Ellie Green | worklife
Words Adam Duckworth
Escape the algorithm Ellie Green says finding great stories and building a business that lets you tell them matters more than chasing social-media trends
here’s something reassuring about discovering that a filmmaker capable of winning Pro Moviemaker ’s Filmmaker of
now her husband and filmmaking partner, who began teaching her about cameras. Ellie brought the fascination with stories and something clicked. The pair initially photographed trail-running races, until event organisers began asking the inevitable question, ‘Could they make videos too?’. “Not a clue – but we said yes and tried to work it out later. So we got a couple of GoPros and Googled how to make a film. That’s how it started.” It’s an unconventional entrance into professional filmmaking. Yet, there is an important lesson, as Green didn’t wait until she had accumulated enough equipment, qualifications or knowledge. She just started making things and learned along the way. Learn what matters Those first GoPro films inevitably had the unmistakable look of early action cameras, with enormous depth-of-field and ultra-wide views. Ellie remembers asking Matt why their footage looked so different from television and cinema. “I hadn’t learned any of this in a traditional way and didn’t really understand the technical side. I remember saying,
the Year title began by buying a couple of GoPros and Googling how to make a movie. There was no film school, grand plan to become a cinematographer or even a qualification remotely connected to filmmaking. Ellie Green studied ancient history at university, then worked in a shop. “The main interest has always been stories,” she explains. “As a child I wanted to be a journalist and then a writer. But I came out of university and didn’t know what I wanted to do. Filmmaking just seemed inaccessible – not something that was possible.” After university came a move from home in Cumbria to London, a selection of jobs and redundancy. Green found herself working in an outdoor shop, partly because climbing and running were already important parts of her life and the outdoor world felt familiar. It was there that she met photographer Matt Green,
On a high Green is drawn to the connection between landscapes, people and culture
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