Jill Robertson

I grew up just North of Watford and come from a very ordinary background. My relatives are mostly teachers. We were a second family for my father, coming pretty late in his life. I spent a lot of my childhood watching films with him and was fascinated by his description of first seeing a Charlie Chaplin film and the magical escapism of visits to the cinema from his poverty stricken childhood. I realise now his life spanned much of the history of film and was marked by his favourite films throughout the decades. He passed on to me his love of musicals, Westerns and sci-fi ‐ in fact any genre with a good story and great characters. He also had an 8mm camera with which he documented our holidays and family visits, rarely appearing himself, and I remember always being massively excited when the films arrived back from the Kodak lab and the projector came out of the loft.

One of my most exciting Christmas presents was a miniature projector (basically a glorified torch) through which I could project slides of cartoons onto my bedroom door and charge my sisters entrance to watch them, issuing home-made tickets. It was a long time till I had any idea of what a director was but I was always excited by the fictional worlds into which I could escape when I was watching films and hours of TV.

I started my career as a dancer, in fact a showgirl in a Moulin Rouge-esque spectacular in Madrid. It was the one of the most extraordinary years of my life. However, I knew dancing was a short-lived career and was still thinking about movies, TV and finding a way to tell stories. Inching closer, I then qualified as a drama teacher, encouraged by my parents to get a ‘proper job with a good pension’. Whilst teaching I had the opportunity to help a friend’s brother with the night shoots for a short film he was making. I taught drama during the day and then worked on the film all night, snatching a couple of hours sleep on the staffroom sofa before the school day began. I was pretty unhappy teaching, it just wasn’t for me. I could relate to the kids and loved our drama sessions but I didn’t quite fit in overall. Ten minutes after I walked onto set of the short film, I experienced the most powerful feeling of familiarity with the crew and actors. I knew I had found my tribe.

I was always driven by a desire to tell stories to an audience. To move, thrill and entertain them. To give the audience an opportunity to escape into another world just as I did. It was a very instinctive feeling. I had no idea how it worked or how I was going to do it, just that it was something I increasingly felt I had to find a way to do.