Career story

Philip's career began with three years studying photography at BTEC HND level and then Film and Video Production for the BIPP Professional Qualifying Examination, a degree-equivalent education which he passed with merit at Salisbury College of Art (now Wiltshire College).

He went straight into Film Sound at the BBC on a 3-year training programme in film location recording and dubbing. The BBC later reduced it to 18-months during departmental re-organisation and creation of an internal market.

Remarkably, from the perspective of 2010, Philip spent three months in residential training at BBC Wood Norton, where he was trained in every aspect of the televisual craft as long as it related to sound in some way.

Thus he was able, at the BBC, to develop the skills he'd learnt at college: to write scripts and storyboard; use a camera and work with Nagra-S reel-to-reel recorders; sound-synchronisation to film with the clapperboard; transfer from 1/4" tape to 16mm film; rubber-edge numbering; to use the legendary and incredibly expensive Calrec Sound Field microphone; to operate a studio pedestal camera, a Neave mixing desk, 24-track reel-to-reel audio recorders and 1-inch video decks; in short, anything and everything connected with the process of making films for television. He even got to visit the secret nuclear bunker that had been set up in case the BBC in London was bombed in an air raid.

And, of course, he was introduced to that new-fangled video format, Betacam. The cameras he'd been introduced to during the training were delicate instruments that took minutes to warm up and ran on Plumbicon tubes. All that was about to change. BetacamSP, 3CCD chips and the idea that the non-linear style of film editing would one day be applied to video where ideas that were about to burst on the scene and change film making and television for ever.

One of his assignments was several months at BBC Film Studios in Ealing, and it was there that he persuaded the Training department to give him access to a BetaSP training suite, where he taught himself editing. The first production he trained himself on was for Kale Nyabo, a film he shot for ActionAid in Uganda in 1989. making an appearance in the final three weeks training and examination! If anyone has a complaint about Philip's broad range of skills, please remember that he was genuinely a pioneer of multi-skilling! During the next three years shift patterns made it possible for him to make eleven films in East Africa, UK and Switzerland for clients including ActionAid.

Now qualified as a film-maker, in 1994 he took first one, then two contracts at the BBC as a film director, directing short films for 'See Hear!' on BBC1 and 2. In 1996 he became Head of Video at Pantechnicon. His first job was directing Jeremy Clarkson, The Top Gear star, in a video to present Scania's then new 4-series truck. This led on to two large-scale, multi-screen productions, the first being Scania's Latin American launch on three screens and then the truly gigantic King Fahd International Airport launch, on five screens spanning 270-degrees, 95m from one end to the other and 8m high screens.

These roles, and his next position in 2000 as Head of Production at Myriad Productions, brought valuable team management experience and budgets measured in hundreds of thousands of pounds.

In 2001 Philip established Taylors TV with the objective of building on quality blue-chip work for corporate clients to eventual feature film production, via television. Initially editing, directing, producing, writing and shooting with the help of up to four employees plus freelancers, he had real success initially with clients including Shell Renewables, Shell International, HarperCollins Publishers and Vodafone. Growth was hampered by lack of capitalization, however. Despite bringing his career total to 260 hours of directed programming he decided in 2006, after a very difficult year to focus full-time on editing.

But Taylors TV continues to produce work for clients, including The Nehemiah Project in 2007. Since May 2006 he has enjoyed a great deal of success and a good reputation in the industry as a highly creative, rapid and yet thoughtful editor. His unusually diverse background and knowledge that genuinely bridges the technology/production divide means he brings great added-value to every edit.

In the last few years he has been script consulting, co-writing, co-producing and editing in the world of short films and is looking to cut his first feature in 2010 or 2011.

He is an Apple Certified User, an Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Trainer (2006) and an Avid Certified user (1994). Additionally, he has directed some 250 hours of programmes around the world, using his language skills to work in German, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

Professional Recognition

Editing

Lead Editor on RTS 2012 'Best Entertainment' Award-winning 'Derren Brown: The Experiments - The Guilt Trip'

'God's Composer'‘Pick of the Week’: The Sunday Times. ‘Pick of the Day’: The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Metro

Entered for an Emmy Award for Best Editing by Smithsonian Networks, 2007

Honoured at BAFTA with a plaque for work on 'Malachi'

Photography

• West Soho Village Faces competition, 1993, Winner, 2nd prize
• Prizes presented by Lord Lichfield

Books

• 'Nonlinear Editing: Storytelling, Aesthetics & Craft' by Bryce Button, seven-page interview. Published 2001.

Short Film credits

• Malachi, dir. Shabazz Graham, 2010
• The Inspired Kitty Collins, dir. Piramo Vyas, 2004
• Leaves, dir. Philip Taylor, 2003

Commercials Credits

• BMW
• Clarkes
• Lego
• Jungle Book
• Scania, Oman
• Scania, Latin America
• King Fahd International Airport, Saudi Arabia
• HarperCollins Publishers

Television Broadcast Credits

• BBC1
• BBC2
• BBC4
• BBC Switch
• BBC World News
• National Geographic Channel
• Smithsonian Networks
• CBN
• God TV
• Rockhopper TV
• Firecracker Films

Corporate Credits up to GBP500,000

• Elephant Parade London, 2010
• HarperCollins Publishers
• Shell Renewables
• Shell International
• Shell Lubricants
• Southwark Cathedral
• Leo Burnett advertising agency
• Vodafone
• Scania Trucks
• ActionAid
• Vodafone
• DHL
• Microsoft
• Johnnie Walker
• Rusty Champion
• Arcadia

...and many others.

Charity Credits

• The Nehemiah Project
• ActionAid
• VSO
• The Bridge, Cambridge Student Charity

International work locations

• Singapore
• Canada
• USA
• Argentina
• Sweden
• Uganda
• Russia
• France
• Germany
• Portugal
• Kenya
• Uganda
• Nigeria
• Switzerland

Language Skills

Philip Taylor is fluent in:

• German
• Swiss-German
• French
...and has worked in:
• Spanish
• Tagalog
• Portuguese
• German
• French
• Swahili
• Lugandan
• American

Professional memberships

• Directors Guild of Great Britain (DGGB)
• Guest panellist for DGGB at 2003 Production Show
• Member since 1993
• International Visual Communicators Association (IVCA)
• Chairman of 'corporate image' jury for 2005 IVCA awards
• Jury member 2003 and 2004

• British Institute of Professional Photographers (BIPP)
• Licentiate member of British Institute of Professional Photographers since 1989