SMALL SCALE RESEARCH TASK- ANDREA ARNOLD

For my short film brief I decided to look into he work of Andrea Arnold, a former actress and now directing her own short films and more recently, longer duration films.

Early Career and Film making

Andrea Arnold was born on 5th April 1961in Dartford, Kent under parents who were aged only 16 and 17 who separated when Andrea was still very young. As a young girl, Andrea started writing dark stories about human experience perhaps suggesting that she would become a director in the future. At 18 years of age she left her hometown Kent and moved to London which saw her acting in some television shows including 1980s children show 'No. 73' and 'The Kumars at No. 42'.

After retiring as a TV presenter she studied directing in Los Angeles and screenwriting in her hometown of Kent. Andrea's short films followed with 'Milk', 'Dog' and more notably, 'Wasp', where she won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. In reply to whether Wasp was reminiscent of her early life or is in any way biographical, Andrea replies "I grew up in a working class family, so I guess you could say I write from what I know."

Andrea's style has been to direct short films reminiscent of her early life, shooting in fairly rough areas near to her hometown of Kent. The picture below shows her on the set of 'Red Road', one of her more recent longer durated films following her successful shorter films.

Andrea Arnold has inspired me to do a short film through her display and view of modern society as well as her realistic productions that significantly capture ones attention when watching. Despite several scenes being quite disturbing and perhaps fairly odd, Andrea uses various shots and editing to emphasise verisimilitude in her productions.

I hope to capture the verisimilitude that Andrea frequently does in her own productions. Following last year's task my idea of how to produce a realistic modern day film has developed and the film I produce for this year's task will have a lot of realism of the current society.