Our ‘Women Film-Makers’ segment wants to try to showcase the work of budding women directors. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be making films as a profession, or submitting them to festivals, you can submit something you made for a school project, or just lil experimental stuff you’ve shot by yourself or with friends. All we need is a bit of writing about yourself and the film, and a working YouTube/Vimeo link. Click here for more details on how to submit.

Hey, it’s Chloe, SQ Editor/Founder here…..

For my final major project during my Foundation year I chose to base my project around Wes Anderson. Here is what my ‘exhibition plaque’ read:

”GO WES’

‘Go West, young man’ is a quote from Horace Greenley concerning America’s expansion westward, related to the then popular concept of Manifest Destiny.

I reject this notion.

I believe that we should ‘Go Wes’ instead. We should embrace pastel colours, kooky personalities and insane interior decor; the very things director Wes Anderson is critiqued for. I believe his unique style only contributes to his storytelling. Wes teaches us that even during the most difficult times it is still important to maintain a cute vintage aesthetic.”

I’m a costume design student so obviously I was going to be making a costume, I wanted to go one step further and do a short film too, but due to time constraints I roped in the help of my friend Daniel O’Connor (who you can find on YouTube here) to do all the technical stuff. The project was a great lil collaboration between the both of us, I explained to Dan what I wanted and he shot it on all the locations I drove to, Dan also edited,done the colouring, done the sound and had my good friend Jonny record the narration that I wrote. And obviously I made the entire costume (and printed the fabric) myself and done the styling.

The idea behind the film was to encompass some of Wes’ films’ recurring themes such as: youth, separated parents, running away and personal troubles. So we shot all of the film at Train Stations (and a sea lookout disguised as a station) to keep up the idea of leaving and moving away which very much reflected my mindset at the time of the project.

By Chloe Leeson