Biography
Andrew Ball-Shaw is a Writer & Director known for short films such as Anorak, Lavender, and I See Dead People, along with web, turned TV mini-series, Rebound. With an amount of acquired knowledge, training and some background in acting, Ball-Shaw was already penning down future material, writing screenplays, before realizing his bigger passion of being the story teller rather than their characters. Transitioning across to behind the camera through 2015 - 2017, Ball-Shaw successfully achieved a top grade of Distinction for a 'Film & Television Production Diploma' at Futureworks, School of Media, Manchester. Anorak short film, was set up as the first project with the aim being to attempt a film festival, the film went on to achieve a number of film festival official selections, nominations, and even award wins! This whilst technically being a student film.
The UK Writer & Director, based geographically conveniently between Manchester and Leeds, prides himself on looking to contain at least some amount of originality with each of his creations, evidence of this can be seen in work as early as Anorak, in a round about way (there's a clue in there). With intentions to aide his development as a Director, Andrew Ball-Shaw took a decision to take on a creation that was not his own in writing, to prove visionary skills for this occasion, and storytelling ability, shown through interpretation of someone else's writing, collaborating on narratives and plot-lines to reach the end result that became a Rebound series. Initially starting out as a six episodes web series, members involved worked hard to promote the series, which gained momentum, backed with film festival nominations and awards, caught the attention then of distributors, where an agreement was made, and Rebound now plays on TV screens internationally as a mini-series.
Perhaps arguably the most notable achievements of Andrew Ball-Shaw's original creations, comes from a lesser familiar, and whilst diverging away from more commonly working with comedy dramas, to the emotional drama content covered within Lavender. The short film is 2020's 'Best of Show' winner, taking the top award of Grand Jury Remi Award, at the WorldFest-Houston Film Festival. This along with other accolades, gives his first real attempt in this way some plausible credibility to both the project, and film making ability. Lavender's coming together was a number of years in the making, from thoughts and ideas of a combining and forming of what ultimately comes down to a concept of two factors, one being how horrible but yet intriguing dementia itself is, in how it can affect a person. Added to then, by the curiosity surrounding the color purple and its existence, Lavender explores both of these in its own way, whilst also personalizing a story to Fern, the fictional character affected by dementia. The scientific, or medical explanation may not be a definitive one on this, relating to the altering of a person's life in this way, and so allows for a compassionately creative and beautiful portrayal to be put to viewers. Lavender continues its film festival run through the duration of 2020, to later become a dementia awareness film and learning tool.
Returning to his writing, the many years' worth of archived material whilst developing himself through filmmaking learning period, Andrew Ball-Shaw sets his future sights high, with a view to taking forward any number of his prospective, full scale television series', or feature films, each with their own forte of originality from their foundations to emergence.
