Coffee Films contributors; Sheena Holliday

Sheena Holliday
Director/Producer/Writer

Always interested in creative things Sheena grew up writing stories and drawing pictures to make into books or writing poems for people she knew. Her Mum was a keen local theatre performer (Sheena's stage debut was as a Wizard of Oz Munchkin!) and both Mum and Dad were keen musicians playing the club circuit at different times. Her first film was shot with her art/photography/animation addicted Dad, creating little plasticene models which they animated into short films.

She was bitten by the acting bug through school plays at primary and secondary school, studying drama and getting involved in as much performing arts, dance and singing as possible, regularly appearing as a solo and choir performer at the school's performance evenings where she forged a lifelong friendship with Rob Hughes from the band Idle Jack and the Big Sleep; primary writers of the A Plaster... soundtrack.

Sheena was also a regular at the local youth theatre, playing Blousey in Bugsy and Cinderella in Cinderella as well as a pile of the other youth theatre favourites;

"Being part of these productions fuelled my love for performing arts. I loved every stage of the productions, and I loved working closely with a group of similar creative people who all had the same goal."

When school wound up she went on to college to study media, theatre and art, where some inspiring teachers turned her on to film running a whole module on her favourite genre; horror. She was in a band at the time and they decided to shoot a documentary about themselves. Despite the first (of many!) long post production stints and spending a lot more time on the making than the performing, the film picked up a Best Sound award at a local festival and Sheena knew what she wanted to do with her life.

Finding the making more interesting than the performing Sheena decided to start giving film some more attention and took a year out to study art and experiment with ideas, for her final piece she shot a short film to be shown as an installation, finally convinced she went onto York St John University to study theatre, film and TV.

"It was a very strange time for me, I had very high hopes for joining the course a lot of which didn’t come to fruition. On the whole it was not a good three years of my life, but there are a few things that I suppose made the experience worthwhile. There a were a couple of very inspiring tutors, and a few wonderful people on the course (obviously including the Crestfallen team!) and I only met Steve Piper due to a work experience hunt so that in itself makes it all worthwhile."

On graduation Sheena and close friends Adam Greenwood and Emma Clover immediately got together to shoot A Plaster... as Crestfallen Productions with Coffee Films and started freelancing on drama, film and arts community projects;

"I want to make films. Simple as that. If I can make money doing so then great, if not I’ll carry on anyway."

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