UCAS Personal Statement 2013-14 - Full Text

(for UK, University Application)

Life, this life, this very existence is such a canny thing. How it finds, how it takes me
on the most compelling journeys imaginable. In all of my forty years so far it never ceases to astonish, confound and mesmerise all of my senses, all my emotions. All the more so for my apparent difference. It waxes, it wanes but to see, to see with these eyes is the most wondrous gift. Yet a gift that is challenging at it's very core. To embrace every moment no matter how dark with an eternal curiosity. A childlike curiosity that almost impaled me upon the sharp edge of death and pushed me headlong to the depths of insanity it's self. To then ride upon the wings of the most decadent hedonism. A consummate sucker for passion, the most perverse of masochists. The most addictive dance let loose the very beast within me. A reflection of it's ultimate inevitability then set me in a sea of apathy. With all my pluck I held my children close in my heart and all I faced, all I'd soaked up, all I'd witnessed, all that had so affected me became inspiration it's self. Inspiration fuelled a need to express, to communicate in mediums that could best convey such nuance, such depth to it all. Depth in it's many textures. To question the very truth, to question my own truth. To cut through and view the world, those admits it, like unravelling the fabric of reality it's self, allowed me to find my voice. Allowed me to find this new beginning. Back in 2009, I'd managed to win a place on this British Film Institute thing, for the developmental writing of a feature, a crime thriller about a dancer that was called unsurprisingly "Behind the Dancer", sugar coated with an illustrative photo-shoot. All extremely last minute, finding out about it with no more than a couple of weeks to do and thinking I had no chance in hell, but sod it. It would be one utterly cool adventure, a tantalising challenge at the very least. Then transported instantaneously into an dream world, feeling like a kid in a candy shop texting my mum saying "John Hurt's, right next to me for the screening of 'An Englishman in New York', the Quentin Crisp sequel, tis barmy how the heck did I pull this one off, there nuts...!". Then, then I met this wild insatiable woman in Camden and unbeknownst to me it was the start of falling. Falling into my own thin clichd writing, falling into a life and the very world I'd had started to write, but I did not know the half of it. Just before this really started to hit home, started to dissolve the world around me. I'd applied for the directing degree with you lovely people at St.Martins. Yet again beyond all my expectations, I'd not only managed to get an interview but I'd also managed to get through to the call back. Then it was theatre focused and I had no theatre experience, the whole point in fact. I'd come from working within senior roles on the technical side of High End post production within TV and Film. In fact I'd jumped into a senior role at Avid based at Pinewood Studios with equally utterly no experience of that. For the very reason it was new, exciting, challenging, because I did not know, yet I learned by being in the thick of it doing and because it was my dream, my passion.

The seed to all this was living in a fantasy world as a child, a fantasy world far beyond it. Likely due to the high functioning autism, Aspergers we ended up discovering was part of who my eldest son is and shone a spotlight on my own. Parents that exposed me to such wondrous things as Yul Brynner on the screen and all the more a profound an experience of Yul Brynner on the stage, in "The King and I" at the London Palladium. See that's what it was about, I new nothing could replace learning all I could about that craft, all the more so for all I learned about TV and Film along the way. All I learned about collaborating, all I'd learned about working with and guiding those that new tons more than I did alone, sharing that vision and making it so. Yet floundering for a need to be within it, within a fully formed environment, among such talented professionals, like suddenly living that dream based at Pinewood, that very career that unfurled before me. Albeit the very life I'd fallen into was it's own necessary and irreplaceable university. So now I needed to return university it's self. Above all with the best, why I'm applying to you. I not only want to tell my own stories, I so want to embrace, draw so much from others work, others gifts with these eyes, with this mind. With this difference, not merely Aspergers, but being a woman that used to be physically a man, yet is both and so much more. I want to explore, to revel within the best minds that are out there to help me draw out every ounce of this expression and help me express it to it's fullest. I know me more than most might ever likely know themselves, that's the very real difference that sets me apart. It's that honesty that is so very challenging in it's self and in practical terms why that very real help, that very real learning and collaboration is all the more a need. Yet I might equally have plenty to offer, for all this life I've had. I'm just little me, mostly ginger and as daft as a cake mind you. So please allow, allow the worlds that consume me, fuel my dreams entertain, inspire, move, challenge and open the minds of so many more, surely what life and art is all about. Most else you might need to know is likely accessible via this one magical place, my CV. Baring in mind with out a team to help me, nor any support in place as yet, I'm a bit slow and well below the standards I am used to in regards to the online portfolio I'm developing, so please bare with and refresh links frequently.

Best wishes, Samantha Hamer

Samantha Hamer, 2013