Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Burnham.
Hi Mark, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I fell in love with filmmaking at the age of fourteen. Though it may sound rather cliched – or, dare I say it, movie-like – I vividly recall having an ‘epiphany moment’ just after watching J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awaken. This inspired me to want to make films of my own and pursue filmmaking as a career. I began writing twenty-minute shorts of my own, the first few being naturally atrocious as I had no idea what I was, which all helped kickstart the massive learning curve that is filmmaking and set me on a path towards improvement. It was also at this age that I had first heard of The School of Cinematic Arts at USC and overnight decided to fully commit the next four years of my life to getting in, making as many short films as I could in this time.
I was born in Prague, Czech Republic and am half-Czech and half-British, having attended a British boarding school – Eastbourne College – for the end of high school. I had never even visited the west coast prior to August 2021, so being in USC’s film program and pursuing a career in cinema in LA seems like somewhat of a pipedream, but I am going to throw the kitchen sink at it to make it happen.
Since moving to LA, I have been truly fortunate with the opportunities presented to me. In the last few months, I have directed episodes of live television for USC’s Trojan Vision, worked with an editing team of seven people on a feature film, been exposed to numerous disciplines within filmmaking (and have even taken a great liking towards the art of sound design) in addition to meeting a lot of lovely people.
I am also happy to say that I still collaborate with the same group of friends that helped me make my first short at the age of fourteen. So, for instance, we released our first feature film – entitled “The Case” – in January. The film, which I co-wrote and co-directed with one of my best friends, Sean Renwick, is a culmination of eighteen months of continuous work. It premiered on the 3rd of January at a cinema in central Prague, Czech Republic (my home city), and also premiered on the big-screen in London and in Los Angeles at the end of last month. The Case was also only made possible thanks to the friends I made both throughout childhood and since arriving at USC, whose talents elevated the project enormously. I cannot wait to see what the future has in store as I progress through university and beyond.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has not been an entirely smooth road. From a technical standpoint, the process of filmmaking is very much one that invites a plethora of problems at every virtual stage of creation, and it really isn’t until the very end of editing that one sees a project come together or can perhaps even determine whether they have made something worth watching or not.
On a more personal level, I also had numerous disagreements with my parents for many years about being allowed to attend an American university. My parents, understandably, were fearful of both the sheer financial cost that are tuition fees, but also that I would be entering an industry with little job security and slim chances of success. Convincing them that this would be the path in which I would be happiest – in addition to other home and personal issues that I struggled with along the way – was not easy throughout my teenage years.
I think the thing that has really helped me along the way is just perseverance. I find myself to be somebody that really struggles to give up on anything, so it is often sheer determination and consistent work that has enabled for projects to be completed and for me to get through difficulties that I have encountered. I am also very helped by those around me: seeing the work ethic that others have, seeing difficulties that others close to me have suffered through and the resilience that they display, seeing people undertake enormous personal or creative challenges and at least attempt them, and so on. All of these things have made me want to replicate others and show the same sort of determination.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I consider myself to primarily be a film director. Though I have also written, produced and edited the vast majority of projects that I have been involved with, directing is certainly the discipline that I am most drawn to. I simply love the challenge of pulling off difficult shots or helping illicit performances from actors that I am pleased with. Furthermore, I also feel as though I am someone who enjoys leadership roles and responsibility, and so find myself wanting to undertake positions of creative control or wanting to be the person that is liable for the ultimate quality of the creative product.
I found the challenge of directing to be especially prominent when working on The Case. Not only were we attempting to shoot an hour-long film with no budget, professional actors or crew members in under two weeks, creating a lot of time pressure, but we also decided to use a highly ambitious “shot list” (a list of camera angles paired against a script, i.e., the way that each moment in a script is filmed). One thirty-second-unbroken shot I will never forget involved me sprinting backwards and uphill before getting onto the back of a motorbike, all whilst holding a camera and keeping the moving subjects (who were firing prop guns and escaping in a golf cart) in the centre of the frame. The shot took over three hours to achieve on the day, in addition to a whole afternoon of repeatedly rehearsing it the week before. It is because of moments such as these, as well as the opportunity to have worked with my best friends for eighteen months, that makes The Case my proudest achievement to date. The fact that two of the next films that I will be writing and directing – a non-linear musical set in Los Angeles and a murder mystery set in Prague – are both centred around genres, tones and set-pieces that I have yet to grapple with excites me very much.
How do you define success?
Success for me is about undertaking a project or difficulty and doing your utmost to complete or surpass it. This means taking steps outside of your comfort zones or having a shot at something that may terrify you and really putting in as much effort as possible. Even if the result does not always end up being what you imagined – though, fortunately, there are some scenarios in which you discover that you are a more capable individual than you may have believed yourself to be – you always find yourself learning something new that can help you in future projects and challenges.
So, yes, success to me is defined by the act of being ambitious, giving it your all, and learning along the way.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.markgburnham.com
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm12805623/
- https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/671269728 (Password: TheCase2022)
Image Credits
Sean Renwick Maud Timmer Vojtech Pavelka Diana Pestova William Schonfeld Jefta Timmer Simon Mestdagh John Li Daniel Van
