Director, Exec Producer, Consultant
Whether as a director, director/producer or executive producer I’m passionate about bringing the best work to screen, telling those stories that provide a compelling and often funny window into the world wherever and however they are viewed.
A lifelong love of stories and storytelling has been informed by the amazing people encountered along the way – sometimes famous, often not. That real life curiosity has been the cornerstone for all my films, in documentary, drama, film or commercials. Along the way it’s translated into a fair number of weighty objects for the shelves and a great deal of directing experience, sometimes wielding a camera myself.
I built a highly successful company, Yipp Films Ltd, specialising in authored films across documentary, drama, film and commercials. I’ve often acted as a consultant helping companies grow.
Highlights to date
Documentary
Winner of 14 UK and International Awards including Emmy, BAFTA, RTS and Grierson
As Director
C4’s The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off was about a man dying of an horrific skin condition, EB. It was a black comedy and won many awards.
This was the first of an award-winning Geordie trilogy of single documentaries for C4 with Bollocks To Cancer and The Town That’s Looking For Love.
Since then I’ve concentrated on developing ambitious feature length documentaries.
As Executive Producer
Exec’d and co-created the RTS award winning artists’ film strand for C4’s Random Acts North.
I also oversaw The Geordie Jazz Man – festival favourite and independent RTS award winning Jazz feature doc.
I’ve had the pleasure of execing C5’s Careless Whiskers, an unauthorised biog of George Michael, among others.
Drama/Film
Winner of six international and UK awards as director and producer
Currently financing
King Of The Setu, a feature film written by Academy nominated writer Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Wolf Hall). An International Co-production between the UK (Yipp Films) and Estonia (Allflm), pre-production.
Before
My first film was an ITV1 RTS award winning drama, Starman. A Sky One improvised drama pilot My Celebrity Divorce featured Patrick Duffy, Bobby Ewing from Dallas, as a divorcing film star alongside a host of famous people playing themselves.
I directed a £1.5m ITV primetime feature length WW2 single drama, Joe Maddison’s War featuring Kevin Whately (The English Patient) and Sir Derek Jacobi (Gladiator).
A charity mockumentary, Greg Rutherford Snaps, allowed me to play with both drama and documentary for comedy.
As Exec Producer
Feature film adaptation of The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, Don’t Stop Me Now from Golden Horde Entertainment (US)
Commercials
Winner of Grand Prix and Gold Awards, Roses Creative Awards
Includes major campaigns for NatWest Bank, ASDA UK supermarkets, Colgate international (in Prague) and Axa Insurance.
The Natwest and ASDA campaigns were improvised documentaries with real people and, with ASDA, actors such as Julie Walters (Mamma Mia) to James Nesbitt (The Hobbit) with recent highlights being St John’s Ambulance and cancer awareness ad School Morning.
Others
Visiting lecturer at various film schools.
Co-founded Northern Stars, the North East’s youth film academy with Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema. In it’s fifteenth year it’s fed hundreds of young people into the industry and won many awards.
Developed multi-media project with Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller as part of Freedom City 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King receiving an honorary degree from Newcastle University, UK. Nov 2017.
Co-founded Freedom City and programmed the citywide programme of artistic responses to the anniversary of Dr King’s visit.
