About Martyn Drake

Martyn is 33 years old, married, with no biological children. He lives in Surrey with his wife, and is in the process of adopting a child from China.

Between 2002 and 2008, Martyn worked at The Moving Picture Company, a prestigious and multi-award winning (BAFTAs, Emmys, and other media industry awards) post-production house in Soho, London, specialising in the complex production system infrastructure required for high-end film, television and promo/commercial projects. These include the Harry Potter series, Terry Pratchett’s live action adaptations of Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, the Tomb Raider series, the James Bond series, and many more besides. He liaised with major film studios and clients to ensure that work was delivered to a very high standard. Martyn has worked on 42 major feature films and television productions at the time of leaving the company (although only received one official film credit). The most recent project is the forthcoming Wolfman from Universal Pictures.

Outside of work, his interest in films and film-making extended to attending the world premiere of Peter Jackson’s King Kong in New York City. He was invited along to Neil Gaiman’s own personal private screening back in June of 2007.

After leaving the post-production industry, Martyn spent six months working for a specialist software developer that produces high-end visual effects hardware and software architecture for the film and television industry. He was also responsible for producing and filming the company’s promotional video for NAB show in Las Vegas that involved travelling around the US and Europe interviewing prominent members of the visual effects community.

Unfortunately Martyn was made redundant shortly after (90% of the work force laid off!) but is now happily working for Memset Dedicated Hosting as a systems administrator providing hosting and support for clients including Private Eye magazine, KFC, Hilton Hotels and the RSPCA.

He still has a very keen interest in film production – both technical and logistical, especially in regards to digital cinematography, post-production and work-flow.

Martyn has also written several commentaries and letters to the broadcast industry regarding various issues, and actively campaigns to try to ensure that engineering teams are properly credited for their work on feature films.

Martyn does not own a TV (also see this Sunday Times article about me and my TV habits).

Martyn is a Top Contributor and Power Poster for the Google Apps Help Forums since 2007, helping people with their Google Apps deployments and issues in his spare time.