Coffee Films contributors; Adam Greenwood

Adam Greenwood
Producer/Editor/Writer

Adam grew up with sensible parents who only allowed him and his brother to watch Children's BBC, rather than the stuff on ITV, and they were regularly talked into digesting decent films and acting out stories in front of the family cine camera, the sum total of which Adam credits an early development of taste in entertainment to.

Adam's next foray into filmmaking was in the time honoured "lads playing with a camcorder" fashion. Tasked with a science presentation for class he and two friends decided to outshine everyone elses overhead projector presentations with a slick film, spending hours acting out a spoof daytime TV show only to realise they had omitted all the science, resulting in them having a closing 5 minute piece to camera reading from a science textbook. It must be added the teacher didn't actually let it get that far when played back in class.

Nevertheless the experiments continued with films in and out of school, shot on camcorders and cut VCR to VCR with CGI supplied by Adam's Amiga 1200. Inspired primarily to become an actor he worked through GCSE and A level theatre studies which led onto a theatre, film and TV degree at York St John University, where he discovered that he was a horribly wooden actor but had a natural flair for writing and editing in film; perhaps also inspired by the theatre tutors' habit of treating the students like a personal theatre company doing whatever they were interested in rather than anything that seemed useful.

Finding the course brief on practical filmmaking and getting a bit of an "I could've been a contender" vibe from some of the tutors it was still well worth the time for the tutors who did deliver and who were prepared to come in and work weekends, perhaps most importantly it hooked Adam up with like minded filmmakers that would eventually evolve into Crestfallen Productions. The team came together to shoot their final piece but were forced to drop A Plaster, a Paper and a Chicken Salad Sandwich by their tutors as unsuitable, they quickly pulled together another script Like a Charm whilst plotting how to move onto Plaster after uni.

"I think I was really lucky to have had 'A Plaster, a Paper.' to get working on straight after graduating. If I hadn't had it to keep me occupied I think I could've gotten a lot more depressed about leaving uni and I would've felt a bit lost and confused about finally not having an educational institution structuring my life. Obviously, just like a million others, my ambition is to make money from making films. Until then, it'd be nice to making enough money to be able to make my own films."

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