Dominic Murphy

Dominic was influenced by the power of real images and characters from his earliest interest in film. Straight out of film school he won a nation-wide competition to find a director for Janet Street Porter's groundbreaking youth current affairs programme 'Network 7' and began professional directing at 23. His early career focused on documentary but ventured into drama, music and arts programming.

Dominic later began studying method acting, attending workshops with Jack Waltzer, who developed his techniques in the Actor’s Studio with America's foremost teachers of the Stanislavski system. Through this intensive training Dominic developed a very personal approach to working with actors that results in realistic and natural performances from professionals and non-actors alike.

Dominic's first work in commercials was the doc style 'Use Your Vote' campaign which won a D&AD pencil. His radical style, emphasizing character and performance over flashy visuals , at times blurring the boundary between reality and fiction, meant his early campaigns, including the VW Obsession campaign and Sony Playstation, were all multi-award winners.

Further work for Sony, Smirnoff, Virgin, Heinz, Peugeot, Cellnet, Vodaphone, Orange, VW (various campaigns), Adidas and many others won top awards both in the UK and abroad, most notably Gold Lions at Cannes both for VW Passat and for Heinz 'Two Minutes'.

Much of Dominic's comedy work features a subtle, understated tone, finding humour in authenticity and realism. Dominic has also combined powerful and epic cinematic images with the kind of convincing characters and realistic performances rarely seen in commercials.

Dominic’s first feature film White Lightnin’ premiered at Sundance 2009. The story of a schizophrenic West Virginian mountain dancer, it was also shown at Berlin IFF and The Edinburgh IFF who called it ‘jawdropping, a true original’ The Guardian called it "demented genius". White Lightnin’ appeared in Mark Kermode’s Top Ten films of 2009 and won Best Film and Best Actor at Mumbai IFF voted for by a jury headed by Paul Schrader, as well as Best First Feature at The Fantasia Film Festival and top prize Hitcock D’Or at Dinard. Ed Hogg won several awards for his lead role as well as a nomination at the British Independent Film Awards.