Adam directed four episodes of SKINS 3,4,8, and 9
Thanks to Anon for the information.
When Adam Smith and his friend Joe Wright went to London’s Scala Cinema in the late 80s and early 90s, they’d watch classics such as Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets and say to each other, “We’re gonna make films one day, we’re gonna do that.” Wright, of course, has gone on to receive acclaim for his refreshing take on costume dramas with Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, and now Smith is gearing up to make the move into features.
The acclaimed director of music videos for Jamie T (Sheila), The Streets (Blinded By The Lights, When You Wasn’t Famous) and Chemical Brothers (Galvanize) is also the man behind one of the most popular shorts on BBC Film Network - What Goes Up Must Come Down, a Cockney rap-narrative starring Charlie Creed-Miles. That short acted as a bridge between Adam’s earlier work and his first ’straight’ directorial work, on four episodes of Channel 4’s teen series Skins in 2006.
“After Skins there were quite a few offers for telly stuff, but I really wanted to do my own thing,” Adam tells Film Network from the Soho office where he’s developing his first feature. “I met up with Mark Herbert at Warp and found him really inspiring. There are two ideas I’m working on - one is a fictionalised documentary, which at the moment is a Warp X project and is going to be developed through improvisational workshops. I’m working with three actors, so we’ve cast it already.”
When it comes to revealing what the film will be about, Adam is loathe to discuss things for fear of “hexing” the project. He does reveal, however, that it will “play with the form a little bit, because we’ll use quite a lot of real footage as well as fictionalised stuff”.
In the video above Adam talks about some of the key moments in his career - the documentary A.I.P.S., The Streets music video Blinded By The Lights, and directing Skins - and dying in Nastassja Kinski’s arms.
Here is some of his works
