Mike Sumpter - Senior Director

Mike Sumpter has over twenty years of experience in Film and Television as a director and scriptwriter, with a wide range of expertise in different areas of filmmaking. Projects have included large scale performance-based location shoots in Britain and abroad, to studio tabletop model shots, and most variations between, as well as having practical knowledge of a variety of animation techniques and their applications. He has shot extensively on 35mm and 16mm film formats as well as digital tape formats including HDTV, and can complete a project effectively, on time, and on budget.

Starting out as a member of the successful Giblets directing team, Mike's music video work includes creating promos for artists including Erasure, The Stranglers, Sam Brown and many others, and he won a gold disc for the animated video that accompanied the No 1. Hit "Reet Petite" by Jackie Wilson.

In the advertising field, he has directed commercials for clients such as Britvic, British Gas, Kraft Foods, Mitsubishi Cars and McDonalds, and was one of the first UK directors to work in the TV sponsorship field with his programme idents for Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, Baywatch and Channel Four Weather among others, all involving concept creation, scriptwriting and direction of the projects, including full edit supervision right through to the broadcast stage.

Mike was also the co-writer/director of the Channel 4 short comedy drama "The Hangover" starring Kevin McNally and Jim Broadbent, which won the Jury prize at the first Premier Plans film festival in Anjers, France. He has further scriptwriting experience covering a variety of other projects, including a full series of scripts for an undeveloped animated childrens series for ITV.

For the past five years he has been Senior Director/Producer at Portland TV, in the role of advertising creative and commercials director, working with a wide range of celebrities and television personalities, as well as helming ads for clients such as OK!, New!, Star and Happy magazine brands. He has also directed numerous title sequences, station idents and presenter based studio links for the range of television stations in the Northern and Shell group.