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The Stephen Campbell Page Stephen William Edward Campbell was born in Scotland on 26 July 1978, in Forres, a small town in Inverness, to an RAF fireman and his wife. He lived there for two years, before travelling to Wales for a further three years and then finally returning to the land of his parents, Ireland. Since then he has lived in Finglas, Dublin. All in all he has resided in his current abode for eighteen years. After leaving school, Stephen was unsure what he wanted to do with his life, so he applied for, and was accepted into, the Bachelor of Arts in St. Patricks College's, Drumcondra, where he majored in English and History. It was during his time at the college that he met most of the CherryPie team. Also, while there, he served as a class rep on the Student's Union for three years, as well as heading the English society in his second year, the film society in his third, and working as both production manager and film critic for the college magazine for his final two years. He was also instrumental in designing the Book to Film course which was included in the English Curriculum in his final year and he worked on several plays in the college, not to mention filming most of the shows put on over the years. In his finals Stephen received a 1.1, scoring over 70% in English, and finishing in first place in the exams. He spent the next year studying Film and TV Production in the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology but, completely disillusioned with the Irish film industry in general, and DLIADT in specific, he left at the end of first year and proceeded to do an MA in English in NUI, Maynooth, where he again finished top of his class with a 70%+ final grade. He is currently studying for his PhD in Maynooth, concentrating on the areas of narratology and self-reflexivity in the novel. Stephen has spent time working in the Irish Film Archives in the Irish Film Centre and in the library in the Royal Irish Academy, and he has worked on St. Pat's stage many times, not the least of which was when he spent a summer there getting the stage ready for the upcoming college term. Stephen has worked exhaustively in the film world over the last few years. Unsurprisingly, it was through the written word that he first came to develop an interest in the making of films and although he has had a deep passion for movies from a very early age, it was only in the summer of 1997 that that passion produced anything creative, for it was during this period that he wrote his first feature, a western entitled Heroes. Stephen followed this up the proceeding summer with another feature, The Magician, and wrote his third screenplay that Christmas, a reworking of Michael Mann's Heat, which he called Passion. After Passion he wrote a critically acclaimed play entitled Black Flowers Blossom, and then wrote, produced and directed Admonition, as well as working for Martin on Oedipus: A Context. For CherryPie's proposed second film venture he wrote the short Cassandra and in the meantime wrote and directed Justification (a religious comedy) while attending a two week summer school in DLIADT. After Cassandra fell through, he directed and produced a music video for the band Cartel. All the while this was going on (the summer of 1999) he was working on what he considers to be his masterpiece, the epic and disturbing Paradise Lost. Upon returning to college for his final year he compiled a short book of poetry called Somehow I Got Inside Me and the summer of 2000 saw him produce his most lauded screenplay to date, the apocalyptic Soul. Immediately after writing Soul he produced a masterpiece of poem to film adaptation with his troubled John Keat's La Belle Dame Sans Merci, before then entering DLIADT. He worked as a hired hand on several films in his early days in the college, gaining experience in lights, sound, cameras, continuity and organisation before making his first film for the college; the acclaimed The Gates of Paradise (which he wrote, produced, directed and edited). His next two projects however, The Dream and The Death of the Intellect, the second taking a swipe at those who reject literature for film, were both refused financing from the college. Stephen next acted as producer on a lavish and ambitious melodrama (The Weight of the World), a production made difficult because of his stormy relationship with the director. The last film of his own which he has made, The Verisimilitude of All Literary Endeavours, was self financed and made on his own time. After that, he served as sound recordist and script supervisor on two high profile productions (Artificial Intervention and Dreams of a Forgotten King, respectively) before leaving DLIADT. During his MA in Maynooth, and his first year as a part time tutor in both Maynooth and Pat's, Stephen was too busy to make another film and the production of Cassandra last summer was his first piece of creative work since The Verisimilitude, made almost 18 months previously. Also during the summer Stephen wrote a new feature length screenplay. Entitled Saviour?, the film operates from a similar point to view to Paradise Lost insofar as there are multiple interconnecting stories and much philosophical and religious musings. Stephen is on record as stating that it was the most difficult piece of work he has ever written (indeed he actually began writing it in the summer of 2001, returning to it in both 2002 and 2003, before finally managing to finish it in 2004). The film is effectively a none too flattering autobiographical fiction, and has been described by its readers as the most disturbing and nihilistic piece of literature they have ever read. It is also over 200 pages! Stephen is highly interested in film aesthetics and is a veritable encyclopaedia of knowledge when it comes to films made over the last ten/ fifteen years. Stephen's plans for the future include becoming an English lecturer and part-time film maker. He would ideally love to make a feature film at some time in the future. No matter what job Stephen acquires in the future however, he fully intends to hold the CherryPie Productions together and, at the very least, continue to make low budget shorts and work in low budget theatre. His favourite filmmakers include Terry Malick, Michael Mann, P.T. Anderson, and Oliver Stone, while his favourite films are The Thin Red Line (a huge influence on John Keat's La Belle Dame Sans Merci), Heat, Requiem for a Dream, Natural Born Killers and The Hours. His favourite writers include James Joyce, William Faulkner, William Blake, John Milton, and Shakespeare, while his favourite works are Paradise Lost, Hamlet, The Songs of Experience, The Sound and the Fury and Ulysses. Stephen's CV (2 pages) Back to home |
| Some links that Stephen recommends you visit: The Internet Movie Database If you haven't heard of it, shame on you Here Today...Gone to Hell A pretty good Guns N' Roses site Game FAQs A truly unbelievable database of walkthroughs for every game ever Tubjaxx The CherryPie related(ish) magazine Entertainment Ireland Ireland's best event guide Home of the Underdogs You want old games for your PC, then look no further NUI, Maynooth An excellent college, with a cracking English Department The Millennial Abyss An excellent website dedicated to the best TV show ever, Millennium The Unbound Bible A searchable online Bible database Amazon.com The best store on the net |
