Finn McGough is an award winning commercials, drama and documentary director with a background in Fine Art and an MSc in Psychology. A mix that underpins his long standing interest in how people behave when a camera is pointed at them.

He began his career travelling extensively as a documentary director, making Lonely Planet television guides across Kenya and Italy, Locked Up Abroad films in India and Thailand, and being blindfolded and dropped in Azerbaijan for Channel 4’s adventure series Lost.

His self shot observational documentary The Professional Charmer for the BBC, following a charismatic womaniser and convicted con man, marked a move into more intimate, character led work. He followed this with Summer With The Johnsons for the BBC, tracking a notorious Gypsy family in the Cotswolds on the run from the law in connection with a multi million pound heist involving the Rothschild estate. The film won the PRIX EUROPA for Best Non Fiction Film and earned an RTS Breakthrough Talent nomination.

Alongside this he directed comic travelogues including Dom Joly’s Happy Hour for Sky in Russia and the United States, and an episode of The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan for the BBC in Romania.

Finn also works as a photographer, shooting travel, street and documentary imagery. He bulk loads, home develops, scans and prints his own 35mm film. Partly for control, partly for the process, partly because he has gone too far to stop.

As a commercials director, he has worked across food, retail, finance, charity and automotive, with brands including McDonald’s, Marks and Spencer, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons, Co Op, McCain, Shredded Wheat, Nokia, Philips, Royal Mail, Lloyds, Halifax, Barclays, Santander, Cancer Research UK, Budweiser, Visit Wales and Volkswagen.

His work has earned a D&AD Pencil, multiple British Arrow nominations, APA Top 50 accreditations, BTAA Silver and Bronze Arrows and a Silver Clio, though he is careful not to mention them too early at dinner.

His drama short Flak, based on an Alan Sillitoe story, was nominated for Best Film and Best Cinematography at the Rushes Short Film Awards.

Finn continues to make observational, character led work rooted in real human behaviour, whether on a soundstage, on the road, or waiting for film to dry in his kitchen.