Profile: Abigail Ramsey, Amy Cooper, Danielle O’Toole, Sam Fisher and Sian Meredith

Why did you pick this subject for Fresh?

We were working as a group for a University project in our final year of study. As we know our time there will be ending quite soon, we thought it fitting to create a film that looks into the future. As we all have different visions of how we want our futures to shape out, it made us think about the other ideas people must have of what they want to remember about their lives when they’re older. This inspired us to compile lots of different answers to the same questions, to show just how varied people’s responses can be. We were also intrigued to see how seriously people took the questions, and whether they were prepared to reveal personal information in front of a camera.

What motivated you to make this film?

At our age, we are constantly being asked ‘what do we want to do when we’re older?’ and ‘where do we see ourselves when we’ve finished University?’ It is this constant questioning that motivated us to hear opinions from other people in a similar age group to ours. We thought it would be quite challenging to put all their answers together into one film, and to find a way of editing them together that was engaging for the audience but that was still easy to follow.

What equipment did you use to shoot the film?

We filmed with a Canon 60D on a tripod, and a Canon 70D which our cinematographer used for handheld shots. We used two Dedo lights and some filters to achieve the best lighting possible. The microphone we used was a Sennheiser attached to a boom pole, a ZoomH4n and a Mixer.

Tell us about post-production:

We used Avid Media Composer to edit our film. An effect within the software called ‘Picture-In-Picture’ is what we used to achieve the visual style you can see throughout the film. We then edited the sound using Pro Tools: cleaning up the audio and editing the levels as some of the interviewees spoke louder than others.

Who/what inspires you?

We were inspired by how Documentaries can be so simple yet so thought provoking. 'First Kiss' by Tatia Pllieva is a short film we watched on YouTube that inspired us in terms of its visual style and stripped back feel. We wanted to create a film that was still really interesting for the viewer but wasn't over edited or complicated in terms of narrative.

What are your plans for the future?

We are all finishing University this year, so we plan to find work in the different fields we are interested in. Danielle wants to go into teaching, and hopefully incorporate media into her lesson plans to show children just how powerful the media can be. Amy would like to pursue a career in Sound Design, and she hopes to find a job or internship that she feels passionate about where she can build on her knowledge from University. Abigail would like to hopefully start a career in the TV Industry. After gaining some experience of being a Production Assistant she would like to graduate and start to work her way into the industry. Sian would like to continue producing documentaries after graduation. Sam hopes to gain more experience within the cinematography field and hopefully become a freelance filmmaker.

What is the most important thing you have learned so far?

We have learnt the importance of planning during the pre production stages. We created filming and editing schedules which allowed us to see how much time we had after filming to complete the edit. How smoothly the editing process ran was dependent on how much planning we had done beforehand. We saw that by simply planning out the structure and narrative of our film, this gave us more time to experiment with the footage we had.