The pursuit of a dream

18 months ago I ended up in a car with fellow actor Daniel Coll and we had a crazy idea of setting up a TV & Film production company to give ourselves and those we loved and respected a platform to be seen on the screen. So three weeks later we grabbed our toothbrushes and a spare pair of pants and headed south to sunny Cannes to attend a TV conference called MIP, we used the last of our personal money getting there and spent the week eating bread and cheese on a wall outside the local Super Marché.

It seemed to pay off though as one of the 9 ideas that we took to pitch was picked up by the ill-fated Irish TV and a few weeks later we were in Ireland with Charlie Lawson and a host of Irish celebrities making a 10 part TV series. 

When we eventually made it back to blighty a little shell shocked and very tired Danny had this crazy notion that we should go and have coffee with Britain’s third most performed playwright, John Godber. Now the back story here is that Danny had tried to help raise some funds to make a feature film with John a couple of years previously but had been unsuccessful so it had been shelved, until now it seemed. Now this is when it became surreal for me, when I was 15 one of my pivotal theatrical memories was being at the Cambridge Arts Theatre and watching Teechers by John Godber and now I was sat in Starbucks in Castleford discussing producing a film for him!

Now Mr Godber is not only well respected and revered in many circles he is also an extremely nice man with a heart as big as his intellect and a want to make a difference in the world so it was almost like our stars aligned and we decided to make a film on fresh air and favours. We drafted in friends and family, old connections and colleagues and sought out likeminded people across the Yorkshire region and all of a sudden on the 17th October 2016 we were stood at the side of the Humber Bridge with Dave Thorp an amazing Director of Photography and Derek Hunter taking stills while we shot the opening scene of sunrise over the river Humber.

In the last 18 months my life has changed in many ways for the better, the people I now work with are all expert in their fields and every day is a school day. I have had to learn producing the hard way, by doing it, getting in there and getting my hands dirty, by making mistakes and making friends, by failing and by succeeding, by upsetting people and by empowering them.

I have a dream! And that is to create great work that can be viewed long after I am gone, to bring a legacy of Film to the north of England and be instrumental in the growth of this industry that seems to have gotten into my bones.

So what is next for this dreamer? Well we have syndicated Are we there yet? Across the US, WE HAVE Premiered Last Laugh and it has distribution with a limited theatrical release soon, we have 3 documentary’s in production, 2 TV ideas in planning, one a drama and one a quiz show and above all that I’m raising money for our next John Godber collaboration, Muddy Cows that we hope to shoot soon with some star names and some great actors attached. So hey I can’t hang around here, times a wasting and dreams are there to be turned into reality.

All along this journey people have said, “You can’t do it like that” or “That’s not how it is done in this business” but what I say to you is to heck with all that just get up, get out and get to it dreamers!