Graduate short film - writer & director

For California Sexy, I set out to write something deliberately camp, comic, and visually loud; drawing on influences like The Honeymoon Killers, Fosse's Sweet Charity, and sexploitation classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. As my final major production at UWE, the script became a way to bring together everything I love about filmmaking: heighteded characters, stylised dialogue, bold world-building, and even a dance number.

The concept grew from a fictional magazine name I'd used in a previous project and from a boyband of close friends I'd already established on screen. Setting the film in a tanning salon allowed me to create and contained, vibrant environment where vanity, ego, and chaos could collide. Writing within a strict 10-minute limit challenged me to keep the comedy sharp and the narrative focused without losing the exaggerated tone.

As a director, I was deeply involved at every stage of production. In pre-production, I worked closely with the producer, DOP, AD, production design, and casting; sharing visual references, mood boards, character notes, and storyboards to ensure a unified one across departments. I cast actors who could handle the theatricality of the script and invested time in rehearsals, table reads, and character work to build believeable relationships within an intentionally absurd world.

On set, I directed large ensemble scenes in practical salon locations as well as highly stylised sequences in white and black studio spaces, a boyband music video with back-up dancers, and even a room full of burlesque dancers . My focus was on performance, physicality, and tone; guiding actors towards heighted, almost cartoonish movement while maintaining emotional clarity. I worked closely with extras to create a living, comic background and maintained a collaborative, energetic atmosphere across long shoot days.

In post-production, I provided detialed notes, editing references, and sound and colour direction, working with the edit and sound teams to achieve a textured, surreal dinish that matched the film's camp, sexploitation-inspired style.

The outcome is a tightly paced, visually distinctive short that reflects a strong cohesion between writing and directing. Despite the contraints of the university runtime, the project achieved the ambitious tone I set out to create and stands as a piece I'm proud of both creatively and collaboratively.

Pissweak began as an old idea i couldn't shake. It felt unfinished, like something waiting to be revisited. What stayed with me was the image of a person slowly dissolving inso the media they consume. That became the spirit of the film.

As writer, I shaped the story into a tight three-minute chamber piece set inside a white box: a self-made prison where Trudy Bunch unravels over the imagined heartbreak of a boyband breakup. I was interested in obsession, parasocial relationships, and how celebrity culture can quietly shape someone's emotional world. The tone leans into camp and grotesque exaggeration, but the feeling underneath was sincere.

Writing and production design were inseparable on this project. As production designer, I built the physical world directly from the scrip: the cube room, the handmade props, the magazine covers, the HEAVEN and HELL signage, and Trudy's distressed costume. Everything in the space reflects her internal state. I experimented with ageing fabrics, constructed papier-mache objects, and treating the room itself like a living magazine spread; loud, cluttered, and suffocating.

Alongside my own film, I also contributed as production designer on two other projects in the module, often stepping in to problem solve when resources or preparation were lacking. This strengthened my ability to improvise visually, manage time under pressure, and maintain a clear aesthetic across different teams.

The outcome is a cohensive short where script, set, and performance feel part of the same world. Pissweak reflects my instinct to build environments that carry narrative weight and my interest in characters who are both grotesque and strangely human.

Whore From Polaris was an early project where I began understanding how closely writing and visual design work together. I wrote the script around Brandy, a worn-out street sex worker who forms an unlikely bond with Stella, an alien sex worker, and the two decide to escape their situation together. The tone sat somewhere between dreamlike sci-fi, dark comedy, and female road movie.

My influences at the time were films like Sweet Charity, Thelma & Louise, and Under the Skin. I was drawn to the idea of women trying to break free from sleazy environments, mixing that with a 60s space-age aesthetic and a slightly theatrical, heightened performance style. I wanted the world to feel dreamy, strange, and amplified rather than realistic.

Alongside writing, I took on the role of production designer. This was my first time working so practically with set building and materials, and it taught me a lot about how to translate ideas from the pafe into something physical with almost no budget/ I designed Brandy's cluttered, floral, "old lady" bedroom space and built Stella's space chamber from cardboard, foil, wire, and found electronic, turning it into a comedic, lo-fi sci-fi prop that became a key visual in the film.

The project pushed me to think out how costume, set, colour, and sound all contribute to storytelling. Even with limited resources, I worked to make sure the environment reflected the tone of the script: 60s space references, bold colours, soft pink lighting, and exaggerated textures that supported the surreal tone of the stoy. Looking back, Whore From Polaris was a turning point. It was where I first started developing my interest in stylised worlds, exaggerated characters, and hands-on production design, learning how to problem-solve visually and how much the physical space of a film can shape the narrative.