Last Saturday night I was lucky enough to be at the Royal Albert Hall for a live tribute to John Williams with the London Symphony Orchestra. It was a glorious evening, and a reminder of how much of a film’s storytelling happens through our ears. A few notes can bring an entire fictional world rushing back; and what we remember most vividly is an accompanying feeling: wonder, dread, hope, loss. The music reconnects us with something we experienced long after the details of th

There’s a peculiar moment in independent filmmaking when you realise that the scene you’ve written requires a hospital, thirty extras, a moving vehicle and approximately £40,000 you don’t have. This is usually followed by a cup of tea and a rewrite. But here’s the interesting thing: limitations can make films better. When money is no object, almost anything is possible. When money is very much an object, every decision matters. You have to ask yourself what the scene is reall

Some stories you choose to tell. Others stay with you until you do. in the past is the second kind, a film I've wanted to make for many years. It follows Alan, a middle-aged man who arranges to meet his former mentor, Nigel, determined to finally say what he has kept quiet for decades. The dialogue and setting are fictional, but the story underneath is rooted in truth. Breaking the silence I know from experience how hard it is to talk about past trauma, particularly as a man.

(BTS - Georgina Fairbanks as Sarah in 'Dignity') A character opens a letter. We watch their face change. Cut. We never see what’s written. That missing information can hold our attention more tightly than a close-up of the page. We start searching the face for clues. Is it relief? Grief? Something they were expecting, but still weren’t ready to hear? In our award-winning short Dignity, Sarah receives a letter from Captain Taylor. Afterwards, so many audience members asked us

When people hear that Rae of Sunshine takes place almost entirely in a parked car, the first question is usually some version of ‘wasn’t that limiting though?’ It was. And that was exactly the point. The film follows a mother and daughter trying desperately to make up for lost time. It's Rae's 30th birthday, and her mother, played by Nicola Berry, is sitting beside a grown woman she feels so close to, but doesn’t know. Paislie Reid's Rae has spent years cut off from her; now

There's an old saying that every film is written three times: once on the page, once on set, and once in the edit. Of the three, the last is often the most surprising, and the most humbling. On the page, everything works. Scenes flow neatly into one another, jokes land, and emotional beats arrive exactly on cue. Then you shoot it, and the film starts to take on a life of its own. An actor finds something unexpected in a line. A location changes the rhythm of a scene. The weat