Engineer by training, puppet maker by trade

Just another of those fan boys that grew up on a healthy diet of Sesame Street, Muppets movies, Fraggle Rock and other Jim Henson stories that taught a generation right and wrong, and that playing for a living is far more fun than becoming anything as sensible as a banker, lawyer or a surgeon.

Starting early with a marionette theatre and an unrelenting desire to entertain, I soon developed a fascination with full sized productions. I was particularly drawn to Victorian style theatrics and illusions, and that suspension of disbelief that makes a project come alive. Something which remains as true today as ever.

As well as a love of puppetry I have always been interested in aviation, gaining a BEng in Avionics and Aircraft Systems at the University of Bristol in 2000, which has enabled me to incorporate electronic and software design elements into the traditional mechanical performance that always captured my imagination with robotics and animatronics.

Upon moving to London I was intent on working for Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and a chance meeting with Brian Henson at a crew screening one Sunday morning nudged things in the right direction. As luck would have it, some amazingly talented people in the Creature Effects Department at Leavesden Studios were working on a new film franchise and gave me my big break. I learnt a lifetime of skills over the course of those Harry Potter movies, finally making it back to Henson's in Oval Road for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which would have made my physics teacher far prouder than that A-Level B grade ever could.

I have had the good fortune to work on some amazingly challenging and creative projects in film, television and theatre: working with puppets and monsters, explosions and the elements, and even illusion-eering for magician Paul Kieve on Kenneth Branagh's production of Macbeth and the 2012 staging of The Phantom of the Opera.

In 2006 I left the UK and spent a wonderful fifteen years in New Zealand, working on a number of high-profile projects with Weta Workshop and NZFX, as well as developing puppets for the 2022 New Zealand International Arts Festival (before it unfortunately became another COVID casualty) and the New Zealand and Australian tours of Madagascar, The Musical.

I'm currently based in Melbourne, having recently worked in the Special FX departments of a number of movies including: Sting, Play Dead, Fog City and the forthcoming Tom Hanks action sequel to Greyhound - while still combining film work with my love of puppetry for the ABC Children's series Knee High Spies (now in its second season), R&D with A Blanck Canvas for the international tour of the Gabby's Dollhouse stage show and as part of the engineering fabrication team at Creature Technology for their Dunkleosteus which is now exhibited in the Singapore Oceanarium.

Obviously the vast majority of this has been collaborative, and the work and photos on this site represent the skill and ideas of many people, sometimes too numerous to mention. My involvement in each is noted on its page.

I relish the challenges of developing effects within the constraints dictated, whether financial, time or environmental, while developing the use of new materials, software and ideas. That and puppeteering.

I'm still a 6 yr old with a marionette theatre at heart.