Damian Joyce
About Me
I moved around a lot growing up. I lived all over the place. The one constant thing was television. It felt like I was raised and educated by my portable analogue TV. Not everything I saw connected with me, but certain things really did. Classic films, kitchen sink dramas, alternative comedies, art house cinema, film noir and French avant-garde.
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Moving around the country exposed me to different circumstances and perspectives, shaping how I see things and relate to people. The disruption to my education meant I left home and school at fifteen with no qualifications but I later found my way into art school, graduating in Fine Art, Film and Animation.​​​​
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Alongside film, music ran in parallel. I produced tracks, promoted club nights and spent a lot of time in spaces where sound and rhythm were the main event. One of my first jobs out of university was working as a live vision mixer in a large club, creating visuals for moving screens.​
I mixed live camera feeds from around the club, archive footage and graphics in real time. I learnt to edit to the music, read the crowd and work the room. It was a fast, practical education in pace, timing and knowing when to push something or when to let it breathe.​
Music became a serious pursuit. I started making records with my brother Alex, signed to an indie dance label as a band called Spong and spent several years trying to make it work. We released a well received EP Stickleback in the UK and Australia and featured on several successful compilations in the UK and USA. It often felt close, but the reality is it’s a tough business and success isn’t always in your control. Letting that go wasn’t easy, but it sharpened my sense of what I cared about and where my focus really lay.
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Around that time, I came across an advert for a trainee creative role at the BBC. Getting the job felt like a rare moment of alignment. My time there was formative. I was making trails across BBC and UKTV channels, moving quickly between genres, audiences and tones. By the time I left, BBC Broadcast had become Red Bee Media. I walked out with a handful of awards and straight into Channel 5.
​​​At Channel 5, I helped build and shape an in-house commercial department, writing and directing campaigns, sponsorships and idents. It was innovative, fast-paced and hands-on. We made high-end work on tight budgets, while helping the sales team sell multi-channel airtime packages that came with heavily reduced, and sometimes free, commercial production.
From there I moved between senior creative roles across broadcasters, a global travel platform and a small creative and production company. The work ranged from commissioning and setting up production studios to hands-on writing, directing, producing and editing, bringing everything I’d learned together in one place.​
Whether I’m writing, directing, producing or editing, those experiences are there in the work. From television and music to the people I’ve met, it all feeds into how I approach what I do.