A filmmaker/photographer in the making

by Helen Martin

You may have seen some of Jeremy Houghton’s work. He’s the Year 13 student

Jeremy Houghton self portrait

who’s been making. some of the videos we’re seeing posted our community Facebook pages and on the Kaipara College website. In April, there was the moving ANZAC Day piece, prompted by lockdown preventing student leaders participating in the traditional ceremony, where students emailed their individual contributions to Jeremy for him to edit into a video for the school’s Facebook page. His excellent short film ‘Day 382’, made when lockdown prevented Jeremy from documenting the school production as planned and shared on Facebook, was one of his Year 13 Media Studies assignments.
Jeremy’s interest in photography began about five years ago. “I picked up my mum’s camera and started taking photos of random things. That turned into a love of both still photography and videography,” he says. And he has all the gear. “I’m using my Canon mirrorless EOS R, which was a gift from my parents, who are very encouraging and supportive of my hobby, and I edit on my MacBook Pro laptop. I’ve been capturing sound with a microphone that clips onto the top of my camera, then I plug it in, and it plays the sound through the mic into the camera. If I need sound fx I hop onto Google, and for editing, I’m really lucky that, through school, we have access to all the Adobe applications. I prefer to shoot in a raw file as it keeps more of the photo’s information and gives me more options when I put it into my editing software I have more leeway/options – it’s not like developing, film but there is manipulation of the photo.”
The first video Jeremy made was for a math mentor friend who wanted to publicise the mentoring programme to the students. He then made one for the PB4L (positive behaviour for learning) programme for his drama teacher Steve Lunt, who runs that group. Luckily, the fact that Media Studies clashed with other subjects he wanted to take was overcome by Jeremy’s participation in lessons run through HarbourNet, which is part of the Virtual Learning Network Community in NZ. “My media teacher Mr Wallis is from Wairarapa, and I have online lessons with him and other students around the country.”
Success Jeremy has already had with his hobby includes coming first in the Year 12 Photography class and winning eight prizes at the 2020 Helensville A&P Show. “At the moment it’s all recreational, just me going out and having fun with it,” he says. “But hopefully my hobby will turn into a career. I know whatever work I do in the future there has to be a camera involved. I’m most interested in the shooting part of it because, although I love making movies at the moment, I love photography more. It’s great to take really cool photos that make me feel some kind of emotion. That’s what I want to put out into the world for everyone else to see.”

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