About Me

I'm based in Argyll, Scotland and for around 30 years, film making has been an absolute passion for me. I enjoy every aspect of it from pre-production through to post.

On this site you can see examples of my short films, music videos, documentaries and promos. I’ve also made a no-budget feature that was a massive learning experience and has left me with a huge appetite for making more. So please get in touch if you would like to collaborate.

I’ve written, directed, filmed and edited several films with local primary schools, in which the staff and pupils have acted and been a part of the crew. For these projects I also created menu-driven DVDs with full artwork and special features.

Filming "Haddon Dene Super School" 2015

"Haddon Dene Super School" Artwork

Filming "Haddon Dene Super School" 2015

"Haddon Dene Super School" Artwork

History

I got the filmmaking bug when my father upgraded his Super-8mm cine camera to a Panasonic VHS camcorder for capturing family memories. Once the footage started accumulating, I began to get interested in editing. Computer NLEs were in their infancy and certainly out of reach of the average consumer, so the only way to edit was to play back on the camcorder and record to a new tape in a VCR, pausing to cut out the unwanted material. A few wedding videos later and I began dreaming on making a movie. Around that time some school friends had an idea for making a film and knew that I had access to a camcorder (a very rare thing back then). So I ended up co-writing, filming, directing, doing special makeup effects, acting in and editing the 40 minute masterpiece 😄

Fast forward to the late 1990's and I reluctantly traded in my trusty Commodore Amiga 4000 for a shiny new Windows PC with video capture board and Adobe Premiere version 5 - one of the few NLEs available at the time within my budget. With this I could digitise my VHS tapes (in real-time) and create frame-accurate edits - no more VCR to VCR copying!

There were no YouTube videos to learn from back then (in fact there was no YouTube), just the large printed manual, a monthly magazine (Computer Video) and practice.

My next upgrade was in the camera department - my own Sony Mini-DV camcorder. I couldn't believe how amazing the picture quality was compared to VHS! Several cameras later and the DSLR video revolution provided the ability to create more cinematic looking images at a lower cost than ever before, and transferring footage for editing no longer required a capture device - just file copies.

These days I enjoy shooting mainly with my Blackmagic Cinema Camera and editing with Davinci Resolve.