WHERE IT STARTED

Five tins of sweetcorn. One Panasonic camcorder.

At around fifteen, I decided I wanted a Panasonic camcorder. I didn’t have the money, but I did have £10 a week for school lunches, and a petrol station near my school that sold multipacks of tinned sweatcorn.

So, for the best part of a year, I ate sweetcorn for lunch and saved everything that was left. Five tins got me through five school days; every remaining pound went into the camera fund. Eventually, I had enough to buy it.

In hindsight, it was probably my first production budget: limited resources, a clear goal and a slightly ridiculous plan for making it happen.

Since then, the cameras, teams and projects have become more ambitious, and thankfully, so have my lunches, but the instinct remains the same. I love finding the human story, working out what it needs and bringing together the people and practical details that make it real.