Refuge CHarity

Refuge Charity Lockdown Short Film.

I’ve filmed a couple of adverts and a short film for the charity Refuge. They do important work helping the victims of domestic abuse.

Above is a short film written by the brilliant Jon Elsom that I directed on Zoom during lockdown. The process was much more complicated than I initially thought, as the quality of Zoom recordings wasn’t good enough to use. We ended up getting the actors to attach their mobile phones to their computer screens to get the footage. (Film crew were not allowed into their homes during this stage of the Lockdown). Transferring the data between the actors and myself was laborious - especially for the actors.

The actors filmed themselves in their own homes. Luckily Maxine’s partner is a top set designer, and he kindly added a few props to the room to make it look more like a shelter for women. The budget was zero but it was a really interesting job to work on. Both Maxine and Lex Shrapnel were brilliant and incredibly patient throughout the fiddly process of recording the footage.

I hand drew the title sequence myself which is something that I’d never done before. I know it’s only a small thing, but I love trying new things and it was fun creating a small bit of animation.

The film has been nominated in several short film festivals including Cannes Shorts. More importantly, it has helped to raise awareness for this vital charity.

Below are a two commercials that focus on the rise in domestic violence that takes place over Xmas and New Year. The scripts were clever as they took a narrative describing a happy event over the holiday period, and then, by reversing the words, the narrative takes a far more sinister nature.

I wanted to shoot these films in just one shot. To achieve this we needed actors that could convey all the emotion in the script within the fixed timeframe of 60 seconds. I was lucky that both of the women that we cast, were absolutely brilliant.

Refuge ‘Mistletoe’

Refuge ‘New Year’