3AM made it into a top student exhibition
Meet two L5 students Archie Everett and Megan Vedmore, who created 3AM, an interactive film. Which is about a young woman who awakes from her dreams to only be welcomed by harsh reality. Stuck in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend, she is desperate to make a move. Well, since it is interactive media. Of course, it’s you who gets to make a move for her.
Their film was so immersive that it was part of the Stornaway.io exhibition where top film and game students in the UK, Europe, and the US show their incredible works. Ironically, we get to interact with Archie and Megan and talk about their success. But first, let’s get to know who they are. So, Archie is a media student, the same as Megan. However, she is also doing English along the way.
You may wonder why Megan is doing two courses at the university? So, we asked her just that. Her response was, “English has always been a favourite subject of mine, but media always interested me outside of education.” Therefore, it was logical for her to come to Solent University and combine her interests. Whereas Archie responded, “due to doing media for GCSE and A-Levels, it felt natural progression for my education to continue with media. As it is my personal interest in the topic and the industry.”
“Solent is a university that he feels has established itself and accommodates less conventional subjects”
Out of all places, why did they pick Solent University? According to Archie, he believes Solent is a university that he feels has established itself and accommodates less conventional subjects, which aided his decision to apply. Similarly, Megan thinks Solent has such an array of courses to choose from. Moreover, it allowed her to combine her interests and develop her skills in areas she had never explored before.
Since both of them did a course slightly different to each other. You may wonder how did these two meet each other? Archie says, “well, funnily enough, we met in halls and found out our courses overlapped, and now we have lived together with other friends since our second year.” Megan added, “Yeah, because we get on so well. It seemed like a perfect pairing, and due to Covid-19, it was much easier for us to create something obtainable. As lockdown meant we couldn’t mix with other people.” It’s fantastic how Solent has a community that enables this pair to work together.
It seems like these two have such a good friendship. But what inspired Archie and Megan to create such a dark meaningful project? Archie replies, “the conceptualisation of 3AM was actually a lot easier than we initially thought” this is because it was inspired by a story from somebody he already knew. Megan added, “we were able to bounce off each other and generate these ideas really quickly. Which aided us when having to communicate with Roy to see what worked and what didn’t.” For the audience who are reading this, Roy is their lecturer. He supervised their project from pre-production to post-production.
Now let’s discuss the advantage and disadvantage of their production. Positively, these two lives together. Therefore, they have a location from the start, which is their house. According to Archie, it was pretty big and meant they had a lot of space and different rooms to use. He added their female lead who is also their housemate, she went to Brit School. Therefore, she has a lot of experience with acting and took directions very smoothly, which elevated their film to the next level. However, their male lead didn’t have much experience, so they thought it might hinder their production. They had to do a lot of takes and practice as there was an imbalance of inexperience. Although, it seems like other people liked his performance. Including Kate and Rue the creator of Stornaway.io, who thought his acting enhanced the message. In a way, Megan thinks it’s also a bit of a Ying and Yang. However, if that was an obstacle, they definitely beat it to the ground.
"As creative students, they utilised what they had when it came to lighting and filmed their whole thing with only two iPhones!"
Another thing they found as an obstacle was Covid-19 in general, which meant they had access to no professional equipment. However, as creative students, they utilised what they had when it came to lighting and filmed their whole thing with only two iPhones! Despite the limitation, I was wondering if they have any additional support due to the circumstance. Megan responded, “we had regular tutorials with Roy to just make sure what we were doing was going in the right direction. And to see if he had any advice that would help us.”
Finally, their future is looking very bright. We were wondering what option Archie and Megan will be taking after graduation? Archie says, “there is no real plan for me. I guess I want to move to a city, somewhere with a bit more opportunities for me. So, I can really get into the industry and now with us being in a film festival. Hopefully, it gives us some additional opportunities.” Megan also said, “I think my plan is similar to Archie’s, just trying to find a place which suits my skills but also somewhere I can grow and excel.”
Written, Edited, and Published by Krisana Polyotha
BA(Hons) Media Production
Solent Media
