Biographies

Harry Richards – Freelance Film Maker and Photographer

Harry is a freelance film producer, director and photographer, pursuing a passion he has had since the tender age of 11. He graduated from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth in 2002, after producing several award winning short films, including ‘In your Face’, which won the Best in Brief Award at the Kodak Student Commercial Awards, and the film ‘Same Difference’, which was voted audience favourite at Outfest in Los Angeles. Harry has worked on shoots for Wizzard (Fiat & McDonalds), Captain Courageous (Electrasy) and Babelfish (X Box), with clients including The Discovery Channel, Primary Soccer and Hallmark.

‘Still Life’, the film that will be screened at the Symposium, was directed and produced by Harry, and won the Jury Award for Outstanding Achievement in Short Film Making at Newport Beach Film Festival in 2005.

Becky Waters– Senior Modeller and Texture Paint Artist

Becky has worked in the VFX industry for just over 5 years, and is currently a senior modeller and texture paint artist at Double Negative. For the past 8 months she has been working on the film adaptation of ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Prior to this she has worked on films such as ‘Doom’, ‘Sahara’, ‘Chronicles of Riddick’, ‘LOXG’, ‘Die Another Day’, ‘Harry Potter 1 and 2’, and ‘Black Hawk Down’. She has also worked on a TV series called ‘Randall and Hopkirk Deceased 2’.

Justin Kelly – Producer

Justin qualified as a solicitor in September 2000 at Barlow Lyde & Gilbert. He specialised in copyright and trade mark law and subsequently worked in the IP litigation team at the London office of Osborne Clarke. In June 2004, he started out as a producer of feature films and has since been a runner, production manager, location manager, first assistant director, production assistant and producer on short films and features.

Justin is the author of the "Intellectual Property and Films" chapter in "The UK Film Finance Handbook 2005/6" (www.ukfilmfinance.com) and he now divides his time between several different jobs, including producer of the feature film ‘How To Be’ ( www.howtobemovie.com);  VP for Business Affairs for the American film ‘Seven Arts International’, and Head of Business Affairs for Pocket Visions Ltd, a UK documentary exhibition and distribution company

( www.pocketvisions.co.uk).

Oliver Irving – Director

Oliver has been making films ever since he could hold a camera. He attended BournemouthFilmSchooland his graduation film ‘New World’, which was shot on location at Wilton House (famous for such films as ‘Barry Lyndon’ and ‘The Madness of King George’), starred Malcolm Tierney (‘Star Wars’ and ‘Braveheart’). The film played at festivals in the UK and the rest ofEuropeand received praise from industry professionals (as seen below). On leaving Film School, Oliver assisted on the feature film 'Yes' by Sally Potter, and as well as directing an award winning short film (under a pseudonym) has been developing the feature film ‘How To Be’.

Praise for Oliver’s graduation film, ‘New World’:

"Congratulations. I really like your film. Good choice of music and well used. Interesting and enjoyable. EXCELLENT." – Jan Harlan (producer for Stanley Kubrick)

"I really enjoyed it. I thought for the probable lack of money you did an amazing job. I thought that as a director you had a real visual aesthetic, and the relationship to sound and music worked for me as well. And of course the acting was on the mark...So what's next?" – Andy Fierberg ("Double A Films" New York, producer of ‘Secretary’, ‘The Next Big Thing’ and ‘Hamlet’)

"Your film had the feel and look of a very distinct feature. It looked wonderful...some great shots and great production design. A real calling card for your multiple talent" – Amos Field Reid (Adventure pictures)

Bob Cotton – New Media Designer & Creative Consultant

Bob has worked extensively with interactive media throughout his career. He is a new media designer and creative consultant as well as a research fellow and an information architect. He has designed and directed several major commercial CD-Roms and web-sites, including 3 CD-Roms for Manchester United, 2 training CD-Roms for the Training Agency, as well as several other CDs and laserdisks, including Halliwells Interactive Film Guide CD-Rom, EMI's 'Sight and Sound' laserdisks, and a laserdisk-based emergency response system for BP Exploration. He designed the architecture for the ICA web and intranet, and recently creatively directed the site for the Isle of Wight Jazz Divas Festival.

He has worked extensively with AMX Studios – recently on websites for the ICA, for Malibu Rum and a series of interactive and linear information system consoles for the Welcome Wing at the Science Museum, London.

During his career, he has written several books on design and new media, including 'Understanding Hypermedia 2.000 (1998), The Cyberspace Lexicon (1994) and the ICA pamphlet 'You Aint Seen Nothing Yet' (1999).

Bob is a past member of judging panels for interactive media at the D&AD, BAFTA and US I.D magazine annual awards and he lectures part-time on the Interactive Media Degree at the Arts Institute atBournemouth. During his eminent career, Bob has also supervised training sessions for Eastern European Countries for the George Soros Open Society Institute, working in Prague, Croatia, and Azerbaijan amongst other countries. Recent public lectures include Futures and Options World Exposition (Paris 2002), 'New Media New Commerce' (ICA London 2003),'New Media Designers' (at the Business Design Centre, London 2003).

During 2002, he developed an extensive research project to map the solution-space of new media for content creators and programme developers working across the range of new media. This 'Media-Space' project provides an easy-to-use 'innovation-augmentation' program, based on a relational database, with which creatives can explore the range of possible synergies and convergences impacting on their idea-generation, production and delivery of new product.

Bob Marchant - Advertising Photographer

Bob Marchant is an award winning advertising photographer who has been in the business for many years. Having shot everything from widgets to superyachts on all formats of film from 10x8 to 8mm, his studio went fully digital over eight years ago.

Operating on the basis that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, the associated learning curve was initially approached with a strange mix of reckless enthusiasm tempered with the professional requirement for damage limitation. The control of image quality is the basis of a sound creative workflow and with this in mind, Bob got involved with several industry bodies in order to help with the production of best practice guidelines for digital workflow that would help all of those involved maintain the integrity of the original imagery, from capture to final output, be it press, fine art or web.

At present Bob is working with the Association of Photographers, the Periodical Publishers Association, UpDig and the Institute of Quality Assurance.

Although advertising photography remains at the core for Bob, he is also co-director of Colour Therapy, a company that provides training and consultancy on digital workflow, and specialist post production services for digital photography.

Adam Woolfitt - Photographer

Adam Woolfitt has been a photographer all his life and has contributed to National Geographic and other prestigious magazines for thirty years. Some twelve years ago he realised that silver photography was about to come to an abrupt end and immersed himself in computers and digital cameras.

Adam was Chairman of the Association of Photographers and recently accepted an Honorary Fellowship of the British Institute of Professional Photographers. He was a founding member of the UK Digital Imaging Group and a prime mover behind IDEA (the International Digital Exhibition and Awards) He later started writing on digital matters for BJP, the AOP's Image Magazine, and Photo District News in New York.

Adam co-founded SharpTurn Productions dedicated to immersive and interactive photography for web and CD projects and more recently has started shooting food books in Cornwall. He has just had a one man show of digital panoramas called "Circles of Confusion" in The Schoolhouse Gallery in Morvah, Penzance. He is still married to Penelope and they have three children and seven grandchildren.

Ian Chisholm, BSc FRSA - Independent Consultant and Trainer Specialising in DI, Colour and Picture Quality Issues.

Since February 2004 Ian has worked as an independent consultant and trainer specialising in DI, colour, and picture quality issues at the computer / celluloid interface. Recently he produced the content for the BKSTS Digital Intermediate wall chart.

Hailing from Manchester University in the days when it housed Atlas, the most powerful computer in the world (how things have changed since then!), Ian's experience lies within digital media. Before he became an independent consultant, he worked at Double Negativefor 6 years, where he had total responsibility for colour and film quality control and was also involved in all aspects of engineering a new computer visual FX company.

Prior to that he worked for the Moving Picture Company for 8 years, where he designed, built and wrote the software for the Filmtel video to film transfer system and had total engineering responsibility for the original Digital Film installation.

From 1983 to 1992, Ian was the co - founder of a pioneering computer graphics company called Computer FX, in the days when computer animation was really difficult! Previously Ian has worked in motion control and plotter based computer animation and for the BBC in engineering research, working on early development work on digital frame store based FX.

Professor Mitch Mitchell - Head of Imaging at Cinesite, London

Professor Mitch Mitchell started his career with BBC Television, where he helped develop early colour TV effects systems, before moving on to become the Director of Visual Effects at the Moving Picture Company in London, where he supervised the effects on hundreds of commercials.
Since becoming Head of Imaging at Cinesite in London, Mitch has worked on projects including 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban', 'TROY', 'King Arthur' and 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'. He is currently working on the big screen adaptation of Dan Brown's 'The DaVinci Code'
A pioneer of digital effects, Mitch lectures and writes on visual effects imaging, and his book, 'Visual Effects for Film and Television' published by Focal Press, offers an invaluable insight