Alan Birkinshaw

Alan Birkinshaw, born in Auckland, New Zealand on June 15, 1944, is a British film director, writer, and producer in the arena of television and feature films.

The son of two doctors, Birkinshaw was educated at St. Bees School in Cumberland and his first job was as a Jackaroo in the Australian outback, before becoming a horse breaker and rodeo rider. Travelling to England, he joined the camera department of Lew Grade’s Associated TeleVision on his 20th birthday. He worked his way up to directing, firstly in television and then via the world of commercials, into television movies and feature films. He directed several episodes of "Space Precinct", at the time the most expensive TV series ever made. One of his early movies, co-written by his novelist sister Fay Weldon, was "Killer’s Moon". "Killer’s Moon" was described in the acclaimed "Shepperton Babylon" as the most tasteless movie in the history of the British Cinema.

In spite of comments like this, "Killer’s Moon" won a prize for best Screenplay at the Sitges Horror Film Festival, and has since become a cult film.

In 1986, Birkinshaw went to India where he directed an award winning semi dramatised documentary film on the Life of Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘But I Have Promises To Keep’. This was made for the Government of India via Doordarshan, the national television network of India.

Birkinshaw is renowned in the industry for his ability to turn low budget action sequences into exciting mainstream pieces. This was specially noticeable in his boxing movie "Punch" which starred Donald Sutherland. Birkinshaw has also worked with some of the best loved British actors including Donald Pleasence and Herbert Lom in "Ten Little Indians" and "Masque of the Red Death", and Oliver Reed in "The House of Usher" in 1988.

Nowadays, Birkinshaw can be found in the business world where he runs several successful internet sites.

External links

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References

*http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=81924
*http://turnerclassic.moviesunlimited.com/findresults_director.asp?search=Alan+Birkinshaw
*http://www.hollywood.com/celebrity/Alan_Birkinshaw/1182894
*http://www.tv.com/alan-birkinshaw/person/131049/summary.html
*http://www.fandango.com/alanbirkinshaw/filmography/p+81924
*http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800125786&cf=gen
*http://www.tvguide.com/detail/celebrity.aspx?tvobjectid=186497
*http://movies.msn.com/celebs/celeb.aspx?c=291965
*http://www.vh1.com/movies/person/72123/personmain.jhtml