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I persuaded my Dad to join Chichester Film and Video Makers back in 1999,
but it was a couple of years before I persuaded him to get a digital camcorder
so that I could get started on my own movie making. My first film was a
short drama starring my University friends. Although it won the club's annual
competition, the sound quality made it hard for most club audiences to get
tuned in to the story, so I determined to make a film that would have wider
appeal - never thinking that it would be seen internationally!
I had always wanted to work in animation and so the Oxford University Shoestring
Shorts competition in June 2002 provided the impetus to get an idea that
I had had for quite some time on to video. With some thanks to TV characters
such as Morph, that I had grown up with, the cartoon character interacts
with his creator, finds he is trapped in his cartoon world but manages to
escape in the end.
I set up a simple white card background on a table in my college room, on
which I could place my cut out character, and, with nothing more than an
angle-poise lamp for lighting, proceeded to shoot the frame by frame action
over the course of a few hours. I thought the computer editing might take
just a few hours, and so I got my Dad to bring his PC with the Adobe Premiere
editing software up to Oxford the next day. After 5 hours, there was still
a long way to go, and so I ended up going home the following weekend for
a marathon editing session. After some 25 hours of editing and with sound
effects from my brother and a bit of technical help from my Dad, the film
was ready enough for the competition.
It got an honourable mention in that competition, and since then has succeeded beyond anything I had hoped for. The next stop was the Sussex Film Festival 2002 in which it won the Animation Trophy and Youth Trophy. Then a gold award in the club's Lindemann competion (any subject up to 5 minutes). Next the Seriac Festival Youth Trophy at which Reg Lancaster (as MC) commented that my name would be familiar to many IAC members, as I am the grand-daughter of Edward Agius, a past chairman.