Filmmaker Statement

We shot The Driver in early 2019 on a GH5 with a home-built anamorphic lens. The shoot was designed to be an inexpensive cathartic meditation – that I honestly thought I’d never finish – whilst I dealt with my first proper breakup. Prior to this, I spent three years working as a Production Runner on shows shooting in New Zealand. Feeling like a passenger in my own life watching people come and go, I found myself mulling over how many of my life’s most important experiences had taken place within the four walls of a car. This feeling of being boxed in, combined with a fresh heartbreak, formed the basis of the story and its single-angle perspective.   After spending several weeks painfully syncing the footage before working my day job, I abandoned editing and moved onto flashier “new things.” It wasn’t until a few years later that I had some time off - and enough distance emotionally - to realise the beauty and rawness in what we’d shot. So I dived back in, and I'm happy we did.