Masterclass Diary

13 and 14 December 2007

The Merthyr Media Project Masterclasses
13th and 14th December

Zoar Hall High Street Merthyr Tydfil

Contact Details: http://www.merthyrmedia.org.uk/

13/12/2007
10am
Philip John
Director and Screenwriter

Award-winning director screenwriter born in Newport, South Wales. After early foray into music decided to dump music business and went to Newport Film School and made award winning student films. Has since made two acclaimed and award winning 35mm shorts - Sister Lulu and Suckerfish, the latter chosen for the First Film Foundation's Y2K New Directions director's showcase in New York and Los Angeles. Now working as a freelance writer and director. MD of production company Orange River Ltd., and also co-director of production company Jawbone Ltd with Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh.
Among his credits are:
Wedding Belles
Ten years on and the Trainspotting generation has chosen matrimony in this hilarious hard-boiled black comedy written by Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh.
Sugar Rush
Emmy award-winning and BAFTA nominated second series of the outrageous teen lesbian drama adapted from the novel by Julie Burchill and
The Bill
Nuts and Bolts

13/12/2007
13.00
Jonathan Lewis Owen
Actor/ Director

Welsh Bafta winning Film maker with his moving documentary on the Aberfan disaster and officially the fourth sexiest man in Wales Jonathan is a local boy who has made good. Born in Heolgerrig he has had a varied and fascinating career and has recently worked with Phil John on the highly successful Wedding Belles.

14/12/2007
10.00
Karl Francis
Film Maker

Over the last 30 years, internationally renowned Karl Francis has become one of the leading Welsh film and television directors and producers.  Yet he has always remained rooted firmly outside of the establishment, even, arguably during his stint as Head of Drama at BBC Wales in the '90s.

He has maintained a determined independence and his films often savagely criticising the institutions which run Welsh political and cultural life.  Karl is a film maker whose prime concern is, and always has been, content over style. That is not to imply that his films lack finesse and visual imagination, indeed they often display a very real cinematic sense - but in a period more dedicated to fantasy than fact, Karl Francis is a determined realist.

Francis has always been a shamelessly partisan film maker.  He has no time for the notions of balance which politicians demand of television. His idea of film-making is to represent the feelings and grievances of the people in the film, rather than impose on them from the outside.