Filmmaker and activist offers free filmmaking for people to voice their opinions
Stephen Spender, ideaXme arts ambassador interviews factual filmmaker Charlotte Knowles.
Charlotte Knowles is in love with film. She is a film collaboration advocate. She is an activist. Her objective, to help minority groups to “be heard”. How does she do this? Free filmmaking skills are offered through her initiative Film School In A Box for people to make a film to “be heard.”
Factual filmmaker
Charlotte Knowles is a factual filmmaker. For the past 12 years she has worked in film and television across the world. She has produced documentary work for the BBC, ITN and Arte. Her video, film and photography has been featured by national press, broadcasting companies and in international film festivals.
Shoots & Leaves Films
In 2012, she founded Shoots & Leaves Films, a narrative-focused film production company in Brixton dedicated to producing and financing independent film and photography projects.
Stephen Spender, ideaXme arts ambassador interviews Charlotte Knowles
Stephen Spender: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Stephen Spender with ideaXme. Today we are talking to filmmaker Charlotte Knowles. Hey Charlotte!
Charlotte Knowles: [00:00:08] Hi, how are you?
Stephen Spender: [00:00:09] Good. You’re a filmmaker. Is that an accurate description of who you are?
Filmmaker and mentor
Charlotte Knowles: [00:00:15] Yeah, I would say that is an accurate description of who I am. I think it’s an accurate description of part of what I do I guess. So, my background is in documentary filmmaking, and I’ve been working with journalists and film producers for a number of years on a wide variety of film projects for TV, cinema and online platforms. Now I also do a lot of other work in addition to that.
The Independent Film Trust
[00:00:40] I work with The Independent Film Trust. We do a lot of work around advocating for independent film production in the UK, supporting other independent film producers in this country. I’m also helping to take filmmaking into places where people maybe have something really interesting and important to say but are marginalized.Be heard, express yourself, make a film
Charlotte Knowles: [00:01:15] We feel that filmmaking is a great way in which people can express themselves. So, we take really basic filmmaking into places to enable people to tell their own stories. So, I guess what I do is broad. But that’s probably the best way of packaging it.
Stephen Spender: [00:01:33] How did you how get into film and documentary filmmaking?
Starting our as an actress
Charlotte Knowles: [00:01:42] Good question! Well, I actually started out as an actress. I was in kids tv shows for some years. Then I moved to France to be in play. I was then in a film. Eventually, I became a little bit frustrated and wanted to work behind the scenes. By that point, I really built up a love of documentary, factual filmmaking and journalism and decided what I really wanted to do was be able to work all over the world. I felt that a more effective way of doing that would be to learn languages to be able to work in places and communicate with people in their mother tongue as best I could.
Studying languages
[00:02:31] So, I studied languages but all throughout my studies I worked. I had built up a number of contacts by that point having worked in television for six years prior to going to university. I worked in China for a bit, worked in Italy for a while. Then came back to the UK. [00:02:54] And that’s when I started working in documentary and for different feeder companies making films for BBC 4.The decision to leave acting
Stephen Spender: [00:03:00] How did you decide to leave acting? Did you decide, “Ok, I have finished that. Now, I’m going to go and be behind the camera”? Or, did it evolve?
Charlotte Knowles: [00:03:17] The life of an actor is hard. It’s really brutal on your self-esteem. I felt that I didn’t want my whole life to be shaped by what I look like and what my voice sounded like, things that I felt were really superficial and unimportant to who I was.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:03:42] All of those aspects are vitally important to an actor’s life. And I just felt that it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t really where my interests were anymore.
Charlotte’s family of actors
Charlotte Knowles: [00:03:59] Both of my parents are performers, so that was a natural step for me as a child. But growing up and becoming an adult in my own right meant that in my teens I guess I grew away from that. I was more interested in other people and less interested in my stuff.
A fascination for people’s stories
Charlotte Knowles: [00:04:21] I wanted to find out other people’s stories and to be able to talk about them. I was interested in the world and finding out about what’s going on in the world. I wanted a more direct way to connect with people and tell their stories.
Stephen Spender: [00:04:40] So, it says in your bio that you are a factual filmmaker. Does that mean a documentary filmmaker? Or, is documentary filmmaking different from factual filmmaking?
Charlotte Knowles: [00:04:51] It’s interesting because the concept of what is a fact, is broadly debated. But factual filmmaking is documentary filmmaking. However, it can also be reality television, but I don’t do reality television.
Factual filmmaking
Charlotte Knowles: [00:05:08] Factual filmmaking is a better term for me because I am interested in the variety of ways in which a factual story can be told; as well as the different creative mediums through which you can convey them.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:05:36] I like to experiment with different ways in which those stories can be told. Documentaries are one way in which that can happen, but there are other ways. So, I like to experiment and explore those different ways of telling stories and also the different ways in which other people can be involved in the storytelling telling process.
A movie is always a collaborative process
Charlotte Knowles: [00:05:57] My feeling is that I love film. I love cinema. And that’s my passion in life, but it doesn’t always have to be me making it. I love seeing other people’s films as much as making my own. And I also like to involve other people in the process when I am making something because ultimately a movie is always a collaborative process. It is a little bit misleading the way it always gets communicated.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:06:23] You hear who the director was of a film and who the main actors were on film but you rarely hear of who produced it. You rarely know who did the photography, or the editing or who was the gaffer. But all of these people are as important as each other. As a director, you never think, or you shouldn’t, that one person is more important than everybody else because everyone involved is as relevant to that experience.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:06:54] I much prefer a collaborative process.
Teaching at Film School In A Box
Stephen Spender: [00:07:03] You’re also teaching, right? Via Film School In A Box?
Charlotte Knowles: [00:07:19] Yes. It was a project that was set up to go into places where people are marginalized for a particular reason. It might be because they have been through the criminal justice system or have mental health issues or because people have learning challenges. Any reason people are excluded from mainstream society. And so, we go into different places and teach basic filmmaking. People can learn to use filmmaking as a way of communicating their own story. Films themselves become a catalyst for creating conversations within the local community.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:08:12] At the end of every Film School In A Box we run screenings. We invite the local community to engage in discussions, that is Q+As (questions and answers) around the film that has been made by participants on the course. That’s important because, for a lot of people who take part in the course, it is sometimes the first time that anybody has ever said to them, “I want to know what you think about this”.
Be heard, make a film to address challenges and empower yourself and your community
Charlotte Knowles: [00:08:38] And for some people on the course that’s a big eye opener because they haven’t had that experience before where someone has been interested in what they think about something and why they decided to communicate it in a certain way. So, using films as a catalyst in that way for the community to be able to come together and address challenges or problems or issues in their local environment is powerful and can be empowering for people who until that point had sort of felt that there wasn’t a place for them.
[00:09:10] So, we could kind of start to alter the way in which people see their role in society which is ultimately the goal of that project.Stephen Spender: [00:09:16] Wow! There is so much I want to ask you. What does a typical day look like for you these days?
Charlotte Knowles: [00:09:33] There is no such thing as a typical day. I mean I’ll explain to you what today is like. Then what tomorrow is like and you’ll see the difference again. So, today I woke up very early. I had a breakfast meeting at 8 o’clock in the morning, talking about public relations and communication for The Independent Film Festival and the way in which we can help communicate the projects that we’re doing to get more people involved.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:10:06] I then came back to my office. I spoke to people about fundraising and to volunteers about the way in which they could become involved in some of the projects that we’re doing. I then spoke to another arts institution in London about a talk that I am going to give about independent film production in the UK and distribution.
How Charlotte spends a typical day
Charlotte Knowles: [00:10:33] Now, I’m talking to you. I’m doing a podcast recording about the work that I do. Then I have a meeting with a team of people with whom I am producing a film, to talk about the next stages in that film. In the afternoon, I’ll be editing a film that I’ve been working on for a few months and organizing a few additional interviews for that. I’ll probably finish work about nine or ten o’clock in the evening.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:11:01] Tomorrow, I’ll get up early in the morning, and I will have another meeting. Again, about another film production in which I am involved. Then I’m going to drive to Leicester. Last year, we invited 15 filmmakers to come in for a prolonged period of mentoring and career development work. And one of those artists is having the premiere of the film that he made during this process.
He has a big exhibition and is going to be exhibiting a lot of his artwork as well as screening his film. I’m going to the screening and will talk a little bit about the mentoring process and support that we have given that filmmaker. Hopefully, to also celebrate because it was a massive upheaval for him to get this off the ground. We want to support him and celebrate him. So, that gives you an idea of the variety of things on which I’m working. It involves a lot of travelling around. It involves talking to loads of different people about loads of different things. That is the nature of this work.
What excites Charlotte most about her job?
Stephen Spender: [00:12:18] What do you enjoy most about your job, what excites you?
Charlotte Knowles: [00:12:25] I think what excites me most is probably making a difference. I didn’t get involved in filmmaking because I love the production element of it, or love the cinematography.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:12:55] Those are not the bits I love so much. The bit that does it for me is being able to identify a story of which people are perhaps not aware. To present people with another possibility that they haven’t considered. To alter people’s perceptions and ultimately try and improve things, especially for those who find things difficult. That is why filmmaking is fascinating.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:13:24] I think it has the phenomenal potential to enable us to reflect on ourselves and reflect on our place in the world and what we’re doing as a society. It’s vitally important that independent filmmakers have that space to be able to do that because they have an important role in society to provide that cultural reflection and cultural communication. I think that for me it’s the bit that excites me.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:14:45] As far as the day to day job is concerned, meeting people and finding out about people and collaborating with them is the bit that I love.
Whom would Charlotte Knowles like to meet?
Stephen Spender: [00:14:52] So, a final question. If you could meet anyone living or non-living who would that be and what would you ask them?
Charlotte Knowles: [00:15:12] I would like to meet so many people.
Stephen Spender: [00:15:15] I know it’s tough!
Charlotte Knowles: [00:15:15] It’s really tough.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:16:08] I think it would probably be someone from the past.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:16:09] I am going to take two!
Stephen Spender: [00:16:09] (Laughs) That’s allowed!
Meeting Alfred Hitchcock and Frida Kahlo and the questions Charlotte would like to ask them
Charlotte Knowles: [00:16:09] I would probably go back and meet Alfred Hitchcock, and I would ask him if I could follow him around so that I could learn everything that he did. And similarly, I’d probably want to meet Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist. I would ask her if I could be her best friend.
Stephen Spender: [00:16:25] Okay, lovely! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it.
Charlotte Knowles: [00:16:40] My pleasure. It was lovely to speak to you, Stephen. Thank you.
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