Barbon Hill Climb – Influxposure

Culture

The winning student film from #Influxposure 2019 was this from Ruth Postlethwaite

2019’s Influxposure competition was open to students in the UK, with a chance to not only scoop a £2000 prize but also get the winning video shown to hundreds of thousands of viewers in the UK.

After the final three films were selected from the vast number of pitches we received, the three finalists set about making their films. An incredibly close result revealed the winner to be Ruth Postlethwaite and her team’s film – Barbon Hillclimb.

We spoke to Ruth after revealing that she had won the top prize.

Influxposure

How did you hear about the competition?

I heard about the ‘INFLUXPOSURE’ competition through my University course Facebook page ‘PULSS’ (Production Unit Liverpool Screen School) where opportunities, such as this competition, are posted for screen school students at John Moores to get involved with. The opportunities posted allow students to create a wide array of media content alongside their course curriculum.

Why did you take part?

I decided to take part in the competition because I’ve always had an interest in filming anything vehicle based, whether that be motorbikes, cars, or anything in-between, having been surrounded by trials bikes in my family from a young age. I wanted to push myself as a student filmmaker by taking on a project that from start to finish was completely up to me in what I created- which was made easier by the very open brief that INFLUX issued for the competition. The cash prize was also a pretty good incentive too!

Did you enjoy the process?

I really enjoyed the pre-production planning process of making the film, having to come up with a concept and write an industry standard treatment, including a time-line for production. We found the filming process challenging with the amount of rain the Lakes weather threw at us, especially as we were using expensive equipment loaned from the University. We had large umbrellas over our heads, and more importantly over the cameras, and so logistically we had to be mindful about filming in those weather conditions which was fun! I think Laura and Alex, who helped me, really enjoyed being in the motorsport environment, having never been to an event like that before, as well as chatting to competitors and hearing each of their stories about their cars and their involvement to the sport.

What do you think about your film?

As a team I think we are really proud of the standard of film we managed to produce with little experience of filming on location for a project not supervised by tutors. Personally, I’m pleased with the editing of the piece, as we accumulated a large amount of content and footage throughout the filming day, which all needed to be sorted through. Editing decisions also had to be made on what we would include in the piece, and to then have the final piece judged and praised by industry-standard professionals is something I think we’re all really proud of.

How many people were involved in producing the film?

The main people involved in the filming were myself, and fellow Media Production students Alex Brabbing and Laura Taylor. On the day, my dad (David), and my cousin (Max) came along to help hold the umbrellas for us, which were life-saving!

Which university do you study at?

We are all in our third year of Media Production at Liverpool John Moores University.

Where there any particular stand out stories from the filming process you’d like to mention?

One of the highlights of our day filming was that, after a long day in the rain, we had to take the equipment back to Liverpool from the Lakes on the train. We had all this wet equipment, soaked to our skin, running down the platform to our train- which we only made at the last second, as the conductor held the door for us! Once we were on the train, we were collecting each card from the cameras, getting all the paperwork we had out during the day from our drenched backpacks and putting them back into a dry wallet, all whilst we were trying to dry the kit with a small packet of tissues!

We were exhausted and wet, but we enjoyed every minute of it!

Congratulations Ruth, we are incredibly impressed with the film and hope to see more from you and your team in the future.

 

 

 

 

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