I think back to where the idea for the Lion came from and I don’t feel that I really wrote the script. When you work in corporate video long enough, you can draw on enough painful experiences for a script to write itself.
I’ve worked as a commercial video director for 6 years and I’ve seen first hand that the world of corporate video is a strange place. A place where corporate sensibilities mix with creative ideas, where budgets are tight, time pressures are constant and the client is never wrong. As a filmmaker with artistic ambitions I’ve had to find out the hard way; creative integrity rarely makes it out alive.
is a UK based award winning filmmaker. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Video Production, a Diploma in Filmmaking from the New York Film Academy and a Masters Degree in Film and Television production. He has 6 years of commercial experience working for an industry leading video production agency as a Senior Creative and in-house director. When not developing ideas for brands or on set directing, he will be cooking up his next high concept short film idea. Upcoming projects include a period comedy about a Duke whose hand gets a mind of its own, and a family drama that takes place in a caravan.
It was a long day in a studio session and we were recording a voice over for an interactive software demonstration. I was directing, there was the client and the voice over artist in the room. I can remember vividly the veil of professionalism growing thinner and thinner.
Something the client said with a conviction that baffles me to this day made me realise... my next short film is playing out in front of me:
‘Imagine when you say the line, that you’ve just seen a lion’.
Needless to say, we never quite managed to hit the levels of enthusiasm that the client was hoping for. It was only a few hours after the recording session had finished that I wrote my first draft, and The Lion was born.