From 17th November 2003 - 7th June 2007, Ellie was Undercover artist-in-residence at Broadway Cinema in Nottingham. By surreptitiously taking on the role of part-time usher, she managed to gain a valuable insight into the inner workings of the cinema. As well as vastly expanding her knowledge of contemporary film, she also learnt a great deal about the idiosyncrasies of Broadway’s staff and punters.
To record the time she spent in this role, Ellie kept a record of every film she watched whilst on shift. For this specially commissioned screen-based work she created an animated notebook which documents these films one-by-one. Anecdotes from shifts, plot synopses and film ratings and displayed alongside the increasing cumulative time, which after three-and-a-half years and 207 films, amounts to more than 16 days of solid viewing.
I’ve Been Watching You was screened continuously in the Broadway Cafébar from 14th June - 31st July. It then toured to Showroom Cinema in Sheffield from 1st - 31st August and finally to Filmhuis Den Haag from 20th - 22nd September where it formed part of Todaysart Festival 2007.
In August 2006 Ellie officially ‘gave up’ data collecting. I’ve Been Watching You was her final major project based on data collected about her everyday routine. Since 9th November 2010, Ellie has been volunteering as a part-time usher at Glasgow Film Theatre, where she normally works one evening a week.
