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Steve Piper
Filmmaker and MD at production company Coffee Films
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biog
I started making films in 1996 whilst I was also working as a production manager in fringe theatre and later on as a corporate marketing executive. For about 6 years my friends and I shot about 15 experimental shorts, animated sequences and documentaries about our lives under the collective name of Coffee Films. Around 2002 we decided to take things more seriously and incorporated Coffee Arts and Media which includes Coffee Films and a music agency/publicist Coffee Artists. We shot the well received short How to Disappear Completely for just £500 which picked us up an award as one of Europe's best young film production teams from a jury formed by MIFED and the Italian National Film School. Since then we've kept a constant presence at festivals and screenings with our short films and are just wrapping up a pilot project for a short film studio idea giving new talent the opportunity to produce films with us acting as executive producers; as a company we've always tried to make our experience available to others, advising on countless low budget productions and providing lengthy feedback for script submissions. We have about 5 feature length projects of varying forms at different stages and have been working as script developers for several US producers in NY and LA; one of our scripts is in production right now in Florida and another is attracting the interests of two major studios. Most of my time recently has been spent developing a documentary strand to our dramatic work, shooting a couple of low budget docs on US musicians for TV acquisition and I'm currently in post on my first wildlife documentary on the critically endangered Scottish wildcat which has been fortunate to attract some useful attention and has led to us discussing a wide range of wildlife based documentaries with several international broadcasters. influences, inspirations and favourite films
Metropolis (Fritz Lang) is the most technically stunning film ever made, still breathtaking 80 years on. Anything by Stanley Kubrick, I'm also a big admirer of the way he worked his career; at his own pace and with creative control. Anything by Oliver Stone, I like the fact he uses editing as creatively as his shooting, and he never gave up on being a director after years of rejection. Robert Rodriguez, not for his work but for his career plan; he shoots 3 films for his kids, and makes so much money he builds his own sound stage full of kit in his back garden so he can make films about obscure comic books. Ang Lee; for the incredible detail and thought in everything he does, and I think Hulk is a shining beacon amongst a lot of comic book adaptation crap. Early Coppola; putting everything he had on the line for his Apocalypse Now vision (lets not talk about "Jack"). The occasional indie flick that does something really different like Pi or Tetsuo. And a definite shout out to the wildlife filmmakers Owen Newman (cameraman) and Amanda Barratt (producer) who always capture the most beautiful and amazing cat footage.
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