Julia Rooke
P/D
Premium
About Me
Professional Training
Course / Qualification | Training Provider / Institution | Year |
---|---|---|
Films as Poems / Zillah Bowes / 2017 | ||
Films as Poems | Zillah Bowes | 2017 |
Observational Filming / NFTS Beaconsfield / 2013 | ||
Observational Filming | NFTS Beaconsfield | 2013 |
Documentary Making / Met Film School, Ealing / 2011 | ||
Documentary Making | Met Film School, Ealing | 2011 |
Hostile Environments Training / BBC/TOR / 2009 | ||
Hostile Environments Training | BBC/TOR | 2009 |
Julia did a fantastically thorough job as a Producer on an investigative project for us. She sourced the hard won and complex medical evidence required that saw the project move from development to production. She was tenacious and organised as a producer, keeping the contributors onboard and she set up and directed the taster tape at very short notice. Kate McGlade - Development Executive, Alleycats Television
Julia produced a highly sensitive, controversial documentary for True North and she did an excellent job. She has terrific access negotiation skills and can juggle huge workloads and complex compliance issues. She is also thoroughly lovely to deal with, I wouldn't hesitate to work with her again.
Julia produced a film for us with Stacey Dooley in Turkey, delving into the secretive world of sex work. She demonstrated great determination and perseverance in gaining very difficult access to brothels, sex workers and trans sex workers, and also arranged for Stacey to meet ISIS brides recently escaped from Syria in the dangerous border town of Gaziantep. We were repeatedly told by fixers and Turkish journalists that what we were attempting was impossible, but Julia and the team found a way. She also shot second camera throughout the trip.
Julia is an assiduous researcher, tactful and diligent producer, solid camera operator and strong team player. When she joined the National Geographic 'Drugs, Inc' team, a tall order landed on her plate: get our cameras inside a US jail to make a program about the drug trade inside. This to include permission to equip inmates with cameras to film themselves and each other unsupervised. It's a measure of her skills that after three months she had secured permission from not one, but two County jails on opposite sides of the country. When the shoot began - in conjunction with an extremely experienced and talented director - Julia deftly managed nervous prison authorities on the one hand, and jumpy inmates on the other. She also provided solid second camera support in some pretty tense situations. The result is an extraordinarily honest film with high production values that glues you to the screen from beginning to end. While on location, Julia also filmed first camera on an additional sequence for another Drugs Inc show: a police arrest of a magic mushroom dealer. This was an uncontrolled situation - at night - deftly handled to provide an important sequence for our story. In short Julia more than pulled her weight on one of the most difficult and demanding series on television. Highly recommended.
Julia's strength as a filmmaker is her ability to find strong central characters whose stories reveal something greater about the world around them. Her films start off with rigorous research and hard journalism but they develop into personal narratives that give human expression to some of today's most important issues. She also has a great 'eye' and a strong sense of visual storytelling and can shoot well herself or direct others. I have commissioned three international documentaries from Julia (poverty/youth in Poland, Kurdish human rights and forced prostitution in Holland) and she has always delivered to a high standard editorially and creatively.
Julia is an exemplary journalist: thorough; dogged; able and interested in thinking "out-of-the-box." She is reliable almost to a fault: someone who commits herself 100% to a project. She is also good fun to work with: open to new ideas and embraces challenges. It has always been a pleasure to work with her and the resulting work has been outstanding.
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Links:
Media I Work In:
Broadcast Television
Radio
Locations I can work in:
London
Language:
English (Fluent)
French (Fluent)
Polish (Fluent)
Skills/Permits:
Archive Clearance
Driving Licence
Commentary Writing
CRB Check
First Aid
Heath And Safety Training
Hostile Environment
Safeguarding Trust
I Visa USA
Script Writing
Technical Skills:
Self Shooting
Sound Recording
Multiplatform
Single Camera Directing
Data Wrangling
Canon XF305
Canon EOS C300
Canon 7D
Sony PXW-FS7
Awards:
International Press Association 2007 'Best Story' runner-up Producer & Sony Radio Academy 'Best Feature' runner-up 2004 for 'In The Mind of a Paedophile' Reporter/Producer.