“If it feels impossible; I want to do it.” Whimsical, beautiful, and distinctive, you can pick a Natasha Foster film out of a line up purely from the vibrancy of imagination present in every frame.
After starting out in fashion photography, Natasha forged her signature cinematic experimental aesthetic with brands including Samsung & Google, creating films that feel like falling down a rabbit hole into a fairytale wonderland. Here, Natasha speaks about her influences, her favourite commercials, and the best part of the filmmaking process.
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Influences
My grandmother and my mum, 90’s suburbia, colour, service stations at dusk, neon lights and rain, Nadia Lee Cohen, Lewis Carroll, fashion, telegraph poles on empty dirt roads, James Turrell, Frida Kahlo, Tom Ford, vintage cars, brutalist architecture, Yayoi Kusama, installation art, big characters, fairies, alien looking women, Jeffery Smart, Miles Aldridge, Wiliam Eggleston, Martin Parr, Tracey Emin, The Secret Garden, Tim Walker.
Favourite Film
Nocturnal Animals.
A Commercial I Can't Stop Thinking About
Nadia Lee Cohen’s “Dinner’s Ready” with Sophia Loren. The colour, the set, the characters, the blocking….Heaven.
Best Part of Making Films
Treating and pre-production. Orchestrating so many different elements as if the film is a visual puzzle, constructing a story alongside practical pieces. The problem-solving is where the most fun can be had; if it feels impossible, then I want to do it. Always pushing the boundaries, blending technologies with traditional filmmaking techniques, dreaming up fantastic costumes, sometimes taking a mixed media approach.
A Show or Exhibition That Inspired Me
Backside of the Moon by James Turell, which I saw in Naoshima on my honeymoon. I have a love of installation art that leaks into my approach to building unconventional sets and working in studios.
Number One Rule for a Film Set
It's the same rule I have for life and that is to be kind.
Career Highlight So Far
Making it rain inside. It was one of the first shoots where I got to play with the big toys and was let off the chain for a commercial. And my spot for Samsung ‘Flipside’ – I look at that and think, that’s me, that’s my style.
Scripts That Catch My Eye Have…
Quirky characters, fun, bold, colour. Aesthetics that are stylised and heightened. Stories that aren’t bound by reality.
Three Ingredients in a NF Film ( i.e. My Directing Style in Three Words)
Colour. Fun. MORE!
The Future
I see myself continuously pushing the boundaries of non-traditional narrative. I want to create work that combines fashion, constructed spaces, BIG characters, colour and technology such as LED walls and robots to tell bold and striking visual stories. Worlds that exist at the intersection of art installation, fashion and film, always bringing together different practices.