Simon Pattison

Simon Pattison has spent the last twenty-five years working in the Film Industry. Starting in the 90's in the art department, he worked his way through from set dresser to art director and to director. On his journey, he has worked on various films, and TV commercials, including Peter Jacksons' ''The Frighteners'' in the Art Dept. During this period he had always harbored a passionate desire to Direct. He started off with Children's Television and documentary, which eventually led to commercials, and art documentaries for New Zealand TV. He moved to London in 1997, and was fortunate enough to partner, as art director, with designer Mike Grant; working mainly on high-end commercials for clients such as Bacardi and British Telecom, music videos for the likes of Radiohead and Jamiroquai, and still shoots with Annie Leibovitz and Rankin for Dazed & Confused magazine. On the directing front, he developed a project called 'Valveman' following the life of Gerald Wells, a man with an extraordinary obsession for vintage radios. It became a doco-drama set in both 1940s and present-day London and was filmed in the UK with post-production at Park Road Post, Wellington, New Zealand. He shot his first feature called "Rest For The Wicked" in 2012. This is a dark comic tale set inside a rest home that is anything but restful, hiding an underbelly of crime, Viagra-fuelled sex, and murder. For this project, he was lucky enough to work with Tony Barry from Australia, and John Bach as his lead actors. He is currently working on "London Calling'' with producer Charlie McClellan, executive producer of Taika Waititi's 'Hunt for the Wilder People'. This is set in London, and New Zealand, and is an action-based thriller set amongst the gritty background of the London cycle courier community. He also explored directing for VR experiences and has teamed up with Vision3 based in Soho. They are developing a World War One film interactive called 'James Smith'. Over the past years, he is also directing a documentary called 'Alter Ego' which looks at subcultures in New Zealand and follows the lives of six individuals struggling to find acceptance He likes to keep his directing skills refreshed by working with a talented group of actors at the Cockpit Theatre in London. Where they do a lot of improv work, and workshops on their own work and script writing.