GARY JOHNSTONE

Gary Johnstone is a Director and Producer renowned for his often complex and challenging, large-scale factual TV projects. They include the Primetime Emmy nominated James Cameron's Bismarck which entailed multiple submarine trips to the wreck of the ship 15,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic. Similar feats were pulled off to create the series Alien Deep featuring Dr Bob Ballard, the discoverer of the Titanic. His hugely popular show The Battle of Hood and Bismarck mounted a successful mission to locate the wreck of the giant British warship, HMS Hood.

While these titans of telly always kept the people at the heart of the stories front and centre, Gary Johnstone's smaller, more intimate shoes have garnered just as much attention and awards. J'accuse Citizen Kane featuring Robert McKee won the BAFTA for Best Arts Program. J'accuse Van Gogh featuring Griselda Pollock was nominated for a Royal Television Award. The controversial Intelligent Design on Trial won the prestigious Peabody Award and was honoured with an Award by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

His campaigning films Whose School is it anyway? and Fit for Life (about his own epilepsy) have fought for disability rights.

Gary has now stepped away from mainstream television and embarked on a series of works - Every Day People - that are the antithesis of his former larger scale work. They are short interview films with people who are dedicated to their own daily devotion, process, craft or passion. It is an ongoing series that aims to give space for new voices, new ideas. For him it is a way to return to the immediacy and simplicity that was his first fascination: seeing, hearing and feeling people talk.