My name’s Bertie—twenty-eight years old, 6'1, decent hairline.

 

I’ve been making films since I was about eight years old. Curiously, that’s right around the time my dad died. No correlation, I’m sure!

 

In previous iterations of this website, my bio could be described as, let’s say, “press release-y”. That is, I took great pains to highlight my pseudo-impressive accomplishments above all else, and as quickly as possible. I want this draft to feel a lot more candid, so this time, I’ll pepper in those accolades more subtly throughout. You’ll barely notice. Like brainwashing!

 

Family holidays were transformed into Apocalypse Now-style, intensive film productions when I got my first handycam. From there, I graduated to making stop-motion LEGO animations after school! I also didn’t date anyone until I was 19. After a stint as a child actor (most notably very briefly in a famous wizard school-centric franchise), I was drawn to YouTube! Now we’re cooking.

 

In the span of a few short, yet highly significant years, I went from an affable fourteen-year-old vlogger to an assured, endearingly pretentious seventeen-year-old filmmaker. After I made my first proper short film, Stray Dog, there was simply no turning back.  I realised that film had always been the way I most wanted to articulate myself, and it was at this point that I really claimed that.

 

From 2013 - 2017, my collaborators and I created straight-to-YouTube short films with absolute abandon. It means a great deal that these imperfect, passionate meditations on my youth and grief really found their audience. My most popular short, Let It Be, has amassed over a million views - For an overstuffed short film about Death and The Beatles, that’s really quite good!

 

The speed with which I was able to conceive, shoot, and upload short films to YouTube made transitioning to the glacial pace of the linear film world quite an adjustment.  As I  began to move away from YouTube and venture into music videos, I still carved out time for shorts and passion projects of all shapes and sizes. In 2019, I directed a film for Channel 4’s Random Acts, and in 2021, my film ‘Please Care!’ starring Fleabag’s Hugh Skinner won ‘Best British Director’ at the British Short Film Awards! (Still subliminal?).

 

From 2020 to the present, the majority of my work has been in the form of music videos. The more rapid-fire nature of that process suits my ADHD-riddled brain perfectly. From scrappy collaborations with Will Joseph Cook to a recent, rather glossy period piece for dodie featuring Jeff Goldblum - I love the potential for variety that directing a bunch of music videos affords. It’s just so much fun.

 

And now, I’d like to talk about my sister. In 2017, I released a short documentary about my beloved sister, Genevieve. This zero-budget exploration of neurodivergence and the nuances of our relationship was very warmly received. John Green even commented, “Unflinching, honest, and beautifully made.” (Absolutely tasteless name-drop). Since then, Genevieve has become a central part of my creative output. Her depth of character and buoyant personality serve as a constant source of inspiration for all my projects, most notably a years-spanning feature-length documentary of which I’m currently in the process of editing.

 

And that’s it! That’s me! I adore making things and would very much like to always keep doing that, if possible.

 

Thanks very much,

Bertie

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my email, my instagram and my youtube x