A little about dear old me.

Hello, universe. My name’s Lizzie Shorter, and I’m a TV Production student at Southampton Solent University. This blog, here… I like to think of it as an online portfolio. A collection of my greatest visual works so far. It’ll be periodically updated as work comes (which, hopefully, means it’ll be updated regularly!) and, well… I can’t promise some of the older, lower quality work won’t get deleted as time progresses. So, if you’d like to keep some blackmail material, save it quickly.

When I tell people I’m studying TV Production, they always seem very impressed. Which, to be honest, I can understand. I was in disbelief when I found out that this was a real course with real education and actually could be a real career path for me. It just wasn’t really something I’d considered before. I suppose it was the glory of show business that first got me into thinking that this would be fun. But, in reality, what kept me striving towards the goal when all of my friends wanted to study dentistry, and marine biology, and pharmaceuticals, was that, well… It did sound fun. I like to think of myself as a reasonably bright individual, but I’m not a huge fan of the academics. Doing something that was hands-on, creative, and unique has always been my expectation, even before I realised it. I didn’t want to be stuck in an office all day, or organising papers, or, God forbid, doing mathematics. I wanted to be doing something.

Once I’d finally made it to university, I started realising that, much to my dismay, wanting to have a bit of fun didn’t pave the way to a successful career – especially not in such a competitive industry as television. Wanting to mess around with some cameras and write stories wouldn’t be enough to get me through this course. And so we delve into the world of: who’s going to be my inspiration?

In all honesty, I struggle with the answer to this question. Though I value my friends and the team I work on, I can be a very independent person and, quite often, I walk my own paths. If they happen to be the same steps as someone else’s, that’s good news. It means I know the outcome, or can avoid it, if necessary. If not… Well, then, let the world have at my new and fantastic ideas. It’s for this reason that I often find it difficult to name those who have influenced me, but after a bit of time and careful research, I think I have found the man that I am ready to be the incarnate of, if the world is willing.

Orson Welles: there, I said it. Not only did the man have one hell of a beautiful beard, but he once ate 18 hot dogs in one sitting. He was a magician, he inspired an episode of Pinky and the Brain (1995) with his foul language, he was once accused of the famous murder and mutilation of Elizabeth Short (not me), he loved steak, he was very nearly Darth Vader, and he was “not very fond of movies.” What more could one ask of an inspirational film director?

Every time I read up on Orson Welles, I have to be prepared to spend at least an hour finding one single fact. I get sunk in so deep when I research him, and buried among amazing trivia about his wonderful life. Wonderful, that is, in my opinion. But, come on. He was a magician.

What most inspires me about Welles, I think, is that he directed his first and most famous film, Citizen Kane (1941) with next to no knowledge of film or television. Hollywood kept upping their numbers, bribing him with money, until he agreed to do a film for them. I can’t think of much I wouldn’t give to be so desired in the industry. But it’s not just what he achieved (sleight of hand included) that really makes me hope I can at least drag myself partially in the vague direction of his footprints, it’s the fact that he didn’t know a single thing. Orson Welles and his ignorance of camera angles, and 180 degree rules, and lack of respect for the word ‘no’ truly does give me hope that perhaps, as a being who knows what a long shot is, and how to follow the 180 degree rule, and has (somewhat of a) balance between knowing when to acknowledge boundaries and when to cross them anyway, I might truly be able to make it in this industry.

Though I do certainly find it easy to stuff the rules, I also have come to accept that perhaps they’re put into place for a reason. My study of photography towards the end of 2014 didn’t only teach me how to work a camera and take a picture, but how to frame and compose a good shot. This is mostly inclusive of the simple things, such as the rule of thirds, which helps to proportion and space the objects in a shot by dividing the image into three. These skills are transferrable between all cameras, both still and video. Drawing attention through focus and composition isn’t just important to attract eyes to the appropriate subject in a photograph, but also to bring audience attention around the screen. That’s one of my favourite tricks: making viewers look in the wrong place at the wrong time in order to sneak something into the background. I suppose that’s part of the reason I love the crime genre. Such sneakiness.

Examples of some of my photography can be seen in the ‘Photography’ tab on this website. My collection remains unimpressive thus far, but I’ll be working on it in the months and years to come. I think my next photography project will be working on some quality images for this website. When I designed it, I originally had in mind a plain, perhaps photographic background. I wanted text to be black on white (or as close to that as possible) for the sake of easy reading, and I wanted to have clear tabs and pages for ease of navigation and organisation of my projects.

I think, perhaps, I achieved half of those things.

I didn’t quite manage to find a suitable background image for the template theme of my blog, and so I decided to substitute my idea for a pattern. Switching the colour scheme up a little was easy – I like to think of green as a bit of a signature colour of mine. Blogger has been good to me in years past, with its simplistic design editing, so I picked the template that would provide me with the simplest options for having the pages and menus and shapes that I wanted, and then let loose with the green. As the years go on and my portfolio grows, I’ll be striving to adapt my website accordingly with more visual elements appropriate to the topic.

For now, though, it’s time to get working. Let’s go!