Matt Pinder
Having dedicated 4 years of his life to a film and photography degree course Matt waited patiently for the call from Hollywood. Sadly, 10 years on, he's still waiting. Despite graduating with honours and a raft of pretentious and experimental (i.e poor) short films to his name, Matt's first professional credit in the 'business' came as edit assistant on the little known but muchloved (in the dog grooming world) series 'Scotland's Top Dogs'. Like many wannebe film-makers in Scotland he also spent time on the set of Taggart. An experience that still haunts him to this day. As 'chief camera schlepp' he developed a tea and coffee making technique to rival any M&S cafe. He now hates all hot drinks.
From what can only be described as a fairly unremarkable beginning to his career, Matt somehow landed a 'Directing' job at the BBC working with one of his boyhood heroes; TV legend John Craven on a popular (with the over 60's) and long running daytime series called Castle in the Country.
Sadly there are only so many castles in this country and after over 100 shows, viewing numbers inevitably declined (peacefully and painlessly we hope!) and the show was axed. But 3 very pleasant years working with John and other TV stalwarts like Judith Chalmers and Gloria Hunniford had sufficiently cut Matt's teeth.
By chance Matt had seen two True Vision films quite close together and on both occasions cried like a baby. He discovered a conscience and resolved to join the ranks applying for a job on a Dispatches film. With no relevant experience other than he could work a camera he fortuitously got that job and has never looked back.