Watching movies is a beloved past time for almost anyone you ask, but for one Mudgee girl, making them is her dream.
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At just 13-years-old, Mudgee’s Jessica Nipperess is already a two-time finalist in Trop Jr, a sub-section of the celebrated Sydney film festival held in February.
As described on the official website:
Modelled on Tropfest, Trop Jr is our signature event of 16 finalist films, showcasing the work of incredibly talented filmmakers as individuals or in teams, aged 15 years and younger and has been part of Tropfest since 2008.
This year, Jessica’s film ‘Sane’, written and directed by Jessica and filmed in and around Mudgee is – as she describes it – set in a world where things are not as they seem.
“‘Sane’ is about a girl called Emily who’s starting to see things but she’s told she’s crazy so she pushes it aside for a while but strange circumstances reveal that perhaps they’re not just a figment of her imagination after all,” Jessica said.
Ever since she was little, Jessica has had a fascination with film and the art of film making, starting when her family would rent movies every week to watch together.
Jessica said that she can’t pinpoint the exact time she realised film was her passion but she knows storytelling was something she always wanted to do.
“It’s always just kind of been the thing I’m interested in, I suppose I’m not a normal kid in the way that I like weird sort of stuff. So ‘Sane’ has always been the movie I’ve wanted to make.”
“I couldn’t exactly put it back to a date. I would say I just got really involved in ideas and stories and stuff like that,”
“For a while I wanted to be an author and film is just kind of it’s own thing and it’s very visual and I enjoy doing it,”
“So I was drawn to film over writing. I just wanted a way to communicate my ideas, film has taught me that,”
Watch Jessica’s previous finalist film ‘Hued’
“We used to go to Video Ezy and we would rent like three movies each week and just watch movies all the time. It really got me thinking about things like how to use cameras and how I would do it.”
Since Jessica’s previous film ‘Hued’ – also a Trop Jr finalist – her skills have increased significantly, thanks to support from her family, YouTube and plenty of practice.
“There’s a lot of YouTube videos out there. I go online and look for ‘directing for beginners’ and then slowly I start narrowing it down. I go to and look up how to do a certain technique,” Jessica said.
“But I have taken a few courses in different parts of film making like an editing course and a film making course with NIDA.” [Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art].
Jessica has over time slowly grown her collection of movie-making tools in addition to using what’s available to her.
“What I mostly do is, because my dad works at the school, [St Matthews Catholic School] we borrow some of their camera equipment, tripods, and different lights,”
“But also slowly over the years on birthdays I’ll get a green screen or a dolly or something like that which I add to my collection but I don’t have that much special equipment, it’s mostly what’s available to me,”
It wouldn’t be an independent film production without getting the family involved.
“My friends and family are so supportive, my mum’s always helping me out with my brainstorming sessions and they’re always at every one of my shoots, holding up my mic and at the cameras,”
Despite her film making chops, Jessica wasn’t sure she would be a finalist this year and had almost given up waiting.
“I was kind of beginning to - not lose hope - but just move on a little bit because they had set a date for when they were gonna tell the people who got in. It was 5pm on that day and I was going ‘oh well, doesn’t look like it’s gonna be happening’.”
“The next morning I woke up and dad said that he got an email at 11.50pm saying that the dates would be pushed back and I was like ‘oh my god, there’s still a chance’,”
“Then two days in we got the call and it was all very exciting and I’m so happy that I’m going back to Tropfest.”
“It’s my dream job and I think whatever I do I’ll somehow incorporate it into what I do because it’s just what I want to do, but whatever happens I still want to be able to film make,” she said.
“I’m gonna enter Tropfest every year, that’s gonna be my new thing. This year I’m gonna make a new film to put into next year’s Tropfest. I’m really excited when I get to make a film.”
The film festival happens on February 9 at Parramatta Park in Sydney, where all the films will be screened and the winners announced.