Wintec graduate off to a good start

Wintec graduate Jackson Croucher is not a fan of public speaking, so when approached to be graduation student guest speaker he decided to sing his speech as he played the ukulele.

Despite the singing, Croucher, 20, is not a music graduate. He graduated yesterday with a Bachelor of Media Arts (Visual Arts) Moving Image at the Founders Theatre ceremony.

“I don’t really like public speaking, I feel more comfortable like that,” he said. He also hoped to have added a bit more fun to the ceremony.

Having studied design through high school and after receiving an NZQA Scholarship Award in Art Design in 2009, Croucher started his Bachelor of Media Arts (visual arts) intending to study graphic design.

The first year of the degree at Wintec is very general, but it was “the moving image intro [that] grabbed me”, he said.

Croucher always enjoyed films, but said he chose moving image over graphic design so he could tell a story with his work .

In his final year at Wintec, Croucher completed a film project which he described as the most enjoyable yet challenging part of the degree. It put everything he had learned into practice.

Inspired by Quentin Tarantino, Croucher wrote, directed, designed graphics for, and edited his award winning short film ‘Baby/Bank’. Using characteristics of Tarantino’s films, the script was dialogue heavy and focused on characters more than the action.

“It’s what people go to see because stories are ultimately about people,” he said.

Croucher was awarded the Screen Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Film-making for the film. It was also publicly screened for the first time in February this year at the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival.

During his third year, Croucher also scored a three-week internship in London at Mentorn Media & MSV Post Production.

Upon arriving in London, Croucher found there was no real plan for his internship, as the contact he had arranged it with had moved on from the company. However this meant he could cruise around and look over everyone’s shoulders, getting to see a bit of everything.

“Jackson adapted to our small but friendly team right away and wasn’t fazed by anything that was thrown at him… I would certainly employ him if he decides to come back to London,” MSV Head of Post Production Edurne Bengoa said.

Although he would like to work overseas at some point, Croucher likes New Zealand as his home and has no plans of moving abroad permanently.

Croucher lives in Auckland where he is on the job hunt, making contacts and setting up meetings.

He has completed freelance motion graphics for Nimbus Media in January, but says freelance or contract work is really irregular.

So for now, “I’m just taking whatever I can get,” he said.