Darren Horne

Darren was born in May 1977 in Gosport, Hampshire to a military family. His father Trevor Horne was a Commander in the Navy, and his grandfather, uncle and aunt all held various positions in the military. His two younger brothers, Stuart and Adam later joined the Royal Marines. After spending his early childhood living in Collier Row, Romford, Essex, the family moved to Plymouth, Devon when he was 10. He stayed based there until his early twenties, at first pursuing a career in the Bar Trade where he worked in a variety of well known Plymouth pubs such as The Pig and Truffle, The Two Trees and Kitty O'Hanlans. However it wasn't until he became a Bars Manager at the Theatre Royal that his passion for the arts was ignited. This led him to enroll in a degree as a mature student at the Plymouth College of Art and Design, where he studied for a HND in Animation and Creative Media, and then achieved a First Class Honours Degree in Photomedia and Design Communication (2004). His early films were often a mix of animation and live action and he fulfilled multiple crew roles, writing, directing, producing, editing and often acting in them. From here he moved to Keswick, in the Lake District. He began Teacher Training by enrolling on a Post Graduate Certificate in Education at Carlisle College (2005). This led to a part time job lecturing at what was the Cumbria Institute of the Arts, and later became The University of Cumbria. Whilst teaching he also completed a Masters Degree in Media Futures (2007) for which he produced several short films. (One of which - Pro Patria Mori - Won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Student Drama for the region). During this period he had a monthly slot on BBC Radio Cumbria (2005 -2007) discussing recent film releases and was a committee member at both the Keswick Film Club and the Keswick Film Festival for two years (2005 + 2006). As part of this role he set up and ran a short film competition which is still ongoing, and also hosted Q & A sessions with film makers such as Ken Loach and Sybil Robson. In 2006 he took over the management of the Lonsdale Alhambra Cinema in Penrith, Cumbria. He undertook various roles to gain experience and make him a better lecturer; including a runner on an episode National Geographic International program called "Planet Mechanics". (Episode 3 - Water War) He had met Chris Jones, (Author of the Guerrilla Filmmakers Handbook) whilst working with the Keswick Film Festival and so in 2007 he got involved as an Associate Producer on the short film Chris was working on, "Gone Fishing" In 2008 he then completed his first non-student film as a full producer, "Giri", which won the Sefton Express 08 award for the Best Sefton Themed Film at the Sefton Film Festival and The Edius Editing Award & The Palm Tree Productions Award for Best Actor in a Short Drama Performance (for Terry O'Neill) at The End of the Pier International Film Festival. Like any good producer, he aims to always have several projects in various stages of production.