RENOWNED FILM director and creator of ‘Confetti’ Debbie Isitt spoke about the imminent release of her latest project and her own ‘Improv’ style of story telling at Coventry Conversations.
Born in Coventry and currently residing in the city Debbie sets her new film in two local primary schools. After playing a short trailer she spoke about the production of the film and stressful style of heavy editing that was taken to produce a 90-minute feature from 120 hours worth of material.
Debbie talked about how her style of improvised filmmaking was adopted because of the restrictions and boredom of a script but she also spoke about the pressure put on her as a director and drastically different influence her directing style has on the set:
“I’m the director and I’m meant to be in charge of everything and of course because no one knows what the hells going on in my films I’m the only one that does know what’s going on”
She added: “If things start to look good and something interesting comes up I’ll stop it and I’ll say I’ve just had this idea it might really work if this happens or this happens and push it on and then stand back again so I intervene when things get hot or I shout when things get boring”
She lives and works in Coventry from her own editing suite situated in a state of the art spare bedroom, she referred to her own film making style as very much a “cottage” production that helps her make “real” films and avoid the glitzy studios and frappachino world of movies.
The main body of the talk discussed the promise and pitfalls of film making when you have no idea of what’s going on: “It’s a big grind but yeah somewhere inside you your saying this is fun”
Isitt started out touring with a theatre group after graduating before moving onto film making, for theatre students and aspiring directors she spoke about how to get noticed in the Industry and uttered that quintessential piece of advice: “It’s not what you know it’s who you know” she added: “If your good and your dedicated and committed you should do well”
CU Today - Coventry University 
Who wrote this article please? I’d like to quote it in my essay!
I would imagine John Mair did, but this was years before my time.
– Editor.