A Thousand Words: an interview with Vanessa Cox by Adele Szaters (s3716988).

Melbourne-based cinematographer Vanessa Cox discusses her passion for filmmaking, creative process, and experience as a woman in the male-dominated field.

I was extremely honoured to have the privilege of interviewing Vanessa for this project, and the audiovisual approach to my final piece was heavily inspired by our discussion. Her commitment to her practise and focus on uncovering the story within every image she shoots is extremely admirable, and despite the restrictions placed on this project by social distancing and lockdowns, I feel that Vanessa’s own artistic diligence pushed me to work around these barriers.

The process of making A Thousand Words involved a Zoom interview with Vanessa, and with her permission I accompanied the audio of our conversation with stills and clips from her cinematography portfolio, choosing visuals that I felt aligned the most thematically with each topic. Additionally, I filmed B-Roll of a camera being set up and adjusted prior to filming a shot as a means of illustrating the meticulous detail and process that goes into Vanessa’s work.