Recent graduates Nikki Brooks and Paige Cawtheray have just finished their Filmmaking degree at UWE. Having both found filmmaking through different paths – Nikki taking a BFI Academy course, and Paige transitioning from theatre – the pair started collaborating over their shared interests in sustainable fashion.
Posted on 10th October 2023
Education Partnership Spotlight: Taking on Fast Fashion On and Offscreen with the Students of UWE
‘albert had been mentioned across our whole three years of university but really was brought into our study in third year, in a module that was based around getting yourself into the industry and learning all of those specific tools to market yourself as a filmmaker,’ Nikki explains. ‘We were both interested in making content around sustainability,’ Paige continues, ‘so that really helped involve it in our practice. albert was really important and taught us how to do it and what we should be doing.’
Armed with the knowledge from their learnings, the pair created the commercial Fast Fashion Mountain, which went on to be one of the winners for Best in Brief for the Soil Association at the 2023 Kodak Student Awards. Inspired by her own experiences and lifestyle changes, Nikki outlined where the concept for this monstrous mound of clothing came from; ‘I grew up working class my whole life. When I was younger, I relied upon fast fashion; I wanted to be like everyone else, so I bought fast fashion clothes to blend in with everyone. Then when I got older, I just felt so guilty about buying those clothes because it was everywhere; being sustainable and changing your impact. So, the whole point of Fast Fashion Mountain came from the idea of encouraging people – not scaring them – to make the change.’
Picture credits:
Finlay Walker (Director of Photography for Fast Fashion Mountain, pictured left)
Tink Trim (Actor for the role of ‘Barbie’ in Fast Fashion Mountain, pictured central)
Ava Galli (Hair and Makeup artist for Fast Fashion Mountain, pictured right)
Photographed by Paige Cawtheray (Producer of Fast Fashion Mountain)
‘It really lent itself to be able to be a sustainable production, and of course given my passion for sustainable fashion anyway, I was very much for doing it as sustainably as we could,’ Paige said about the production side. The team had several challenges to think about when making their student production as sustainable as possible, including sourcing all the costumes from local charity shops, crew’s wardrobes and waste disposal sources. ‘It actually was not as difficult as we thought it would be. It was very surprisingly easy.’
One of the things that made this achievable was involving everyone across the production and inviting collaboration: ‘we had some fantastic meetings with our team, and I’m so fortunate that everyone that we brought onto this project was so passionate about making sure that the execution of the project aligned with its morals that it was teaching. Everyone was so keen to work out exactly what it was that we needed to bring this project to life and find out what the best most sustainable way to do it.’
‘But also,’ Nikki adds on, ‘I think what comes hand in hand with it is that fact that we had no money.’ Paige laughs – ‘that too, yeah!’ With limited funds for the project, the students had to source everything as resourcefully as possible, turning their limitations as students into the perfect learning opportunity for out-of-the-box thinking which ultimately saved on money and paired up with sustainability at the same time!
Picture credits:
Thalia Leonard (Production Designer/ Art Director for Fast Fashion Mountain)
Photographed by Paige Cawtheray (Producer of Fast Fashion Mountain)
‘Fast Fashion Mountain touches upon the kooky apocalypse vibe but it’s almost a spoof of a greenwashing ad,’ Nikki explained. ‘It’s a spoof of a spoof of a spoof. I think that is very appealing to the target audience we were going for.’ The opportunity for using the onscreen storytelling allowed the team to put the scale of fast fashion into a surreal visual metaphor appealing to the 13-18 year old female audience (chosen due to their position as the biggest contributors to fast fashion) – one so striking it became the poster image for the Kodak Student Awards themselves. ‘Because we had so much flexibility with shooting in a studio, we could create this fantastical environment with this huge mountain of clothes. Being able to get across that scale with this metaphor was a fantastic element of the moving image that we created for this project.’
The poster image used by the Fast Fashion Mountain team for the Kodak Student Awards
Speaking of the Kodak Student Awards, the pair touch on the surreal feeling of being presented as one of the winners for 2023. ‘One day, our whole house was covered in bags and bags and bags, and then the film was done. And then I was suddenly getting into a ball gown, being given champagne, it was amazing,’ Nikki describes. ‘And then when we got called up, that was a really surreal feeling – especially becoming a new graduate!’ And as one of several projects from UWE nominated, there was a palpable sense of camaraderie on the night. ‘It really wasn’t competitive, we were saying ‘you deserve it,’ and they said ‘you deserve it,’ and that was a really nice way to end it.’
Picture credits:
Tink Trim (Actor for the role of ‘Barbie’ in Fast Fashion Mountain)
Photographed by Paige Cawtheray (Producer of Fast Fashion Mountain)