What's your educational background?
I have an upper second class Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree (with honours) in Media Production from the University of Lincoln and a Master of Arts postgraduate degree in Moving Image and Sound from Norwich University of the Arts. I am currently looking to continue with my current field and complete a PhD.
Are you a qualified SFX makeup artist?
I am not a qualified SFX makeup artist. I am self-taught. In the future, I would love to get certified. My passion for special effects started when I was doing my undergraduate degree, during which my film group needed SFX for a short film. I fell in love with practical effects straight away and experimented with it ever since, even managing to work on a few films and photoshoots along the way.
Why do you believe in animal rights?
Animals are sentient beings capable of complex emotions. They feel joy and fear, just like us. They form relationships with their young and care for them. They should not be sentenced to live worthless lives and treated like products just so that we can enjoy the taste of their flesh for a few moments of a meal that we will forget shortly after.
In judging the worth of a being's existence, we should not focus merely on its' intelligence or capacity to comprehend (which they are capable of) but on their capacity to feel pain. Animals feel pain, distress and are forced to live in unbearable conditions that most consumers do not realise. They are presented with idyllic images of grass-fed, free-range farm animals; however, that's not where most of their meat comes from. Large scale industrial farming exploits and executes trillions of animals each year. They are a huge contributor to global warming and deforestation.
In a perfect vision of a future, I imagine a world where no animal is subject to exploitation and cruelty; be it at the hand of their owners, farms, poaching, unsustainable fashion industries, backyard butchers or animal testing. However, I know that this might not be achievable just yet, and so I strive for a future where large factory farms are banned, wet markets are banned, animal testing is banned, tougher sentencing for animal cruelty is introduced, and local farms are regulated to ensure the animals' wellbeing.