Beki Kirkham Beki Kirkham

The First Footstep

It all begins with an idea. Mine was that I wanted to keep creating.

It was 2018, I had just started videography with my Media Studies course and greatly enjoyed it. Coming up with an idea, innovating, grabbing a camera and going out to shoot. As you can imagine, it was intense, a thrill, and something I knew I wanted to continue, so when the opportunity to work with the BFI came up I had to take it.

The students I worked with had to come up with a concept, pitch it, and two ideas got chosen then the rest of the roles were picked by the filmmakers instructing us. I wanted to direct, and ended up being given a project about domestic violence and how it can cycle through generations. How your sweet boy, who has only ever been lovely, can continue something cruel when it is is daily norm.

Footsteps was a great learning experience as I worked closely with the scriptwriter to advance the concept, tried to find the right actors, realised the limitations that budget and time can constrict you with and how to work past and through them. And it certainly made me want to keep advancing.

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