Face to Face with... Fern Berresford

Young director Fern Berresford is no stranger to shooting a thought-provoking emotional film. Her short, Man Made, for Christian Aid has received wide acclaim and this week saw the release of her latest promo for Little Comets, which deals with the effects of domestic violence.

Having already achieved success in competitions including the European Branded Shorts category of the CFP-E/shots Young Director’s Award in 2010, the young aspiring talent from Coy! Communications was signed as part of a collective and is now developing her solo portfolio at the company under the guidance of creative pioneer Mark Denton. Below she talks about her path into directing, her latest film work – which saw her playing with paint as a Homebase regular – and snapping up acting talent such as This is England’s Rosamund Hanson.

How did you get into directing and was it always on the cards?

I knew I wanted to be a director from the age of about 10, I started directing school plays and dance shows and making stop frame animations with my stills camera. I think my granddad must have been my earliest influence. He was a big cinephile, he had loads of projectors and reels of films and taught me how to thread a projector, telling me stories about the Lumière Brothers and from that point on I was hooked.  I studied film at art college and got my hands on as much kit as possible, I wanted to try and understand everything inside out. I headed to London and soon found that my ability to make a good cuppa was initially going to get me a lot further than my first class degree. I finally got my first real break by winning a young director's competition, which gave me the opportunity to write and direct my first short film, Man Made, for client Christian Aid.

The film’s been quite successful; tell us a bit more about how it came about...

It was a mixture of tenacity and luck. I was constantly on the lookout for funding opportunities and while on a run I spotted an ad for a young director's competition. Christian Aid was creating a youth brand called Ctrl.Alt.Shift. The brief was to write a short film idea for one of three issues; War + Peace, Gender + Power or HIV + Stigma. I chose Gender + Power and came up with a simple visual metaphor that I thought would be impactful. I used strong sound design and a pacey edit to build up tension and make the audience feel tangibly anxious. I wanted the audience to feel uncomfortable because it's an uncomfortable issue that needs confronting. For me, directing is about getting an emotional response from my audience, if they feel something for the characters or the situation you have created, it's a success.

What's the story behind your new promo, Violence Out Tonight (see below), for Little Comets?

The song is dark and brooding and the lyrics are so poetic, I was instantly gripped by the track.  It was a low budget project so the challenge was to come up with something that was visually as powerful and emotive as the song. The track had a real sense of darkness; set at night with street lights and things that can happen in the shadows of life.

I pictured the women in a dark landscape, telling their stories as if in private, their performances getting more confrontational as the track develops all intercut with moments of shocking violence.

But I didn't want to represent these women as sad victims. I wanted to convey the anger, frustration and injustice of the situation. As the actresses performed I got them to look directly into the lens, confronting the audience and hopefully getting the viewer to engage with the issue and the track.

Where did you find the female actors?

As it's such an important issue I was keen to get a known actress on board. I called Rosamund Hanson's (Smell from This is England) agent and asked whether she'd be interested in taking part in the project and to my delight she called back saying she loved the track and treatment and offered her time up for free!

Then I did a casting call on Spotlight and got a huge response. Being a low budget project I was amazed by the talent that turned out over the two-day casting period. I chose the most interesting and diverse faces and actresses that I thought could really pull of the nuances and emotions that are conveyed in the track.

And did the band have much say in the direction?

The band wanted a “dark, female, take on domestic violence”. I wrote a very detailed treatment so they’d know exactly what they were getting. They'd seen Man Made and wanted something that had the same sense of tension and dramatic build up. Once they'd awarded me the promo they let me run with it.

Have you done any commercials and would you like to?

Coy! has been extremely supportive. After the success of Man Made they signed me up as a Superwinner (part of a directing collective at Coy!). I was mentored by Mark Denton and got the opportunity to direct commercials for T-Mobile and Curry's. I also shoot a lot of advertising photography. It's great to be able to deliver a whole caign; the stills and moving image as one coherent project. Although I still work as part of the collective, I'm also honing my own personal style and doing more work as a solo director. I'm constantly pitching and looking forward to doing more commercials.

I'm also shooting a lot of fashion photography at the moment and that's definitely something I'd like to explore more of on film. It's a great area for experimentation. Ideally I'd love to be working on fashion films that are visually stunning but have strong ideas, too.

And you had some fun with the paint in your previous promo, Unfucked (see below). What was that all about?

Warner Brothers was doing an online release of Diane Birch's track Unfucked; the risqué title and chorus meant it was a no go for TV and radio. They had a tiny budget but wanted something that was creative, original and conveyed the epic emotion of the track. The concept I came up with was based on a heart art installation that comes to life and bleeds paint before melting away to reveal a beating heart underneath.

I had a lot of fun on that project. I spent weeks experimenting with paint textures and colours. I was a regular at my local Homebase by the end. I built mini table top sets to film macro-textures. I felt a bit like a mad scientist melting and burning things for a week to see what created the most interesting visuals.

Everything other than the animated beating heart was done in-camera, so we got through a lot of paint and model hearts. Let's just say it was a messy shoot!

And have you got any more shoots lined up that you can mention?

We've got some exciting projects coming up over the next few weeks; I'm currently prepping a stills shoot inspired by 1950's nudie mags. We've found some fab models and I'm looking forward to creating something high-end, sexy and glam for this shoot. Coy! is also putting together a photography exhibition at JWT and I've got a couple of exciting fashion shoots lined up, too.