My number one concern during any project I make – either motion or narrative – is the audience. I love playing with their expectations – laying the seed of an idea, leading them down a path, only to reveal to them that they’ve been mislead; distracted by the fanfare of the film while the seed was growing in an entirely different direction. This can sometimes be hard to do in commercial work (I’ve often have to stop myself from going out of my way to squeeze it in) , and so my fiction films are the playground that keep me sane; where I have the luxury of creating without the constraints of a client’s sensibilities and create the kind of expectation-subverting work that I really love watching.
I’m not a discreet filmmaker that makes quiet, contemplative films that deliver you feelings via osmosis. First and foremost, my great ambition is to entertain with interesting characters who find themselves in equally interesting and visually rich worlds – and then using those visuals as integral pillars of the narrative, rather than just as a pretty backdrop. I want my films to feel like living worlds; where the setting develops and changes throughout the film as much as the characters themselves.
As a filmmaker, I feel I’m at my best when I’m involved in all aspects of production – from building sets to adjusting levels of sound effects – all in the name of crafting a film that meets and exceeds its initial spark of ambition.
While I’ve made more than the three shorts featured below, I only really count these as my ‘official shorts’ – the others slot far more into my ‘educational experience’ category than something that an audience might find enjoyable.
I vividly remember that Hotel Deluxe was the first film that I felt proud of – staying up late working on it powered by that seemingly endless energy that can sometimes spill out of a project.
FLIT was my next film – also made during my time at Edinburgh Collect of Art – and was a significant step up from Hotel Deluxe in terms of both narrative and visual ambition.
And then COVID came and gave us all some quiet thinking time and during that time I couldn’t stop thinking about a hopeless botanist going through a lifetime of trying to classify the tomato only to succumb to a deadly slip on a banana peel just as he seems to have made any progress. Bananacide was a massive step up from any of my other projects. Even when I watch it now I still can’t quite believe it’s something we’ve produced. At thirty-three minutes long, I hope it serves to prove my ability to craft a story that holds an audience’s extended attention.
While I haven’t yet reached the coveted milestone of ‘debut feature’, I’ve got an almost never-ending list of compelling film ideas tucked away in an undisclosed location, and I’ve spent time developing the particular ones below into more fully fleshed-out stages. I’ve included a logline for each project and a trio of comparable existing films, elements of which could be combined to give a quick sense of my project’s tone and approach.
The production of Bananacide taught me a lot, but its greatest lesson has been in giving me an understanding of the scale of effort needed from me to pull off a feature film and how the director’s role is to ultimately shepherd a project from its inception to completion, keeping the film’s core kernel alive and gleaming as it goes through every stage of production. Bananacide goes above and beyond what I set out to do and so I now feel more ready than ever to deliver a feature that surprises, engages, and entertains cinema audiences.
If you’d like to find out more about any project or to hear what else I have up my sleeve, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via the Contact page – I’m always keen to discuss any of my ideas further.
Set seventy-five years after the events of Bananacide, an agent of the deeply powerful Plant Classification Bureau pursues an unclassified plant across society to hide its existence from the world.
The last emperor of the Incas, a colonial relic hunter, and a 20th century explorer's timelines intertwine inexplicably through the mists of Machu Picchu.
After discovering where all the cut hair from hairdressers goes, a desperate bald-serum salesman turns the revelation to his advantage.
Neither written nor directed by me, I’ve produced one documentary feature film and there isn’t really a better place to link to it than on this page, so it’s included below for your viewing pleasure:
