Filmmaker

At heart I am a writer / director...
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A writer’s job is to be the first author of the story.

A director’s job is to tell story using sound and picture. They are the person with the eye on the prize, that of bringing a unifying vision to a collection of creatives working together for a single goal – to bring to life the best possible world of the story.

What that means to me, I think the great Andrei Tarkovsky sums up well…

“All that matters is that their vision should be whole, and that every word of the script should be dear to them and have passed through his (or her) own creative experience. For among the piles of written pages, and the actors, and the places chosen for locations, and even the most brilliant dialogue, and the artist’s sketches, there stands only one person: the director, and they alone, as the filter in the creative process of filmmaking.”

Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time

See below for a selection of trailers from films that are out there now playing festivals and winning awards across the globe.

Lap of The Gods

A short fantasy drama about a young woman’s fight against power, a universal tale with a mythological basis and a contemporary commentary on empowerment.

A tale of family and one young woman’s refusal to succumb to the will of the gods but instead a desire to write her own destiny. Shot in New Mexico, USA and with the wonders of technology edited between the American Southwest and East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

Score by Gerald Fried who was the composer for legendary director Stanely Kubrick on the first five films he directed. Location sound recorded by Oscar-nominated David Brownlow.

I didn’t write this one. It came into being out of a different project that Adam Kirk, editor and myself revisited from the existing material and came up with a different story that better reveals what as the director not writer I felt the true story was about – resistance to power and empowerment of a young woman.

20 Ways

Okay, I love comedy. It is hard to make. Even harder to write but I love comedy, especially dark comedy.

20 ways is a satire on crossing borders that appears to be set in war time germany, but has a modern twist. It has a point laced with humor.

Edited by Adam Kirk, who is an editor I have worked with for a number of years. Adam and I share a language to storytelling.

Music by the legendary Gerald Fried (Kubrick’s composer on his first five films) who came out of retirement to knock this score out of the park.

The story is proving amazingly popular right now and has won festival awards for best comedy short  in London, Niagra, Phoenix as well as an honorable mention in the Florance Film Awards. 

Wilfred

The story of Wilfred deals with life in the trenches in World War One as experienced by artists, centered around the death of the poet Wilfred Owen.Heading the cast was Michael Higgs as Owen along with the voices of Tony Harrison, Sir Derek Jacobi, Robert Duncan & Edward Fox.

The trailer was edited by Adam Kirk and the film features a full score by composer Dave Bainbridge. The film combines a mix of color with black & white and also mixes animation with live-action.

Winner of several international awards including the Beverley Hills Art House festival with honourable mentions from Hollywood Gold Awards, New York Movie awards & Paris Film Awards.

 

Cinema of Horror 2

Did I say, I like comedy? Again, a great score, this time by Jiang Li. An homage to inspirational cinema from filmmakers out of Asian countries.

COH2 is a story of cinema for those who are inspired to watch, make, learn and be part of the story of film.

The imaginative mixing of story genre and fantasy

A tale of story, characters, imagination, and dreams.

 

Animation – Strange Meeting

Drawn animation. 

Created as a part of a wider drama project on artists’ reaction to war time experiences. Strange Meetingfeatures an extract from Wilfred Owen’s poem by the same name. 

 

The piece is voiced by the modern-day war poet, Tony Harrison. The vision for the piece came from French World War One war poster art. Written, Directed and Produced by Peter M. Kershaw with visual realization for the animation sequence directed by animator David Bunting. With a stunning new edit by Adam Kirk and score by Dave Bainbridge. Produced by Duchy Parade Films.

 

 

Night’s Dark Agents

Short films for a filmmaker often work as an artist’s sketchbook or should be seen as such by the filmmaker. They provide a place to try, test, experiment, explore – story, collaboration, techniques, styles and ideas, a way to learn and grow in their craft of storytelling.

Some stories also are best told in short form, that is true, so sometimes the short format fits the tale being told but it would be limiting to only see short films as telling short stories.

Creatively, I have set aside a span of time to work on writing down a series of stories I would like to tell. These have taken many different formats appearing in play, novel, screenplay, graphic novel forms. All would be fun to see produced as a feature film, eventually.

To make a film requires the collaboration of a team of people but writing can be a solo affair. Creatively, feeling a completed vision at least in one form is rewarding.

The Night’s Dark Agents is a good example of shooting a short film to test an idea for a feature or novel. Seeing the story tested out in film allowed me to work on the writing and evolve the idea. I have been working on this story idea around other writing, and it is still very much alive in my imagination.

The Astronomer’s Sun

is a multi-award-winning stop-motion drama about Henry, his mechanical bear, and the true nature of what it means to have humanity.

This film is also noteworthy as it is the start of my creative collaboration with long time editor Adam Kirk who had been previously working at Yorkshire Television. I was working as a producer & director at Tyne Tees TV and later Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television.

Produced by Peter M. Kershaw and David Bunting for Duchy Parade Films. Directed by Simon Cartwright & Jessica Cope. Animation Steve Warne.

Editor Adam Kirk. Sound Design Dave Aston.

London based Channel 4 were behind the commission of The Astronomer’s Sun. It was a project to develop and guide new writer/director talent.

One element that as producers we added to the project that we are most proud about was the addition of the character of the bear. The bear steals the show.

Everything about this stop-motion animation short film is done by hand, not computer generated. It gives the piece a tactile reality which audiences love, and the film has garnered Awards across the globe in several major film festivals. What I love most is it is entirely visual storytelling without the use of dialogue to hide behind, it is real cinema.