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- Dean Cavanagh is an award winning screenwriter and film and TV producer born in Bradford, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1966. He started his writing career in freelance journalism contributing to UK magazines such as The Face, Melody Maker, I-D & New Musical Express. In 1990, in the height of the acid house culture, when local pirate radio airplay made Bradford a significant player in the north west dance music scene, he founded the club culture magazine Herb Garden and a band with best friend Enzo Annecchini. His dance music outfit, Glamorous Hooligan, was picked up by Warner Bros. offshoot Arthrob, and in 1995, they released a critically acclaimed album ‘Naked City Soundtrax’. Cavanagh has stated that his proudest moment was getting Robert Anton Wilson to guest on one of the tracks. During his journalist career Cavanagh wrote extensively on Hunter S Thompson, William S Burroughs, Scott Walker, Brian Jones era Rolling Stones, Northern Soul, Psychedelia, Krautrock and counter cultural issues such as Magik, Shamanism, Esoteria, and Para-Politics. As a musician, he featured on the late John Peel's Sounds of the Suburbs TV show, in the late 1990s. As a clubland promoter, he organised popular house music, techno, and drum and bass nites in Bradford, called Tolerance, before moving on to Leeds, where he promoted the successful Soundclash club happenings bringing in respected DJ's such as Andrew Weatherall, Alex Patterson, Adrian Sherwood and J Saul Kane. His first short story Mile High Meltdown was included in the best selling Disco Biscuits anthology, published by Sceptre, and brought rave reviews, but it was music that first introduced him to the public domain. Music journalism was where he begun his career. As a journalist he contributed to The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday Magazine, New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Positive Energy of Madness,The Face, as well as the Herb Garden, and i-d. He has also worked in copywriting, penning many commercials and working alongside director John McFarlane, before progressing to writing theatre plays and movies. Dean wrote a late night cult sitcom called Honky Sausages that McFarlane directed for UK Play TV. Dean developed many projects with Terry Gilliam's producer, Ray Cooper for John Kamen's company Radical Media. Dean works regularly with Irvine Welsh of Trainspotting fame. Their play Babylon Heights has been performed to critical acclaim in Dublin, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Zealand. Shooting on their screenplay The Meat Trade starring Robert Carlyle and Colin Firth and directed by Antonia Bird begins shooting in summer 2010. In 2004, Dean and Irvine were BAFTA nominated for their BBC Three short film Dose starring Jonathon Lewis Owen, Kate Jarman and Julia Davis and directed by Philip John. Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh have a number of projects in development with companies such as Channel 4, HBO and BBC. One of these projects concerns youth suicide (Irvine Welsh is a patron of a youth suicide charity) and the duo hope to go into production in mid 2010 for transmission in 2011. "Wedding Belles" a feature film written by Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh that was transmitted to critical acclaim by C4 in March 2007. It stars Shirley Henderson Michelle Gomez (Green Wing, Acid House), Shauna McDonald, Kathleen McDermott and Jonathon Lewis Owen (Dose). It is produced by Jemma Rodgers and directed by Philip John. Cavanagh and Welsh co-executive produced Wedding Belles. Dean has done a number of script doctoring assignments for companies such as Endemol, Warner Bros. and Sony. Fearful of being pigeonholed, he comments that he doesn't really have a niche, but does tend to veer towards projects that challenge the viewers assumptions. Two projects close to his heart are Sympathy For The Devil a film chronicling the life of Aleister Crowley and an untitled film about the making of the highly controversial cult film Performance that starred Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and Edward Fox Dean and Irvine have an ambitious 3 season, six part TV series called "The Food Chain" that was developed for HBO. They now plan to make it for British TV. In a recent interview for The Independent he said he watched hardly any British TV and that he was influenced by TV shows such as The Wire stating that it is "simply a work of art, the most compelling and truthful TV series ever made". He citesCarnivàle, The Sopranos and The Shield as examples of why US TV leaves its British counterpart languishing. Cavanagh is an often outspoken critic of what he sees as the "moronizing" of British TV. Dean is currently writing and co-producing the cult Internet series "Svengali!" starring Jonathan Owen, Alan McGee, Roger Evans and Sally Phillips, directed by Phil John. Cavanagh and Welsh are currently developing a number of feature length screenplays.
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