Career Background

• November 2024 –  Selected as one of 10 participating screenwriters for Writers Meet Producers pitching event with Dublin International Screenwriting Festival

• July 2024 –  Selected as one of Ireland’s emerging screenwriters to participate in Stowe Story Lab’s Looking in/Looking out development workshop as part of the Galway Fleadh

• October 2024 –  Writer/Presenter/Producer EIRSAT-1: Ireland’s first sattellite, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) funded Radio Documentary, Newstalk FM 
• May 2024 – Writer/Presenter/Producer Vision: The story of Sister Margaret Coyne, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) funded Radio Documentary, Newstalk FM 
• 2023 – Present –  Writer/Presenter/Producer Living on the Edge, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) funded Radio Documentary, Newstalk FM (currently in production) 
• March 2022 Presenter/Writer/Producer A Sea of Sound, BAI funded Radio Documentary, Newstalk FM
• 2019-2021: Producer/Co-Director/Writer The Shape of History, Documentary, RTÉ One, Moondance Productions, semi-finalist at the Film Arte Festival Madrid
• 2014-2021: Producer, Co-Director/Writer The Zoo, Season 6-10 and Christmas Specials, Documentary series, RTÉ One, Moondance Productions, 4 IFTA nominations
• 2014- 2016 Producer/Co-Director/Writer Peacekeepers, RTÉ One, Moondance Productions, winner at the Scandinavian Film Festival 
• 2014-2015 Producer/Co-Director/Script Editor, Recruits, 2-part Documentary series, RTÉ One, Moondance Productions, finalist at the New York Film Festival
• 2011-2015 Producer, Firefighters, Season 1-3, RTÉ One, Moondance Productions
• 2011-2014 Writer, Producer The Zoo, Season 3-5, Documentary series, RTÉ One, Moondance Productions
• 2008-2010 Researcher/Assistant Producer The Zoo, Season 1-2, Documentary series, RTÉ One, Moondance Productions
• 2006 Researcher So you want to be Taoiseach, TV series, RTÉ One, Midas Productions

Biography

John has worked for almost 20 years in the Irish film and television industry. He was the Writer, Co-Director and Producer for season 6-10 of RTÉ’s critically acclaimed The Zoo TV series, which was nominated four times for an IFTA award and was broadcast in several territories worldwide, including on TVR and Animal Planet amongst others.

John produced and directed wildlife filming on location in some of the world’s most remote areas, including in the rainforests of the Republic of the Congo, Borneo, Sulawesi, India and Brazil, the semi-arid bush of Zimbabwe and the Sahara desert in Tunisia.

John co-directed and produced numerous documentaries and television series for Moondance Productions, including the two-part documentary series Recruits (RTÉ), a finalist at the New York Film Festival 2017, Peacekeepers: The Irish in South Lebanon (RTÉ), winner at the Scandinavian Film Festival 2017, and The Shape of History (RTÉ), semi-finalist at the Film Arte Festival Madrid 2019.

John’s BAI funded radio documentary EIRSAT-1: Ireland’s first satellite was broadcast in October 2024. A Sea of Sound, a BAI funded radio documentary about the effect of man-made noise on the whales and dolphins in our seas was broadcast on Newstalk FM in 2022 and the BAI funded Vision: The Story of Sister Margaret Coyne was broadcast on Newstalk FM in May 2024. John currently has one other BAI funded radio documentary in production.

In 2021 John started his own Production Company, As the Crow Flies Productions (ATCF), working in radio, television, film and live storytelling. ATCF and O Sullivan Productions (Ardmore Studios, Wicklow) recently began work on a co-production feature film documentary about President Michael D Higgins on which John is Executive Producer.

John received an MA (First class honours) in Anglo-Irish Literature from UCD and an MA in Journalism from DIT. In recent years John has renewed his focus on writing and recently completed two screenwriting courses with the National Film and Television School in the UK. 

John was chosen as one of the emerging screenwriters to participate in the 2024 Galway Film Fleadh’s two-day filmmakers development workshop Facing In/Facing Out run by Stowe Story Labs and in November 2024 was selected as one of the Irish screenwriters to pitch at the Dublin International Screenwriting Festival’s event Writers Meet Producers.

John acted as a consultant on mythology and storytelling for RKSSKRG, the curators of the exhibition Oh My Demigod at Temple Bar Gallery in Dublin, which featured Irish artists reimagining Ireland’s national epic, the Táin Bó Cuailnge, and he told the story of the Táin to a live audience at the exhibition’s launch as well as participating in a panel discussion on mythology and art with the artists and curators.

John is currently developing a one hour stage production of The Táin in conjunction with Berlin based Irish musician Barry Lannigan.