2012, film school was coming to a close and I realised too late, that I wished I had had the balls & the ego, to pursue directing and it's specific creative tyranny.
I also realised that to make a film you don't need much, not really.
And so, with the help of three close friends, the talented Nat B, Bene L & E Rogers, we workshopped two characters for one week, in my bedroom.
The resulting story, about two girls who torture animals for fun, was bleak at the best of times. We had improvised everything from the moment they met, the height of their fascination with one another, to the moment Alice visits Lola 5 years later, in an institution.
We chose to capture the moment Alice confronts Lola and leaves her.
We shot it in one day.
The edit took three years.
Possibly nothing is as horrifying as watching the footage you directed over and over and over and over.
You are made increasingly aware of it's many short fallings technical and otherwise: the lack of varied points of view, of angles, the absence of movement to cut on, how little of what you wanted to convey has made it through the lens, your own general incompetency - it was nightmarish. Over the course of those 3 years I sat down many times to finish the edit, but couldn't.
I was told that I was being hard on myself. Personally, I just think of it as honesty.
After a drunken conversation I finally knew how to finish it. Just cut the shit. Use the rest.
Making sense is over rated in short film.
I think ultimately, it's brief. The narrative is foetal at best, but I let myself hope that the final film is restrained and somewhat emotive.
And so in 2015, I had finished my first short film, not just that, but it was screened at the Tabacco Factory Theatres in Bristol.
Despite the film's shortcomings, if that isn't a finishing project, what is?
Kate x
