About me.
I am a story consultant, researcher and educator, specialising in helping writers create more complex and compelling characters through insights from psychology. I am also the author of The Science of Writing Characters (Bloomsbury, 2020). My doctoral research focused on the relationship between psychological traits of film protagonists, audience engagement and worldwide box office.
I began my career assisting director Stanley Kubrick in the production of Eyes Wide Shut (1999). After a stint working within the BBC's groundbreaking Virtual Studios department, I took posts as a Visual Effects Technical Director and then VFX Producer on The Matrix Revolutions (2003), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), Catwoman (2004) and The Ladykillers (2004).
I teach workshops on character psychology to screenwriters, playwrights and novelists at institutions including the BBC Writersroom, the BFI, WFTV, Roadmap Writers, Jericho Writers, Raindance, the London Screenwriters Festival, the London Writers’ Awards, ScreenSkills, Script Fiesta (Warsaw) and Spread the Word, as well as Cambridge University, Story Academy (Sweden) and Noroff Film School (Norway). I have led character development sessions for the Pan Asian Screen Collective development lab (New Zealand), lectured at UCSG (Equador), CSU (US) and the NT Writers Centre (Australia) and am an honorary Guest Professor at the Jilin Animation Institute, China's largest animation academy.
As a script editor, I work for writers, production companies and independent producers. Over the last year, this has included development and script editing for production companies including RSA and the Bureau / wiip , as well as BFI-funded writer Olivia Hannah (Braids), and writer-director Vladimir Bilenjki on multiple projects.