My name is Stephen, I am a seasider, born and raised in Blackpool. I come from a hard-working mining family who moved from Yorkshire over the border to Lancashire. My mum is a teacher, and my dad works in IT.

I didn't have any access to the film industry growing up so I spent a lot of time on stage acting in amateur dramatics, working on my LAMDA examinations, and taking out my dads' camcorder to shoot skateboarding videos with my friends and testing out techniques I had seen in films to see if I could recreate them.

I attended York St. John University where I made some incredible friends and we set out on our filmmaking journey together. Once we graduated, we made a few low budget shorts and one very low budget feature (£2k), and then decided it was time to join the rat race down in London. My friend got a job working at a rental house and I quickly followed, sleeping on his floor while doing work experience on Downton Abbey.

Filmmaking is all I have ever wanted to do, and to be part of this industry is something I have to pinch myself about every day. Coming from a working-class northern family I never expected I could be where I am now. My aspiration of directing films and TV series is the final step to achieving all I have set out to do.