About Me

I've always been interested in moving image. From a very young age I'd ask my parents how what I'd seen on TV was created and their answers only fuelled my interest. I'd often play around on my father's computer with Windows Movie Maker and Pivot Animator to create videos for myself. Being able to use a computer so proficiently from a young age was key for my future, unbeknownst to me at the time.

Two years into secondary school I decided I wanted to pursue a career in the media industry. This meant leaving secondary school, and A-Levels, to instead study a Film & TV BTEC at college, understanding that my academic weakness would only hinder my progression had I pursued the former.

In college I was able to get hands-on with hardware and software that was far closer to industry standard, some of which I'd end up using full-time later in life. I learned how to better manage my time, edit videos to higher standards - something that I had only previously taught myself - along with an improved overview of the film creation process, from pre-production to finishing. At the same time, my refined understanding of film creation helped drive my interest in computers and technology much further forward. That understanding of how hardware and software both impact the film creation process, and seeking efficiencies as a result, was important to me. While I was initially hesitant about university, it was clear it was the best path for me.

I studied Film at Solent University in Southampton. During my three years there I produced many short films for my degree and extra curricular activities (one of which won an award) and other less serious videos for my YouTube channel, all of which helped me understand filmmaking in different ways. The academic deep-diving into more advanced film concepts was beneficial and highly advantageous when given the opportunities to put the theory into practice in the form of more short films and my Final Major Project.

After finishing university, and being awarded a 2:1, I was offered the opportunity to intern at VCCP KIN (now Girl&Bear) for two weeks. After a one-week stint in the post production department I was taken on as an Edit Assist full time. 18 months later, I was promoted to MCR Supervisor. Several years later I am now the Technology Manager, where I combine my love of video and passion for technology to ensure the “making” departments of Girl&Bear are operating at maximum efficiency.

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Where to Find Me

Mastodon

A stream of my consciousness.
Views are my own, obviously.

BandCamp

My bygone era of music creation.
Previously only on Google Play Music.

YouTube

Another view into my past.
Now a home for my older videos.

A more professional me.
Perhaps I'm open to something new.

My Personal Highlights

Everything's A Miracle - Kinetic Typography

In my personal time, I spent hours upon hours recreating something I first made back in my college days - a kinetic typogrpahy music video for a song I adore.

This was part of my own creative development, forcing me to work smarter and efficiently whilst honing my skills in After Effects and other applications from the Adobe Creative Suite.

Closing Statement

For more than a decade I've been playing around with samples in various applications to create what I call music. It has always been just another creative outlet for me and was never meant to be anything more.

One day, I decided I was going to stop creating music. To sign off, I grabbed a load of my own personal favourites and spent hours upon hours remastering them to create Closing Statement.

Steptax

Currently, my main hobby and focus outside of work is on Steptax. This started as a home-built, home-run server built to host TeamSpeak for me and my friends while we played games together online.

While the physical server has since been taken out of service, its spirit lives on in a small home lab run from my home. I now develop and run services like Discord bots, applications and websites, including this one, for fun.

Cloud Archiving Workflow

We chew through a lot of media at Girl&Bear. Storing it all along with all of the associated project files can turn into a nightmare if not properly managed, and doing this within budget is a challenge in and of itself!

I was a key part of a small team that came up with Girl&Bear's new cloud-first archiving solution which we managed to do on a fraction of the budget initially forecasted.