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Rebecca Staniforth won an IAC Diamond and the Best British Young Film Maker award at BIAFF2016

I produced this short film as part of my A-Level in Media Studies at Wales High School in Sheffield.

The story was born out of a research essay which had to be linked to my final film project. I looked at coming of age films and researched their conventions. My favourite film is The Perks of Being a Wallflower and I reinterpreted many of the elements from that film. For example, my main character begins as an outsider and through the course of the narrative finally becomes included.

I initially struggled to find a strong enough story for my film, I didn’t know where to start but I knew I didn’t want the film to be set in a school. That just seemed too obvious and lazy, as most school media projects are set in and around a school due to the accessibility of the location.

With that in mind, I was working part-time at an Italian restaurant and I decided to ask the owners if I could film in the restaurant when it was closed. They said yes.

As soon as I had my location, the story just fell in to place. An unrequited love story between two co-workers in a restaurant, drawing upon the conventions that I had researched from the coming of age genre.

As I am a waitress, I knew the 'ins and outs' of the industry and therefore incorporated my personal experiences into the script - including everything from the daily routine of writing on the specials board and setting the tables to the incident involving the unreasonable customer.

We cast the film using online casting websites such as Casting Call Pro and Star Now and found our three players; Connor Young, Charlotte Louisa and Ryan Meehan.

All were excellent and it was a pleasure to work with dedicated and professional actors.

We shot the film across two consecutive Monday nights (This is when the restaurant is closed). But we had to get Charlotte in on a Saturday to re-film some extra shots to help resolve a continuity error with her hair.

The only major problem came about during editing. There is a scene that takes place outside the restaurant after Zack’s first shift, and due to numerous factors, the sound was unusable.

We got the actors in again and re-recorded their dialogue and synched it to the original footage. It worked amazingly well.

The film was shot using the department’s Black Magic Cinema Camera and sound was recorded with a Tascam D60 and Rode NTG2 microphone. The film was lit with two basic softboxes. I edited the film on Adobe Premiere.

I’m really pleased with the final film and love the actor’s performances.

I am currently studying Marketing Communications and Advertising at Sheffield Hallam University and I am reaching the end of my first year. I would love to carry on making films as I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

I am extremely pleased with the outcome of Turning Tables and it was great honour to receive Best British Young Filmmaker at BIAFF 2016.