Road to Wembley #2

I wasn't going to post about this one, because I had originally set out to photograph a game from each round of the Women's FA Cup. See images from the first round here. Unfortunately my plan fell through and it was then too late to try and rearrange pitchside access with another club. Though on the day, we thought we should still go to a game anyway from the competition because it's the best cup in football (and yes, I do say that as fact)! It was a pretty grim day weather wise, so decided to stay fairly local, choosing Chapman Fields as our destination for Kiveton Park Ladies vs SJR Worksop Women.

To be honest my expectations were quite low on the lead up and didn't think there would be much of an atmosphere or anything. But, how wrong I was: 273 people were in attendance for this Second Qualifying Round and the atmosphere was genuinely buzzing! The club has definitely got something good going on and if I was the type of person to visit a club more than once, I would 100% return. They were also issuing a programme, if you're into that sort of thing!

The game was really competitive, with both sides battling hard until the end. Unfortunately the hosts missed a couple of chances in the second half, which ended up putting them on the back foot and eventually losing 1-3 to the visitors. Hopefully next round (22nd October- for all those interested) I'll be back out with my proper camera, though here's a couple of phone pictures for proof of existence!

‘Bear’ One Year On/ WINNING AN AWARD!

In September last year, I completed my most ambitious solo project to date: my eleven minute short film ‘Bear’, which I wrote, directed, animated and I guess produced (by default) as well. To be brutally honest, it hasn’t had the most successful festival run thus far (though still waiting to hear back from a few), which kind of went against my hopes and expectations for the film- I thought it might have done a little better on that side of things. That’s not to say it hasn’t had any success- it has been selected for several screenings, all of which have had extremely positive feedback.

And to my surprise at the films' most recent outing, it won the ‘Northern Spirit’ award at The Spirit of Independence Film Festival (in a packed out screening)! This was a complete surprise to me and I’m so honoured that the Screen Yorkshire judges selected ‘Bear’ to win the prize. The films it was playing alongside were all absolutely fantastic, so to win felt even more special. And also to have an animated film picked as the winner amongst live action films was quite something. Animation is often seen as something ‘lesser’ than live action and often not taken as seriously, or just as a format exclusive to children’s media. I mean you only need to look as far as the Academy Awards as evidence…

Not embarrassing at all! Photo credit Jacob Flannery.

I feel winning this award has given me a fair amount of well needed validation in the ‘industry’. I feel my route to the ‘industry’ was slow and meandering, with not a lot of connections and not attending any of the typical universities (i.e. CSM, NFTS, RCA) which often get you a leg up in this field. I have really just done my own thing, kept plugging away and it feels like everything I have been doing to this point is finally paying off. And in my opinion, deservedly so. It makes me want to keep chasing my dreams of becoming a feature film director and has given me the extra bit of motivation to do so. More on that towards the end of this post…

I hadn’t actually watched ‘Bear’ since it’s Manchester screening prior to this in December 2022, because often when finishing a project, I need time away from it to really let what I’ve created sink in and be able to form a realistic opinion on my work. Something I find hard to do so close after finishing a project- if I’m honest I usually dislike it and can only see the negatives/ mistakes and my ability to see the film as a whole is often distorted.

The Saturday morning of the festival I was a little apprehensive about seeing my film again on a big screen with a good sound system. For some reason, I had (wrongly) built up an image in my head that the film was really ‘bad’ (probably because of the amount of festival rejections). Since my completion of the film, I feel I have grown as both a filmmaker and a person and I wasn’t sure if it would really represent me very well. But maybe some of that growth was down to having made this film anyway. Looking back, it was an extremely ambitious project, though I do feel I pulled it off- or at least to a certain extent. When it was playing at SOIFF, I was actually thinking ‘you know what, this is actually quite alright’ and there are some parts of it which I am especially proud of. I’ll go through a few of those now:

Firstly, the fact that I wrote and directed such an ambitious project, with no outside forces like funding etc to keep me going. It wasn’t a totally smooth ride either and there were bumps along the way, with my metal health and other things which kept it from not going as smoothly. Though I persisted and finished it. Which, we all know, is a hard thing to do. Abandoning projects midway is so common in creative people (myself included).

Secondly, I’m really impressed with the animation and a few techniques I used (no spoilers, sorry)! I really liked how I kept it on the experimental side and true to my style/ background, whilst keeping a cohesive look and feel throughout, with focus on story. I always think, if this is what I can do alone, then what I could produce with a team would be amazing!

As a concept piece, I also found myself impressed. I say ‘concept piece’, because the film was made to showcase who I am as a filmmaker/ director, and illustrate what I can make on an extremely limited budget with time constraints. It definitely shows the type of film I want to be making in the future, both thematically and stylistically. But with a larger team and a budget behind I could take things much further. One of my goals for this film was to have it as a so called ‘calling card’ with hope of making a feature film next. But because of it’s lack of festival run, I felt I hadn’t really achieved this or I would need to make another, 'better' short next year. Though on this most recent viewing of the film, I felt this was actually achieved and it’s something I think I can show to someone (a higher up) and say ‘I want to make this kind of thing, but bigger and better’!

Yes, there are many mistakes too and a lot I feel I have learnt from it which I can take in to my next project. One, is the sound design- it wasn’t as bad as I imagined or had built up in my head, but I know it could be improved with the right people behind it. I also feel the edit could have been a lot tighter and less ‘baggy’. Though at the time I felt all of it was needed. Yes, I could potentially do a recut now and rebuild the sound design, but there would be little point in doing that as I’ll never move on to my next project if I keep striving for an unattainable ‘perfection’ in this project. So leave it, learn from it and go again!

…So what next?

I’ve a few months left on my current work contract, but after that, I still haven’t given up on the idea that I would like to make a feature film. Over the last few months in my free time I’ve been slowly developing my idea and exploring what I want to make. So once this contract is up, I think I’m going to go full force into writing the treatment for it and aim to attach a producer in order to get BFI development funding to aid me to write the script. That’s pretty much the plan! Though because it’s such a big challenge (and therefore quite scary), I sometimes feel that maybe I’ll make another short instead as it’s more attainable etc and feels ‘safer’. But if I ask myself what I truly want to do in life, to make a feature film has always been one of my goals. So yeah, there’s never going to be the right or ‘perfect’ time to do it- so I should just go for it.

I would like to make another short alongside developing the feature (as I do have a lot of ideas for those too), but probably a music video, because it’s a been a while (2016) since my last one and I find it such a fun format to work in. I like the idea of creating something which is more heavy on the visuals than narrative (yes I’m aware narrative music videos do exist!), whilst working on my feature which will be narrative based.

New Animation

Keeping up with the skate theme, here's another little mixed media rotoscope piece:

These frames were initially intended for another, slightly more ambitious project. Though after printing them out, I realised they were likely too detailed for it to really work with the other project, along with too many frames (there are 27 here). I am still doing the 'other project' (sounds so ominous), but have scaled it down slightly to a more manageable 12 frame loop, something I feel will be more effective anyway.

But I only realised the above once I had printed out all the frames and realised why I was procrastinating starting it so bad. I think I just knew it might not work, plus was a little too ambitious (it's an ambitious project anyway, the amount of frames/ detail here was only adding to it). But I was loathe to have these frames go to waste, so decided to get my boxes of pens out and see what came to mind! I would have likely done a different style and probably all in computer rather than printing it, because I feel it's a bit similar to my last skate animation, but like I said, I didn't want to just throw the printed frames in the recycling without using them as it felt like such a waste of materials and time.

I do think it works nicely though and I really like the vibrancy of the whole thing, but I think now it's time to call time on that line style pattern I keep using! I feel I kind of default to it whenever I produce anything analogue like this and I think I've pretty much exhausted it for now. Time to move on and come up with something else... She says starting to panic!

See you in the next one, stay hydrated xo

Rochdale AFC Women

Let's try this again, shall we?! Sunday (10th September) was the start of the 23/24 Women's FA Cup. When looking down the fixture list for a match to attend, I look out for interesting venues as well as eye catching games, such as derby's or potential 'giant killings' etc. Nothing was really jumping out at me at first until I saw that Rochdale AFC Women were playing MSB Woolton Women at The Crown Oil Arena for this first qualifying round tie. This is the first time the Rochdale women's team were to play at the main stadium, so a trip over to the north west was in order!

511 fans were in attendance which is fantastic to see at this level of the women's game (Rochdale currently play at county level) and the atmosphere was really great. The game was fantastic with some brilliant players in both teams, though it deservedly finished 2-1 to the hosts, who will play AFC Darwen Ladies in the next round.

As usual, you check out my full match gallery on Flickr and I'll post some images down below for good measure!

Halifax FC Women

Hello September! The nights are closing in already and I am extremely excited about the next few months spent enveloped in my big coat, shivering whilst trying to hold my camera still. Please note the sarcasm in my tone. But, it looks like we're getting one last gasp of summer here in the UK, which is really adding to my rekindled passion of photographing football. Hopefully it will do enough to keep me enthused throughout the winter, too.

The recent bout of nice weather made my trip on Sunday to the Clayborn Ground (home of men's side Liversedge FC) all the more enjoyable. The match was an FA Women's National League Northern Premier Division tie between Halifax FC Women (formerly known as Brighouse Town Women) and newly promoted side Stourbridge FC Women. I knew this was going to be an exciting game and I was right! It ended up 3-3, with Halifax taking command towards the end of the second half to get their well deserved equaliser.

Here's a few shots down below and as usual, you can view the full set here.

Belper Town FC

Continuing my mission of photographing at least one football match a week, Saturday took me to the absolutely stunning Christchurch Meadow, home of Belper Town FC. They took on Dunston UTS in a seven goal thriller, resulting in a 3-4 win to the visitors. Luckily, the weather decided to play nice (despite the showery forecast), making photographing the game/ ground all the more delightful. Belper was such a friendly and welcoming club, further adding to my enjoyment of my visit. I would highly recommend popping along to Christchurch Meadow if you get the chance- you will not be disappointed!

Link to bumper set of images HERE (yes, yes I did get carried away)! And a few below as usual...

Finishing What I Started

I've had this piece lying unfinished in its embroidery hoop for almost two years now. I left it in the hoop, because I had always intended on finishing it, but then things happened and stitching took a back seat for some time. I'm about to embark on my most ambitious embroidery project to date (no spoilers- sorry, you'll have to wait and see!) and I didn't want to go into that with this half finished project still hanging over me. And probably was a bit of procrastination on my part- big projects are always scary to start!

Nevertheless, I decided to finish it, just to get it done. One thing which really stood out to me, is that the old sections of the piece are really not as a well sewn as the new sections and I feel this shows quite starkly, too. For some reason, I didn't really think that embroidery was something you could develop at- or not at least to this extent. I wrongly assumed that once you knew how to do one style of stitch, say satin stitch for example, then that's how you'd do it forever. But no! Not at all. I look at my satin stitches from then until now and the ones I do now are so much neater and look a whole lot better.

I think at the time, this pattern must have been a little too complex for my skill level back then, but didn't realise it when I was sewing. But reflecting back, it looks like I struggled on some sections- the middle section is really bad and it's the thing I most dislike about the piece. It's so asymmetrical and just messy! What I do like though is the colour palette- I chose reds/ pinks/ yellows/ purples, so it all linked together nicely and contained myself in using every colour which I like the look of! I feel this decision paid off, as I think the colours are one of the strongest things about this piece. Another thing I thoroughly dislike is the line thickness of the tentacles- I had drawn these out in pencil already when I originally traced the design two years ago. So I felt I had no choice but to sew them as per the pencil line- it was either that, or to have pencil showing on the fabric, if I had decided to sew them thinner. I thought I had chosen the lesser of two evils, but looking at the piece, I feel thinner lines might have looked better, even if you could see some pencil marks underneath.

I also decided not to use any black in this piece. I did this because I decided I wasn't going to outline it as I felt I didn't need to, but even the bits which I did outline, I used another colour. As the piece was never going to be 'perfect' anyway, I decided I'd be a bit more free with experimentation on this one. It's so easy to go with a standard black outline, as that's a fairly 'go to' colour, plus you know it just works. Even though the colour outlines don't especially give the results I wanted on this piece, I can see where they could have potential in future pieces.

Despite my qualms with this piece, I am pleased I finished it, as now I'm not constantly thinking 'oh I really must finish that moth/ butterfly I have hanging around'! Finishing it has also shown me how much my stitching has improved and developed in two years and makes me excited about what I can achieve in the future and how far I can develop my craft.

Here it is:

Women's World Cup / Sheffield FC Women

Sunday (20/8/23) not only was the historic final of the Women's World Cup, but also the beginning of the domestic season in England for the FA Women's National League and some of the regional leagues. A decision I feel was quite poor from the FA- going into the season knowing these fixtures would clash with the final, to me felt rather myopic. Alongside this, several men's fixtures were also scheduled on the same day, some even during the final. I know at least in the FAWNL, the decision to postpone or delay kick off was offered to the clubs playing on that day, but this could potentially lead to disputes between clubs, which at this point in the season could mean getting off on the wrong foot, without a ball even being kicked.

I appreciate you can't please everyone and most will have an opinion on this matter, but as soon as it was known that England were in the final, I think all matches on that day in England (be it men's or women's) should have been postponed (or one step better- not have scheduled any matches for that day before the season began, especially with how likely the Lionesses could reach the final- you know, being European champions and all that). This would be a mark of respect for the Lionesses for such a momentous achievement and to also show that the FA takes the women's game as seriously as it likes to think it does- not just another equality check box exercise.

All the above being said, it's excellent to witness the exponential growth of the women's side of the game, especially in attendances/ ticket sales and television viewing figures. Alongside participation in the sport and media coverage. In my home city of Sheffield, a big screen was erected in the centre, with food and drink stalls, making a real festival atmosphere. This is where I watched the final and it was fantastic to witness this kind of turn out for a women's football match- it actually made me quite emotional.

Of course a win would have been even better(!), but to get to a final of a world cup is no mean feat! The Lionesses did England extremely proud and they are all heroes and history makers. The squad is packed with a plethora of talented players and I can't wait to see where this team goes next. I still believe it's coming home, though we might have to wait a little longer...

Now, as stated at the top of this post the FAWNL started at the weekend, meaning the show must go on! I'm really trying to get a photo set out each week this season, so The Home of Football Stadium was my choice of destination on Sunday. Sheffield FC Women hosted Loughborough Lightening in division one North in the delayed 4pm kick off. The game ended 1-1, with Sheffield coming back into it in the second half.

I only managed a mini set of photos for this game- due to the action predominately being at the other end for the majority of the first half. You can view those here. And I'll put a few below for good measure!

35mm Photos

I finally got round to developing another camera film. I'd say there were a few decent ones in this batch, but a fair amount were ruined by a terrible lens flare- example below:

The images are also quite high contrast, so the blacks are really dark and hard to pull from in post- I think I should try and remember this when shooting, as it's not the first time this has happened using this camera. I use the built in light meter, but maybe it only goes for the brightest part of the image in the viewfinder, rather than the picture as a whole. I think for the next roll, I'll stop relying on the light meter so much and go off what I know/ my instinct. I've been messing with cameras for a good eleven or so years now, so perhaps I should have more faith in myself and my judgment. Or take the battery out as that will force me to think for myself!

Anyway, below are a few which I quite like (the first one is probably my favourite)!

Totoro Embroidery

I could not resist doing an embroidery of the cutest animation character ever IMO! I'm really pleased with how this one turned out- it might be my best yet. I think I've captured the likeness of Totoro well, despite being uncertain about it at the beginning (another note to self to have more self belief). I also like how I'm steering away from using patterns in the DMC online library and creating my own designs.

It was also my first time blending colours (or at least in a big way), which I used for the background. Again, I thought this was going to look terrible so almost gave up midway through as I didn't have the confidence that it would look any 'good'. Despite this, I forced myself to persist, because it was a technique I had been wanting to try and if I never try it, then how will I ever know if I'm able to do it?! And how will I ever progress my work? If I persist with it, then at least I can pick up what I need to improve on for next time round, rather than never try it and stagnate my progression or skill. Something I feel can (and should) be applied to all aspects of my life and work.

I think the blending looks fairly decent (more emphasis on 'fairly'), though I have found some areas where I feel it needs improving. But I do like the colourful contrast of the background to the limited palette of the foreground. I think it really makes Totoro stand out, whilst adding a little bit of 'something' so it doesn't look too plain.

I have a pretty ambitious idea for my next embroidery, so keep your eyes peeled for that one..! In the meantime, here's a few images of the design I've been writing about here: