Are you one of those people who ‘never forgets a face’? Or like me, are good with names, not so good at faces? We all see or recognise people in different ways, remembering different things. Ask three people to describe a person they’ve met once and they’ll all give you different descriptions.

But a super recogniser is something completely different. Being able to recognise faces in crowds, from grainy photographs, from a distance, even with faces partially-covered, the super recogniser has the ability to pick a face from a crowd, even after having only seen it briefly.

Super recognisers are able to memorise and recall faces with astonishing accuracy, often having seen them only once. But what exactly does this mean?

HOW DID YOU FIND OUT ABOUT YOUR SKILL?

“I can recognise faces easily – I have a better than average ability to remember and recall numerous faces, perhaps having only seen them once or twice for short periods of time. 

“I was on maternity leave a few years back and was filling time during night feeds with surveys and answering random quizzes (as you do). This one particular quiz about recognising faces caught my eye. I did the quiz and scored 100% and filled in my information for the University of Greenwich who then contacted me to do a couple more in depth questions and answers.

“I scored in the highest bracket and they invited me to become a registered super recogniser. This means that I have access to job opportunities where a super recogniser may be needed. This is things like big events where they may be on the lookout for a criminal and only have grainy CCTV footage for me to recognise him/her from. I can spot them.

“I’m a nightmare to watch films with. I see an actor and know I have seen them before and I’ll rack my brains until I can name them and the film/TV programme they were in before. I worry sometimes that people think I’m rude because I usually recognise everyone I have ever spoken to, even if it was a random for two minutes in a bar three years ago. It means I often won’t say hello to people when I pass them at the supermarket or wherever because people don’t usually recognise me back.”

WHAT KIND OF WORK IS INVOLVED?

“I belong to the Association of Super Recognisers. You go through levels where you do further training to fine tune your skills. You can then go on to apply for job opportunities, and work your way up to work for the police and government agencies.

“I’m always fascinated by seeing how light hits people’s faces as it casts shadows. When it comes to looking at faces on CCTV or mugshot, I look at, say, how close together someone’s eyes are, or how their ears sit on their heads. Which must sound really bizarre to some people but I do it without even thinking about it. 

“From a security point of view, the implications of not fulfilling the job requirement is huge. I am currently doing training to hopefully work with the police. I haven’t yet, due to having children and it means time away from home. But I am definitely working towards it. It’s serious stuff! I would love to have the time to eventually do something like this.”

DO YOU FEEL DIFFERENT TO OTHER PEOPLE?

“As I’ve nothing to compare it to, I’m unsure how other people see faces. But I’m also a makeup artist so do look at people’s bones structure and distinguishing features all the time.

“I wonder how other people see faces. I tend to over-analyse and overthink all the time in all aspects of my life. People’s faces are just another ‘thing’. It’s never to judge or anything like that. I will scrutinise the details in an instant but it’s second nature to me. 

“It impacts my relationships with people. As mentioned before, I think people will think I’m a bit of a weirdo if I was to say hi to them and they didn’t recognise me back, so I tend not to, unless someone says hi to me first. Also, I’m quite socially awkward so it definitely affects how I make an impression with new people and I worry what people think of me. I ‘think’ people believe I’m a bit stand-offish at first.”

CAN YOU SPOT OTHER THINGS, LIKE EMOTIONS TOO?

“I can read people’s emotions quite well. I’m very good at being able to tell if someone is lying. Body language fascinates me and little things that people do subconsciously when lying I can pick up on very quickly. 

“I would imagine if you wanted to brush up your skills you could train to improve, but I think you would really have to change the way you look at people. Some may find hard, especially in social situations if you aren’t used to it. 

“I love that I am a ‘super-recogniser’ – it sounds great doesn’t it?! I love that I have a skill that not a lot of people have. I wouldn’t see it as a hindrance, although my general overthinking can be sometimes. But the ability to be able to recognise so many people who come in and out of my life is pretty cool in my eyes.”

If you’re interested to find out if you’re a super recogniser there’s a test on the University of Greenwich website.

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post The secret life of a super recogniser appeared first on Silver Magazine.

In 2016 Directors UK found that of 2,500 films made in the UK over the last 10 years, only 13% were directed by women. Not only that, we were disappointed to learn that on average, female directors will direct fewer films in their career, and are less likely to receive a second, third or fourth directing job. In other words, numbers are low for women directors in general but they get even lower as women age.

It’s time to do something about this! Whilst we champion talent from both (all!) sexes here at Silver, we think perhaps it’s time to redress the balance a bit?

WOMEN OVER FIFTY FESTIVAL
The Women Over 50 Film Festival (WOFFF) is an international film festival aiming to redress this age and gender imbalance. This celebration of women over 50 in front of and behind the camera is launching its third annual weekend of films and activities for older women and their friends.
The festival takes place on 16th & 17th September 2017 in Brighton, East Sussex, UK and organisers are now putting out the final call for global short film submissions. More than 90 have been received to date from all over the world and the deadline for submissions is 31st July.

Festival Director Nuala O’Sullivan said: “One of our goals this year is to reach a wider, even more diverse audience. We want to raise awareness of our film festival – how it deals with age and gender issues, as well as how it tackles older people’s social isolation in Brighton, the UK and beyond. We want to invite people to become part of the WOFFF family as festival filmmakers, audience members, workshops participants or, for those not able to attend the festival, as part of the WOFFF online community”.

WOFFF 2016 award Best Drama winner

This unique two-day festival will also feature an all-female panel event, filmmaker Q&As, and workshops on making a film on your smart phone. Plus the tips and tricks of shooting great drama from TV director Tracey Rooney (Holby City and Coronation Street).

We’re very much looking forward to the launch of WOFFF on Thursday 14 September with a screening of Mamma Mia! at the Duke of York’s Picturehouse at Preston Circus Brighton.

This is the perfect choice as it not only stars three strong, older women – Meryl Streep, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski – but also has three strong, older women behind the camera – writer Catherine Johnson, producer Judy Craymer and director Phyllida Lloyd. It’s a Silver tour de force!

WOFFF closes on the Sunday evening with an awards ceremony and jury prizes for all winning filmmakers for several categories including Best Drama, Best Experimental film and the all-important Audience Choice Award.

HOW TO SUBMIT
The rules for submitting a film to the festival are simple. Each film must:

• have a woman over 50 at the heart of it on screen, or have a woman over 50 in the core creative team (writer, director or producer)
• be no more than 20 minutes in length for drama, animation and experimental or no more than 30 minutes for documentary
• be in English or have English subtitles

If you have an entry to submit you can do so by clicking HERE and here at Silver we’d love to hear about it too so let us know if you get involved!

For more information about the Women Over 50 Film Festival 2017, visit www.wofff.co.uk

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The post Women over Fifty Film Festival calling in talent from directors now… appeared first on Silver Magazine.