So, it’s all coming to an end: first year. It’s been a real tough journey sometimes, but I’m glad I’ve done it. Thing is, I’m on this journey every single day, whether I’m at uni or not and I’m learning all the time. I ended today in an unusual way – on a swing. Yesterday I opened an email from David:

‘Hey, i'll be performing in kelvingrove park in a tree near the fountain tomorrow. From 5am untill midnight.

Come find me.

David. X’

I went along at about half past 10 in the evening and it was raining. It was strange because there was hardly anyone else in the park and the person I was with, Ronan, was in a Paul Smith suit with a massive red umbrella and I couldn’t find David to start with. I felt a bit like a twat but then I suddenly saw him, a dark wet smudge on a swing, talking to another guy. I have been to this place in the park a few times before, with the same guy I was with tonight actually, and I’ve grown to be really quite fond of the place. I thought of that later and I was thinking how interesting it is, how we can attach feelings to a place or a song very quickly and strongly.

Anyway, when David invited us over to sit with him, he told us that he had been there from 5am and would be there until midnight, 19 hours, each hour signifying each year of his life. He had started conversations up with random people and people he knows, like me, alike by discussing their views on how our relationships are formed, and how we are shaped – is it by the conversations and interactions we have with other people, our families and our friends and just other people?

I liked this idea. It appeals to me because I have happened to meet lots and lots and lots of different people and some have been a lot more interesting than others, to me anyway, but they’ve all given me something, somehow. Point is, I’d like my characters to have this. By ‘this’ I mean meaningful, honest (in the way they happen, I don’t mean for all my characters to never lie!) and realistic conversations, emotions and scenarios. People really do sit on swings and talk to each other when they’re 19 and 24 years old. People really do stand in the rain, even when they have a big ass umbrella with them and fall out, only to explain why a minute later and then walk on, okay again. People really do things that they mean, and things that they don’t mean. People really do remember things from when they’re two, three years old and some remember things that can’t be true…I want all my films, shows and projects to remember this and to treat people like people.

After a long conversation we’re asked to write what we are feeling at that moment in the book he has brought along and David takes a picture of us both. The bells toll and before we leave David tells us that he’s glad to have spent 34 minutes of these 19 hours with us and we walked home..

Films, for me, are a way and a place to share my memories, my points of view, my beliefs, my stories, my preconceptions, my daydreams, my journey, my life. I am using them to communicate, just like David is using his performances to communicate and interact and learn and share his emotions, knowledge, beliefs and ideas with others. I want my films to leave people sitting in their seats that little bit longer as the credits roll up, because it made them feel something unexpected, or it’s making them think. Not neccsarily agreeing with what I have chosen to say or show, I don’t mind if they disagree, because each and every opinion is different but as long as they feel something strongly, and perhaps want to act on it, or it helps them in a way. I want my films to be lovely, exciting, beautiful, scary, funny, long, short, truthful, unusual, confusing and smart at the same time, appropriate but not shying away from things that need and must be said – because all those things are what life’s moments are made up of, isn’t it?

**

I am standing under a big tree and the café is behind me, where my mother is. The boys are up in the tree and we’re playing a game. You have to get these blue square bits of clay, as many as you can and the one with the most wins, but I can’t get them because I’m too small to get up the tree. I am jealous but happy at the same time because the boys are smiling at me and it is hot. Then one of the boys, I think it is Robbie, takes my hand and gives me five small blue square bits of clay. I smile.