My name is Vicky Jewson and I'm a film director. We're here today at Hinton Skydiving Centre to film our stunt woman falling out of a plane 10,000 feet, which is a part of the film where she skydives secretly into the Middle East undercover, like a spy would.
Sorry, Fran, do you mind?
No, no, that's fine.
Then we know we're definitely going to get that shot.
I'm the stunt double, so I'm not actually an actress, but I'm standing in for an actress, so I'm pretending to be her.
Fran is one of my friends, and we started making films together when I was about 12 years old.
SWING MUSIC PLAYS
You've got to hide me! I look dreadful! Billy can't see me like this, he just can't!
Nice to see you, too, Nancy.
Whoa!
I met her at big school on the first day, and Fran and I went on to make about eight films together while I was at school, and that kind of lit the torch under my passion for filmmaking.
So, yeah. Big.
A big part of directing, which a lot of people don't realise or understand, is not just being on set with the actors and picking where your camera's going to go. The real success of a director is when you get into the edit suite. If all those shots that you've done cut together to create a good story and to create a film, then that's really satisfying.
With the right sound effect, that's going to be perfect.
This is maybe one of the more wacky things I've done in my time. In your time. There is a lot of tricks to make you believe it's real. As you can see, she's looking at her arm there, and we want to feel like we're now her, so we go to this angle where we feel we're looking down at her arm, which helps us believe that this bit of fake arm is actually an arm and not a bit of fakeness because you feel connected to it because you feel you're her.
Legs in, arms in, zip goes up the front, not up the back.
How do you feel, Fran?
Nervous.
Oh, sorry, Fran!
It's all right!
Yeah, we need the camera, Malte!
LAUGHTER
Positive mental thinking now.
I am excited about the shots we might get from the aircraft. It could be a really good link in the film. It's also quite risky. The shot's so important, you've got one chance to get it.
Yeah, they're jumping. See them? There goes the other one, there's Fran.
I can't wait to see the footage.
There's Malte, that's Malte up there.
How do you know?
Because he's got red.Oh, we won't know until the plane lands if we've got our shot or not.
Is that one person?
Yeah.
FRAN SHRIEKS
Sorry, Fran!
Wow. Shall we go greet them?
I'm on the ground!
Awesome.
Yeah?
That was actually quite fun.Oh, my God. Just…
Ah, amazing. Ah, yes! That's awesome. Great.
Gets it all quicker.
It just gives you the feeling of being on top of the world when the shot that you've imagined for years finally comes out. If I was to go back and tell my nine or eleven-year-old self what to do, I think I would just say, "Never give up, and believe in yourself because if you keep going and pursuing what you love, it will work out for you." And doing it with people you care about and to be able to do that for a job is amazing, and to be reminded of that sometimes is really good.
Video summary
Vicky, a young feature-film maker, directs a skydiving stunt for her latest film.
The skydiver is her friend Fran, who she met in secondary school.
She reveals some of the tricks of the trade and explains what makes a good director.
Vicky describes how important it is to capture the shot of the skydive and fortunately it's a good one for her film.
Teacher Notes
Vicky developed her passion for filmmaking, by making films with her friends at school. Students could discuss how hobbies and interests at school could be helpful in developing a career.
Encourage students to think not only of making a hobby into a career, such as a football, but also think how the skills they are developing could be useful one day.
Challenge students to create a mind map, with their hobby in the centre and the skills, knowledge and attributes they are gaining.
They could then work in pairs and each take turns in the role of a careers advisor.
Looking at their partner’s mind map, each career advisor could be challenged to think of three possible jobs this person could do.
Alternatively, students could use this clip to explore the wide variety of careers in the film industry. Students could watch the credits of a film and note down some of the roles that appear.
Ask students to choose those that they have little knowledge of, or that sound interesting.
Working in groups they could then be challenged to research this career and create a poster in order to display their findings.
The posters could then be used to create a classroom display.
This clip will be relevant for teaching Modern Studies or Media Studies.
This topic appears in KS2/KS3/KS4/GCSE in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 2nd level in Scotland.
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