“Be careful honey, but have fun… but not too much fun, you know.... Learn stuff, that’s what this is all about.” My mum repeated for the fifth time since I had woken up. I groaned as she kissed me again, I wasn’t even going still.

“Mum, I’m going in three hours, stop kissing me ...”I said, irritated, and stomped upstairs, into my room. There, I closed the door loudly and kicked it, careful not to damage the colourful posters that decorated the white door. I examined the posters closely; all films posters, of course; of all genders and periods. Breakfast at Tiffany’s a wonder film with the wonderful Audrey Hepburn, The Others a thriller starring the famous actress Nicole Kidman, Titanic the classic, award-winning film starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Blanchett.

“A film camp, how strange…And how great!” I laughed as I threw myself onto my bed, hugging Mr. Waggles. I looked around my room, I would miss it. I would miss sleeping in my comfortable bed every night, falling asleep to the Bram Stocker’s Dracula Soundtrack. I would miss staying up until 3am, talking to my friends on AIM, searching for future film releases, and participating on debates about films. I sighed, and got up. Opening my closet for the hundredth time that morning, I looked through everything, making sure I hadn’t forgotten anything essential. It said they gave you a camera and all the essential things for film-making, but I couldn’t rely on a cheap camera to work when I needed it. My Olympus camera that my father had given me for my seventeenth birthday was safely packed on my suitcase, next to my Mac laptop. How nice of my dad to give me the camera before my actual birthday -my birthday was two weeks away from now- so I could use it in the camp. Of course, he had done it to gain my pardon for abandoning us, but those things weren’t easily forgiven.

My father, Jack Wilkins, was a successful business man who had everything he wanted in life, but a wife. My mum, Jacqueline Evans, was a hard-working middle-class girl, who had a big family that relied on her studies. Just like a fairytale, my mum used to tell me, where the poor, hardworking girl is rescued by the handsome, rich prince, that’s whisks her away to a palace, and they live happily ever after. What a load of rubbish. My dad had promised the world to my innocent mother, and she, believing him, had taken it. The wedding was over-the-top, like all Disney Movies. It was my mum’s dream, the perfect wedding. An orchestra playing, hundreds of people, an exquisite banquet, and of course, the dream dress. No words could describe it, that’s why she had shown it to me; it was a princess dress, no doubt. Even now, after watching so many weddings in films, I can’t find a dress that’s as beautiful as my mother’s. When I tried to describe it in my diary, I couldn’t do it, I was at loss for words.