Billie JD Porter

Little makes us laugh as hard as today's featured creative Billie JD Porter. We've been hooked on her shamelessly dry humour and sharp tongue for yonks, yet the writer and documentary makers only 22...say what! With teeth well and truly cut, establishing herself as one of the most ballsy interviewers out there, we excitedly turned the proverbial table onto Billie. Hanging in Hackney Downs, we ask the dumbass questions "Half My Life So Far" was too damn good to cover... So how's life in the big smoke treating you? I love London but its quite easy to get distracted here and forget that the rest of the world exists 'till you leave and you’re like… oh this sucks. Describe a typical day… It really varies. I’m not a morning person so unless I have an early meeting I’ll probably lie face down in bed whimpering until I have a reason to get up. My schedule is a bit odd, I’ll be away for months working crazy hours then get back and enjoy the peace and quiet for about a week before going mad. How do you like to get lazy? Eating multiple Big Macs in front of the Food Network. Who is your hero? North-West How would you describe your fashion taste? I’m quite lazy. Generally I wear whatever is closest to my bed in the morning or the same stuff 'till it starts to get holes in it. The moth infestation that’s been following me around for the past four years hasn’t helped matters TBH. Today we're shooting amongst Hackneys gardens,plants and cacti seem to be everywhere in fashion right now right? I don't know why we're all so obsessed with the prickly creatures. I’ve been wearing quite garish Hawaiian shirts for years, so I guess its cool my friends are less embarrassed to sit next to me when I’m dressed as Ace Ventura now. Talk us through the looks you've styled today? Firstly I'm wearing the Pom Pom Dress  because the collar on this is so cool. I used to have a jesters hat that would probably go quite well with it… but the black and white Scribble Shirt is my favourite. I wear it with nothing on the bottom on hot days, its just about long enough! I guess when I’m choosing not to dress like a maniac I could team it with a big denim jacket or something baggy so it looks less preppy. Finally i picked the Kit Katty Shirt as I really like bold cartoon prints, but when they're kind of toned down and pastel. I have a big M&M t-shirt it reminds me of. We love your 'mockumentaries', particularly your take on animal conventions ! How do you not crack into laughter filming these people? I did crack up, for awkwardly long periods of time between takes. In fact when we were making that whole "Hottest Party" series I felt like I was in a constant state of mania. We’d go to these huge, starkly lit conventions and only be able to hold it together for a few interviews at a time then have to sit and breathe . Speaking of which, what is your favourite animal? An echidna puggle… because look at that thing! Who would you say is the biggest weirdo you’ve interviewed so far? Well eccentrics aren't necessarily weirdos. I made a documentary about celebrity super fans for Vice and all the guys in that were pretty extreme. In a good way though ! We had one guy in it who was trying to get the world record of celebrity portraits tattooed. Anyone who has a "The Corrs" tattoo gets my vote. What is your main goal when creating these documentary pieces?  Both to entertain and inform… I think the main thing I try and avoid doing is moralizing the issues we’re covering either way. I think that a lot of ‘yoof’ (cringe) programming can be pretty patronizing or always has to have a 'lesson' at the end but really life isn’t always like that. Its about light and shade, you can cover serious topics with a sense of humour. I think you have to. Can you talk us through the process of filming? It depends on the production but I’ve been lucky enough to work with teams where the whole thing has been quite collaborative. I’m a bit of a control freak so I usually take part in the early preliminary stages of research so we can all be on the same page about the sort of ‘story’ we want to be telling. Every crew is completely different; sometimes you’ll get on and sometimes you don’t. If you don’t get on with the people you’re working with it can be kind of isolating. I write my own questions and commentary…I don’t really understand presenters that don’t. It wouldn’t feel like an authored piece of work if it wasn’t properly your voice narrating everything. How would you advise a budding presenter or documentary maker? Its pretty easy for people to do things themselves these days. if you want to be a writer then you can easily showcase all your work online, also you can get pretty good equipment for iPhone like rigs and radio mics if you wanted to film something. If you think you have a good idea you should just go ahead and do it, because it’s the only way you’ll be able to have complete creative control anyway. Enlighten us, what is the best thing you’ve ever seen on the internet? Probably the YouTube video “Celine Dion is amazing”... or another time killer is to search "me singing…" then any song title. and watch loads of kids badly covering pop songs. Admit it, who’s the guiltiest pleasure you follow on Instagram? Craig David is pretty good on Insty…  but obviously you don’t actually follow the people you’re secretly stalking, well I don’t anyway. I search for them then sometimes accidentally click 'like' which is worse because they know it wasn’t even there on your feed. Awk. Dish us some food for thought... I woz ere. Ere I woz. Woz I ere? Course I woz... just some inspirational toilet graffiti I once saw. -------------------------------- For your daily dose of sarcasm make sure to follow Billie's Twitter and Instagram. Photography : Ellie Smith Stylist : Kristina Golightly Hair / MUA : Anna Payne Photography assistant : Alexandra Davenport