Hello and welcome to
my portfolio
My name is Jess Haji
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Storyboard Artist / Director / DoP/ Film Editor
I'm a young creative-minded person with big ideas for television and film media content. I am passionate toward my interests in current affairs, moreover how to visually assess their impacts within both the localised and wider political landscape.
I am currently finishing my 4-year course at the University of Glasgow to achieve a joint honours in both Film & Television Studies and Politics.
Some of my work in the production of film content
NIMROD'S*
*Set for release, mid 2023
I was approached by the writer/director to work on Nimrod's collaboratively as the Storyboarder in pre-production. For shooting, I was mainly responsible for maintaining the collaborative intent of the story as the film's DoP (Director of Photography).
Occasionally however, I was tasked with assisting the director in talking to the cast and crew, which involved suggesting slight adjustments that could be made to the lighting and actors' performances in addition to asking for silence on set. By working as an editor of the film, it was very rewarding to see hard graft come together in the sequencing of shots and I firmly believe I have maintained the original vision we had when adapting the script.
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It was a lot of fun to work with people on set who were passionate about making something together and I'm immensely proud of what our team accomplished. I look forward to its mid 2023 release after the final stage of colour grading and sound mixing is rounded up.
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Fictional Drama - 16 min
Location: Glasgow University Union, Glasgow
Our director/writer Neil Cadieux addressing film extras, while I frame the shot.
Location: St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh
Here's me (as Assistant Director & DoP) and Rae Smith (Sound Recordist) gathering sound and film roll for the INT. shots of the cathedral, we shot the majority of the scene EXT.
CHEAPER THAN THERAPY
(2022)
Poetry societies are present at almost every UK university you could name. But in fact, a Poetry Society had not existed in the 669 years before, in 2020, the papers were filed for the establishment of the Glasgow University Poetry Society.
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A focus on the challenges and commitments to the runnings of this newly established creative social hub - through the lens of the society's Chairman, Thomas Hearn.
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Documentary - 5 min
My input to the collaborative project was extensive.
I suggested the documentary story to fellow film students as a workable project when I envisioned the endpoint of the narrative - particularly crucial in any documentary storytelling to make the viewer feel that their time watching was well spent.
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I storyboarded many of the shots and had a hand in sequence editing, which was collaborative. In my role as Director, I found enjoyment in working in a documentary format as well as working with people's ideas for new shots or retaking interview moments with our subject. I was especially happy with how I worked calmly and effectively with the crew in organising and gathering multiple shots and perspectives from our final locational shoot at the Hillhead Bookclub, Glasgow, G12 8SJ.
SELFLESS (2019)
Told through narration, the viewer is treated to sequences of various people's lives while a man reads his testimony to being without a physical form of his own - his consciousness jumping from one body to another at the strike of midnight.
The man recount the fading connections to a multitudinous set of emotions felt through being a vessel in the lives of others.
Through a combination of audible testimony and visual accompaniment, the film manages to distill an essence of feeling this unlikely cosmic experience.
Fictional Drama - 5 min
This was the first film I scripted, directed, and edited using mid-range filming equipment and good editing software.
Various actors and locations were used, including those in Brighton, England and Fuerteventura, Las Palmas.