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Movies & Series

Teenage brother & sister making movies!

If I were to design the perfect day, it would include a movie. It could be a sleepy-still-waking-up morning movie, a rainy-day-snuggly mid-afternoon movie, or a main-event evening movie. A movie or a binge-watching series, I should say, since a series can be just like an extended movie… with breaks!

Movies and series are a part of my heritage. As a tween, a weekend treat was always hiring a movie to watch at home. As a teenager, I would host movie parties for my friends (oh, how they loved horror!). My brother grew up to become a film producer and I studied movies as part of my Media & Cultural Studies minor, while majoring in English Literature at The University of Birmingham. Going to the cinema to watch a movie is still a thrill I treasure – so much it was the first thing I did when coming out of each coronavirus lockdown.

My love of visual storytelling started of course with children’s TV – coming home after school to watch cartoons and television puppetry such as The Mysterious Cities of Gold, He-Man, ThunderCats, DangerMouse, Inspector Gadget, Bagpuss, Thunderbirds, Fraggle Rock, Scooby-Doo, Pingu, the Moomins, The Smurfs, and Popeye. While my parents both worked long hours past midnight, my brother and I would bond over the safety we’d find in our early-afternoon television routines and, after bedtime, while I’d then read by torchlight, I swear I’d hear him sneak the TV back on.

Later, we turned to family shows with over-arcing storylines like Doctor Who, Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century, Knight Rider, Robin of Sherwood, The A-Team, Dukes of Hazzard, Monkey Magic, Cheers, Dallas, Dynasty, Moonlighting, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, ‘V’ and Star Trek. Each episode offered escape and adventure, thrills and familiarity. It was the perfect wind-down at the end of the day and, without my knowing, all the intricate narratives, detailed worldbuilding, and subtly of visual nuances seeped deep into my subconscious where, years later, they would of course influence my writing.

When it comes to my favourite movies or series of all time, top of my list would be anything science fiction, fantasy, adventure, action, war, western, or global disaster! My husband prefers rom-coms and I’ve come to appreciate them too over the years (his favourite is The Proposal (Fletcher, 2009)), I do like how they can make me both laugh and cry! I also love documentaries, docudramas, crime, martial arts, dark comedy, superhero, spy movies, foreign and experimental film. Some titles I could watch again and again include:

How many of these do you like yourself? Count them up and let me know!

Perhaps when you’re reading my stories, you might notice some of these early influences in my work.

Of course my work has also been highly influenced by a lifetime of reading. Want to know which titles in particular? There’s a list and more about my love of reading over here.

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