My dad’s side of my whanau has always been creative and I have been creating with them since before I can remember. With my dad being a furniture designer and a stay at home parent I was almost always in the workshop with him or doing art in the house, and having a grandfather who made films with my dad and two aunties with the free time he had, I have always had encouragement and great creative role models. A big highlight of my childhood was putting the VHSS tape into the telly and watching the old home films. 

I am quite lucky in that I knew for certain I wanted to do something creative with my career path, but I didn’t know exactly what direction I wanted to go in. Then I took media studies in year 12, and I fell in love with making films. I had the best teacher, Mr McKinlay, who wanted us to explore making media but most of all, make what we want to make, it was one of the few subjects that felt like it wasn’t a chore, I felt excited about it. I love every step of making films and didn’t really mind what job I was doing as long as I was creating. I have always learnt from doing, and have always been more engaged when working with my hands, and that’s why I have gravitated towards art direction and prop making. With my artistic background, I know I would be valuable in an artistic role, I would love to have a part in art direction, prop making or set dressing in films.