I’ve had a lifelong interest in nature and the environment, and have been making films on the topic since my career began in the 1970s.
Wildlife films can be restrictively expensive to make, but you don’t necessarily need a big budget to make an impactful film about the environment. That’s why I set up Ravenhill Films – to help people who want to celebrate and protect the rich environmental diversity in the north of Ireland.
And that’s what I’ve been doing, working with the likes of Friends of the Earth NI and the Environmental Justice Network Ireland to highlight the biggest issues we face in our local environment.
I’ve been a documentary maker since the early 1980s, when I started out making films with community and youth groups.
In 1986 I co-founded Belfast Independent Video (BIV), a franchised workshop funded by Channel 4, focused on independent grassroots filmmaking in Northern Ireland. BIV morphed into Northern Visions, and I was involved in launching NVTV, Belfast’s community television LDTV station. I now create environmental news segments for the channel.
Ravenhill Films has produced films for Friends of the Earth NI, the Environmental Justice Netwpork Ireland, Social farms and Gardens, Ulster Wildlife, No Gas Caverns, Save Our Sperrins, Save Lough Neagh, Carrick Greengrocers, Ulster University, and the Pat Finucane Centre. This includes 30 Nature’s Keepers films, a series with Nuala McKeever called Greenwash and two films on the Rights of Nature.