Award-winning Yorkshire film-maker Rebecca is going back to nature

“I’ve always been interested in nature but when lockdown started that’s when I got really into it. I made some nature films over lockdown which won awards at film festivals. It was just something we picked to do as we were bored – we looked out of the window and thought we’ll film it,” she said.

Rebecca and Dean took a chance and entered their film into The Flight Deck Film Festival in New York where it was listed as a finalist in the Best Short Film category. And The Wild Garden then won the Best Poster Art award from the Los Angeles Motion Picture Festival and was voted Best Cinematography Documentary Film at the Sweden Film Awards.

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It has led to Rebecca volunteering at Old Moor, which combines her love of nature and creating films.

“We were surprised to win awards because when we set out to do it is was for something to do but when we submitted them to festivals we just started winning more and more. Both me and my dad were chuffed because we weren’t expecting it.

“While I was at Barnsley College I was looking for a different experience so I asked Old Moor if there was any voluntary work for filming and photography.

“The way it works is that I speak to Julian (Julian Mason visitor experience manager for RSPB at Old Moor) and he tells me what I need to film in a day. Sometimes I’m filming the newts and other times I’m filming birds – if there’s a bird that hasn’t been there for a while they ask me to try and film it or take some pictures. It varies depending on what’s there.”

As well as gaining more experience in film making Rebecca is also learning the unpredictability of nature.

She said: “One of the hardest ones to do is when they ask me to film the spoonbills. They’re very rare, when they first came to Old Moor everyone was very excited. The first time I went to film them they weren’t there, but that’s nature isn’t it! You have to be patient.

“Old Moor is definitely becoming more varied with wildlife. Things like the spoonbills, people might not have predicted that 30 years ago."

A love of Yorkshire runs through Rebecca’s other projects. “I did a film called Regeneration, which was about coal mining, looking at how times were back then and how they are now. One of the pits – Wath Main – that I used in the film was where Old Moor is now. I interviewed Julian about what it was like back then,” she said.

“We’re also doing a film about the Yorkshire coast so we’ve been doing a lot of filming up and down the coast, and we’re doing one on Stan Laurel looking at his Yorkshire connections. People don’t know that Laurel and Hardy performed in Yorkshire, they think it was all American based, I find it really interesting because you don’t know what’s on your doorstep until you do your research and ask people questions.”

Regeneration was listed ninth in best selling documentaries on Amazon which shows there is an appetite for Rebecca’s work. And there is more to come.

“After I did the first film I went to Sheffield Hallam University and did film making, I left last year with a first class honours degree.

“One of my dreams is working on a major television programme. I’ve always had an interest in soaps so doing the filming on Coronation Street would be the dream."

While Rebecca’s filming is vital in showing the work that the RSPB, the UK’s largest nature conservation charity does, the organisation is also raising funds by teaming up with Omaze for their latest prize draw which guarantees one lucky person to win a stunning waterfront house in Cornwall worth £4.5 million – along with £250,000 in cash.

Omaze has guaranteed a minimum donation of £1 million from the partnership.

Draw entries for the Omaze Million Pound House Draw, Cornwall, are available now at omaze.co.uk. The draw closes on Monday August 26 for online entries and Wednesday August 28 2024 for postal entries.