Laura Patterson

Concrete • 22nd March 2022

The Role of Intimacy Directors

In the wake of #MeToo, this past decade has seen a rise of intimacy coordinators in the Film and TV industry.

Intimacy coordinators are just as vital a role in filmmaking as a director or producer – their role is to ensure the wellbeing and safety of actors involved in a sexually explicit scene. On top of that, they choreograph scenes of intimacy in the same way a professional would arrange a stunt or dance.

It’s great that the role is becoming commonplace on production sets as intimacy coordi

Concrete • 22nd March 2022

Escape Room Shenanigans

Escape Rooms are fun – each one you go to is a unique experience. Many of my favourite memories have taken place in them. I’d like to share a few.

Of all the places, my first escape room experience was actually in Budapest. On our stay, my friends and I googled things to do in the city, and this was what popped up. After trundling on many trams and getting a little bit lost in the outskirts of the city, we buzzed the intercom to a random block building. After gaining access, we were given direc

Concrete • 7th December 2021

Norwich Film Festival: The Arts Prevails

Picture this: it’s 2009, you’ve left university and you’re having coffee in The Forum with your friend. They show you a short film that they’ve made and you’re amazed by it. They’re struggling to get it into any festivals and there’s nothing in Norfolk. They are disheartened that all their hard work will go to waste because no one will be able to see it. What do you do?

What Kellen Playford decided to do was independently launch a film festival in Norwich in support of his friend. He joked, “I

Concrete • 7th December 2021

Norwich Film Festival: in Conversation with Director and Writer Bertie Gilbert

Ever wondered what filmmakers think of Norwich? It seems they are amused by the equal proportion of hippy stoners to elderly people here, or at least Bertie Gilbert is.

Writer and director Bertie Gilbert was also keen to see his short film screened at the Norwich Film Festival: “I love that I had to make a bit of a trip to get here. It makes it feel more of an event.” It was a pleasure to have a chat with Bertie before we watched some great shorts alongside his own.

PLEASE CARE! is Bertie’s fi

Concrete • 7th December 2021

Reconnecting with an old friend and musician: Tom Leader and his album Uncomfortably Happy

Tom Leader is singer-songwriter and a friend dating back to the youthful years of Music A-Level. It was a treat to get back in touch with him and catch up, and we talked about his recently released debut album, Uncomfortably Happy, another masterpiece made in the confinements of lockdown.


Normally based in Cambridge and Birmingham, Tom is currently doing his semester abroad in Copenhagen. He gave me a virtual tour of his flat overseas, jokingly showing me a light-up globe on his desk, with a

Concrete • 26th October 2021

Lost Connections : A Collaborative Short Film Featuring the East Anglian Film Archive

“Can we always be connected?” are the opening and anchoring words to Lost Connections, a new archive-based short film set to be screened across cinemas and schools. It is also available and easy to stream on YouTube and the BFI Player online.

Led by the Yorkshire Film Archive, Lost Connections brings together various excerpts of footage from twelve film archives across the UK. The film was also a collaboration with Film Hub North on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network, made possible through

Concrete • 5th October 2021

Feature: Norfolk Screen Talks: Writing Comedy For TV

As an avid comedy-watcher for as long as I can remember, I was keen to attend an online talk on Writing Comedy For TV, hosted by Norfolk Screen Talks on September 22nd. Professor Brett Mills was fantastic chairing this down-to-earth panel of writers: Laurence Rickard (Actor, Co-Creator for Ghosts, Horrible Histories, Bill and Yonderland), Helen Serafinowicz (Co-Creator and Scriptwriter for Motherland), and Phoebe Walsh (Actress and Write for Ted Lasso and Four Weddings and a Funeral).

Being a t

Concrete • 17th August 2021

Why I can’t wait to be in Leipzig again

Waking up to the smell of fresh bread wafting up from the bottom floor bakery. Chugging coffee like it’s water throughout the day. Persuading the bureaucratic train conductor that my ticket is very much still valid. Having a breakdown over the dative case, yet again.

It feels like a life-time ago since I lived in Germany for those few months in 2019: it was the scariest, most liberating experience of my life. Never before would I have thought of a small city, and its people, teaching me so much

UEA Live • 12th March 2021

Christie Watson on 'The Courage to Care'

From Claps for Carers to controversially low pay rises, the animated discourse surrounding the NHS only shows how important it is to hear the voices of its under-represented staff. In a conversation with UEA’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Fiona Lettice, Professor Christie Watson opened up about her impressively extensive career, as a paediatric nurse for 20 years, and later as a writer and teacher. The Courage to Care: A Call for Compassion, her most recent work, is the second of her published memoirs;