Shane Meadows

“I’m obviously first and foremost a British filmmaker on a global scale, but when it comes to narrowing it down, I really feel like my voice is in the Midlands and outside of London.”

Shane Meadows is a self-taught, British film-maker who hails from the Midlands in the UK.  He was born in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, UK on the 26th of December 1972.

After dropping out of school before reaching his O-Levels, Shane originally had his sights set on becoming an infamous, criminal mastermind of legendary proportions.
Things did not go to plan. 

After being caught buying a set of stolen, limited-edition John Lowe darts, and later admitting to stealing and eating an egg-custard tart from the local Sainsbury’s, it was clear that he just wasn’t cut out for the hardened criminal underworld. 
The final straw came when the latest criminal charges against him were read out in court.
Laughter could be heard from both the gallery and the judge’s bench when it was revealed that Mr Meadows stood accused of stealing a breast-pump from Boots the chemist.
After this final humiliation, Shane put his breast-pump pilfering days behind him and began to put his energy into film-making.

In 1994, Shane’s first step into the world of film making was to volunteer his services at the Nottingham based Intermedia Film and Video Ltd.  The arrangment was that he would be allowed to borrow camcorders and use editing equipment in return for working there for free. Shane asked friends and family to get involved in his video experiments, but they were understandably quite wary at first.After Shane had put together a couple of short videos that he had made entirely on his own (with the only actor in the films also being himself), many of his friends watched them and became sufficiently impressed to want to become involved in future video shorts.  As their enthusiasm for film-making grew, they were soon making nearly one new short film every month.
With a growing catalogue of short films under his belt, Shane and friends tried approaching local festivals and venues in an effort to get their films screened to an audience.  This effort soon turned to frustration as they discovered that nobody accepted films on VHS, so instead of giving up, they set up their own local mini event. 
The event was called ‘Six of the Best’ and was held every couple of months in an old local cinema.  Anyone could bring along a short film they had made, and for a small fee have it screened to a small audience.  The event grew in popularity and eventually became an international video festival called ‘Flip Side’.