Buddy Goes to Nollywood

About the Director

Michael graduated with an honours degree in Biology from the University of Exeter before realising in his early 20’s that his passion lay in documentary filmmaking.

Inspired by the events of 9/11 and the Western response to the attacks, Michael saved up his wages and traveled to the US to make a film called “One Nation Under God”. He had no training or even filmmaking practice before the trip so he was happy when the film caught the attention of a production company and he got his first job in the industry.

After 6 months he went from production assistant to editing a series for regional television, with one program appearing on BBC2. After this he moved to London and earned a living for 2 years by assisting on TV commercials, while building up clients and gaining the skills to shoot and edit ‘behind the scenes’, corporate and commercial videos.

Soon after, he met his business partner with whom he ran a production company producing films for brands and charities. During this time he interviewed actors such as James McCavoy and Mark Strong and worked with musician Imogen Heap shooting music videos and documentary content.

Michael has directed over a hundred videos with one of his biggest clients being M&C Saatchi among many other ad agencies. He has directed a 30 minute TV program for Berlin-based production company Kobalt, appearing on Arte as well as a series of shorts for Channel 4. He has become an accomplished director of photography, shooting an award-winning short film Mdudu Boy as well as an internationally distributed feature film, Fever.

Michael’s work has taken him all over Africa, which has led to some of his proudest work with charities like Save The Children and CAFOD. Particularly memorable moments include filming in a refugee camp in South Sudan and filming a birth at a hospital in rural Sierra Leone. His love of Africa has led him to make his first feature documentary, Buddy Goes to Nollywood, which is currently on the international festival circuit.

Michael’s latest project is following world-renowned, double Grammy award-winning artist Imogen Heap on her world tour as she attempts to radically change the path of the music industry for the benefit of future music makers as well as performing mesmerising shows with her innovative MiMu gloves.