Assembly Speaker - 3 February 2025
Jonathan Glazer - Director and screen writer
Jonathan Glazer, parent of a former CSG Sixth form student, director, and screenwriter came in to speak to us in our assembly. Glazer, probably best known for his most recent film, the award-winning ‘Zone of Interest’, took the time to tell us about his professional journey into the film industry and answer the endless questions of eager sixth form creatives.
As a child, Glazer had a fond interest in cartoons and comic books, insisting that there’s “something to be said for comic books. It’s storytelling, isn’t it?” His father’s love of films and filmmaking meant that Glazer watched a variety of films growing up, and inherited an interest in the industry from an early age. He expressed his innate love of cinema as “it’s like a dream”, and, importantly, “a collective experience is a rare thing today”. After his A-levels, Glazer pursued an Art Foundation Year, where he started steering his work towards film through stop-frame animation. He initially knew very little about the process, but “just rolled my sleeves up and tried to figure out how this works”, because as many industry professionals would tell you, “doing is how you learn”.
After his Foundation Year, Glazer applied to film school and was rejected. Instead of losing spirit, the young film hopeful applied and was accepted for one of the few theatre design degrees in the country at the time, at Nottingham University. The next few years he spent developing and refining his craft, what he loved the most being “it was up to us to decide what we wanted from it”, referring to the freedom and variety of skill-training available. At Nottingham, Glazer started directing shows for his friends, directing a few music videos and plays here and there, and creating some short films, experimenting with his newfound abilities. He received a work placement to be a runner for a production company. When speaking of that experience, he described it as “magical for me to walk into something like that”, expressing his disbelief at the surreal sets and the man-power involved in just one commercial project. By the time he finished his degree, Jonathan Glazer knew that he wanted to be a director and screenwriter.
His first official job appeared before him when Glazer was contacted by someone from the production company he had done work experience with who wanted him to make a short corporate video about a trailer park - our guest used this story to emphasise the importance of connections in all industries. He also took the moment to say “there’s not one linear path through”, divulging how the two years following involved part-time jobs and no directing work whatsoever. It was after getting noticed by a director whilst working at a film trailer company that doors started opening in earnest for Glazer, and he began to make sponsored short films. He was off and running.
