LUCKY BREAK, directed by SP member John Addis, was nominated for the BAFTA for best short film, and selected as the overall New Shoots winning film in 2021. We caught up with John to chat about his experience of creating this award-winning film, and what he has been up to since. ‘Lucky Break’ synopsis: Uloaku works the graveyard shift at a remote service station and is bored out of her mind. Fortunately a chance encounter with a suspicious stranger will…

For our second New Shoots event of 2022 – SP’s Cath Le Couteur welcomed two incredible cinematographers, Tom Townend and Annika Summerson, for an online Q&A focusing on all things cinematography. While very different in experience, the two collectively shared some incredible insight, including how they go about their relationships with directors, the importance of storyboards, what it’s like working with actors and so much more. If you missed the Q&A or you simply want to hear all their top…

For our first NEW SHOOTS event of the year SP’s Cath Le Couteur was joined for a special online Q&A with the team behind BAFTA longlisted feature THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN- writer and director Will Sharpe, and production designer Suzie Davies. The pair shared amazing insights into the relationship between the Director and Production Designer, as well as great advice on how to develop the look of your film, visual storytelling (including the use of VFX vs in…

Earlier this year, we joined SP member, Sundance director and New Shoots alumni Eleanor Mortimer on location at Victoria Park, London, as she filmed her new documentary.   Eleanor took a break from shooting to tell us how, using Nikon’s Z 6II mirrorless camera, she created a unique study of the relationship between humans, nature and public space.  Filmmaker Eleanor Mortimer What film are you working on?  I’m making a short documentary, which at the moment is called ‘A to B’.…

Following the success of our previous New Shoots event where we covered indie horror filmmaking with breakout directors Jennifer Sheridan (Rose: A Love Story) and Prano Bailey-Bond (Censor) back in July. Our latest New Shoots went down a treat as we delved into film festival strategy with two of the industry’s best – Rich Warren (Director of Encounters Short Film Festival) and Wendy Mitchell (Film Festival Consultant and journalist). If you didn’t manage to watch the full Q+A you can…

Our NEW SHOOTS live event programme continues online and in July horror Guru’s Prano Bailey-Bond and Jen Sheridan joined us for a truly killer masterclass. Both directors are supportive members of the SP community, and both have made a screamingly bold entrance with two of the best debut indie horrors of the year. If you’ve missed it, you can catch up with the Q&A here. They shared expert advice on developing a first feature, working on a shoestring budget, capturing…

SP’s career development short film competition, New Shoots: Filmmakers, is open for submissions four times a year (January, April, July and October.) Guest judges have included the wonderful Sarah Gavron (Director: Rocks, Suffragette), Philip Ilson (Director of London Short Film Festival) and Johnnie Burn (Sound Designer: Ammonite, The Favourite, Under the Skin). The winner of each round takes home a heap of amazing prizes; including Industry Mentorship from BFI Network, Animate Projects or LONO Studio, state of the art Audio…

As this rollercoaster of a year is coming to an end we wanted to look back on some of the amazing work and shooters’ achievements that came out of 2020.

2019 has been an amazing year for the SP community. As Xmas beckons, we wanted to share some highlights, member news, cool shorts you can watch and scripts you can peruse. HIGHLIGHTS 2019 Our quarterly live event, NEW SHOOTS, is your chance to discover the best of independent British filmmakers and their films, to ask your questions directly to a variety of creative teams, and to support those filmmakers by attending their opening weekends. This year, we heard from an…

Shooting People has had a cracking first half of the year and we wanted to raise a glass to our amazing community and all their achievements.  So far this year we’ve held three sold out NEW SHOOTS events. In January we welcomed writer, director and SP member Shola Amoo to speak about his incredible career and his Sundance-premiering feature film ‘The Last Tree.’ In April, BAFTA winning director Toby Macdonald and writer Freddy Syborn revealed how they made the leap…