying the final edit Lynnwen Brown did on the little piece we all shared direction on that weekend, I have a new film done and dusted and entered for two festivals ( Encounters in Bristol and Exposures in Manchester). I plan to help others met through the course on a couple of their projects in the near future and am in planning for a more ambitious project of my own to start later this summer!
-Teri Brewer
Cardiff
Infill, Noggin, Wattle & Daub and more will be up on my website soon.
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