It’s quite hard to define your own work – but probably because it is easier to simplify the overall vibe of something external to you. But, yes, I have been drawn to bringing aspects of art into film making and mixing up the mediums I work with. I love visual contrast in general – the rough with the polished, the fast mark making next to a very composed image. There is something really appealing about that to me. And in the simplest sense it’s being drawn to the unexpected.

Every project is unique in their process, and probably mainly because I work in so many different ways- from [making] pure art or illustration and at the other end of the spectrum [on] commercial videos. But they all start with a brief, or a set of problems or limitations and I set about thinking about a creative solution. I tend to start by trying to absorb something new – to look at reference works that I haven’t before so as not to keep creating the same types of work myself. And then I narrow down my intentions and explain them to the client. Next we will shoot if there is video or photography involved, and then the post [photoshoot or creation] stage of combining the elements which is where the ‘art’ happens.

I have been trying! I actually went away from using paint with photography for a while because it was boring me, and I was being too careful. The pandemic gave me a chance to come back to it with more freedom and play with combing the two again which was fun.

It was honestly because I thought through my work options when I left Cambridge and nothing appealed to me. It soon became clear in my mind that the only thing I wanted to do was make images in some form. I think it comes down to how your mind works – I think in images, and for instance I can always see what my projects will look like before working on them. That is the essence of what I love; the imagining and then the bringing to life of something from that imagination.

It’s an ongoing process I guess, but I knew during my MA that I loved certain styles of working and they tended to be ways in which I could work quickly, and not spend too long creating the details of images. But it was also probably a little to do with the reaction I got from my tutors mixed with understanding which types of work I was enjoying making. But if I look back at what I was working on then, it has nothing to do with how I work now. And there isn’t one moment that I see as the instance that I found my style of working. I am still looking for it and I will never feel that I’ve found it.

I have used the time to think through past references mainly. To think about what it is that I love about other works that I haven’t yet managed to include in my own projects. Over the summer I had the opportunity to make a film that was more of an art piece (with no client) and decided to go back through all my mountains of past references that never got to feed into anything, and formulate clusters of ideas that were very uncommercial and sometimes a bit ugly. I then shot myself in my spare room on greenscreen and edited this very bizarre film. And the nice thing is that I learnt some new ways of animating and shooting that have in turn fed back into my commercial work for this year.

I think I see all the things I do as different parts of the same thing – my films are usually layered with a lot of post work – whether that is literally collage layers, or layers of film, almost collaged together… but not looking like ‘art’ or collage. The same for photography.

So, that was actually what I was speaking about earlier – about the project that looked into past reference points. But the ideas that the film itself spoke to were creative and existential isolation. The film was made totally in solitude, and was about the inner life and turmoil of being isolated and the versions of our self that present themselves. I think my agents thought I was having some sort of episode - but it was a really worthwhile project on many levels. Though it does sit very strangely next to a lot of my work.

I think organising my ideas, deciding what would work without the sounding board of producers or clients, and preparing for a project which in some ways felt fake for a lot of the process. But I think that just goes to show how used to the commercial process I had got.

I think if you had asked me this five years ago I might have mentioned working with certain celebrities or brands, but now I see my progress more in waves; you ride the hype from one project, you do some more, you have a quiet period, you get hyped again. That and repeat, over and over. And you need to be quite strong not to find that exhausting or disappointing, but equally you need to be grounded by the knowledge that a quiet period will come gain.

I try to be free, experimental, and to have fun - and I hope that is how it comes across.

I have just wrapped up a couple of commercial projects, and I have no idea how the rest of the year will go. If the industry stays quiet for a while I hopefully will make another film using the techniques I learnt with making It was Fine but with more script and not featuring me this time.