Andy's film school started at the early age of about 6 years old at his local cinema, where his mum worked as an Usherette. During weekends and school holidays he would be found seated in the front row watching and studying the same film day after day, often twice in the same day. He found he developed an appreciation of film making and in particular the structure and emotional effect of the Cinematography. Often zoning out the sound, he studied each film in fine detail: how a scene structured and the pace of the action, the performance, set design, photography, the texture of the light and how it all came together to influenced his emotional belief in the story.
Andy developed an all consuming fascination in photography and film making during these formulative years, experimenting with still photography along with processing and printing all of his own colour and black and white work, as well as creating his own Super 8 and later 16mm films during his free time. All the time learning from trial and error, as well as from the dozens of second hand theory books from charity shops and jumble sales. This grew into a life-long passion to create unforgettable moving images.
After some diverse jobs such as chef and producer's assistant in the advertising agency 'Ogilvy and Mather' in the rather excessive 80's, Andy's ambition was realised when he joined the Camera Department at London Weekend Studios as a trainee Cameraman. Over the next 6 years he worked his way up through the Camera Dept to Camera Operator, working on productions such as the South Bank Show to London's Burning, with a huge range of drama and documentary productions in between. From LWT he worked for the Molinaire group and Hillside studios where he developed his own lighting and shooting style on an almost non-stop production line of cheap and cheerful commercials and music videos for the many Soho production companies of the time. From the early 90's Andy has worked freelance on a hugely diverse range of projects from 35mm Anamorphic feature films, teen horror films and many TV comedy dramas such as Red Dwarf, Broken News, As if, Bugs and Sugar Rush.
Andy is a person who's overactive imagination and creativity is truly matched by his ability to efficiently bring this to the screen, big or small.
'The Story is everything, my pictures just help the audience believe it'
Andy Martin