Charlotte Evans: Life’s Too Short to Do Something You Hate, So You Might as Well Give It Your All

Charlotte> Randomly I studied science and marketing at university and had never even considered the film industry as an option (even though looking back I always had a camera in hand documenting my childhood and school life). Having played instruments and studied music composition at school, my dream had always been to become a composer for movies. Arriving in London at the end of 2006 I met renowned film editor - Rick Waller - who was looking to train someone up as his assistant at his studio in Camden. He described his love of music and how he felt like editing was similar to composition so I thought hey, let’s give it a go. Back then, everything was still being shot on film, Rick was editing multi-million dollar fashion commercials for Dolce Gabbana, Kate Moss etc with some of the world's top directors/DOP’s. 

For my first 6 months, I wasn’t allowed to touch the keyboard and just watched him make selects and edit. This may sound weird but it’s what gave me a solid base in understanding the decisions behind what makes a shot ‘great’ and also how to craft an edit. After the first 6 months I was given the footage to make my own selects, then I would watch Rick make his selects and we would line mine up on the timeline to see if I had selected anything he had. In those early days most often I didn’t. I was shit.

Then I would have an attempt at an edit followed by watching him edit the final commercial/short film. I learnt so much in thosetwo years that it’s sad that these opportunities don’t really happen anymore. Then the GFC hit and all our work dried up so I moved back to NZ end of 2009 to pursue editing there. In 2016, pregnant with twin girls, I was asked to direct 3 back to back music videos for Aldous Harding. 

Thus began my love of directing and I haven’t been able to shake the bug since. I don’t think there is anything I would get as much satisfaction in life from than filmmaking/storytelling, whether it's editing, directing, writing, or development. I will never quit tirelessly trying to create. 

Charlotte> Where do I start? It feels like you are constantly battling challenges in this industry, but if you don’t have tough skin, take rejection well and refuse to give up, then you won’t make it.

One of my biggest challenges in my career is making a long-form observational documentary about a sitting politician with zero income over 5 years. I ended up having to direct, shoot and now edit the film to get it done but now that I am at the end of the process I’m so glad that I stuck to it and believe it to be a very special film. I don’t think I would ever do a long-form observational doco again especially without proper funding as the sacrifices you give up over that time are immense and it impacts on your relationships and your family as well as your own time. Ironically the main theme of the film is about sacrifice!

I think being a female director also holds its own challenges in that we are still battling equality issues.

Charlotte> Where possible, I try and incorporate doing nothing into my routine. I meditate each evening which I think has helped my brain learn to unwind and be more present which I think helps when you’re trying to foster creativity. Often when you are given a commercial brief, you have a 1 week or sometimes just a weekend to come up with your vision for the project and implement that into a treatment. It takes a while to figure out what works for you in your creative process but what has helped me in the past is creating a Spotify playlist of music that sets the tone for the campaign (I always seem to find inspiration through music), trawling through imagery and visuals until something clicks in my head, watching award-winning ads/ films and trusting my instinct when I’m particularly drawn to something, also making mood reels with music also helps me as being an editor at heart this is a big part of my process. Having long showers seems to be where I get most of my ideas, weirdly! If I am stuck on an idea or feeling like I'm drawing a blank, I just have a shower and somehow an idea always springs to mind.

Charlotte> Editing! I can’t wait for the day when AI speeds up the editing process. So often you have to trawl through days and days of footage trying to find what you’re looking for, but if there was image recognition inbuilt into editing software like they have with iPhones and you could search for a specific thing, that would be amazing (this may already exist and I may be totally behind the ball). Already the incorporation of transcription in Premiere is making my editing process much faster.

Charlotte> Oh thank you, I was so lucky to have an incredible team who were equally passionate about this campaign and went above and beyond to pull it off. 

With all my projects I always dig deep into what the story actually is we are telling and how the characters are impacted/move in their world. Being able to attend casting and wardrobe fittings when there is no budget for rehearsals means it gives me more time with the actors to build rapport but also discuss their characters in more depth. I like to dig into what the character would be feeling at that moment, what has led them to this point, and talk through how this would make the actor feel and respond in this instance. We were lucky to have a wonderful intimacy coordinator on this shoot, which was invaluable as it added further wrap-around support on what were 2 big shoot days.

Charlotte> Absolutely, the way I approach each project begins in a similar manner which is always finding music that resonates with me and the project, looking through imagery to help establish a tone or give me ideas. My music videos tend to embrace surrealism more, I like to make people feel slightly uncomfortable in my music videos. Whereas in a commercial or a feature I find I am drawn to telling authentic stories that are more natural in tone.

As I work across music videos, commercials, long-form scripted TV/features, Documentaries short and long and I also edit, I have learnt over the years to follow my intuition and my gut and embrace those moments of inspiration and ideas. Never doubting that the idea is shit and not worth sharing and putting it out there to test it and see people's responses is part of my process. Whilst some ideas aren’t great you’ve got to learn to trust your gut and follow what interests you as ultimately, this is your director's voice.

Charlotte> Coming from a music and editing background, one of the easiest and most helpful parts of my process is actually cutting mood reels to music. I find these always seem to spark inspiration and really help set the tone for whatever it is that I’m working on. I also find it helpful to convey to others what tone I am after.

I think my directorial style is more performance-based, ultimately everything I do needs to have a reason and a story behind it otherwise, it’s just some flashy cinematography set to music. 

Charlotte> Growing up, my grandmother would put notes in my lunchbox that always said things like “Never give up” or “There's no such thing as CAN’T”. So I think, ultimately I have been ingrained with this belief that you should never give up, and that has probably helped fuel my passion for storytelling and filmmaking. The way I like to nurture this passion though is to ensure that I always have lots of different projects in various states of ideation, development, production, and post-production across different genres so that the creativity is constantly feeding itself. Development and post-production are two of my most enjoyable parts of the whole process, and I can get lost in an edit and realise a whole day has passed likewise days can fly by developing characters and their worlds, so I think it all feeds into each other. 

Life is too short to do something you hate, so you may as well give it your all and enjoy the journey along the way!