Mark Herman

Mark Herman (born 1954) is a British film director and screenwriter, best known for writing and directing the 2008 film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

Early life
Herman was born in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. His father worked as a bacon importer. He was educated at Woodleigh School, North Yorkshire and thereafter at Sedbergh School and Bridlington Grammar School, Bridlington. He worked for his father's bacon importing business until his mid-20s.

He was late entering the film industry, first studying art at the Regional College of Art and Design in Kingston upon Hull aged 25, then going on to study graphic design at Leeds Polytechnic for 3 years. At the end of the first year he had to choose between illustration, printmaking, graphics or film for the final 2 years. He applied to the illustration, printmaking, and graphics parts of the course, however he wasn't accepted into any of them, so had no choice but to pick film. It was there in the film part of his graphic design degree, that he started doing animation.

He then progressed to the National Film and Television School.

NFTS, Amber & Black and Hull City AFC
At the NFTS, he recognised the superior talents of people like his neighbouring classmate Nick Park, and other classmates like Tony Collingwood, so decided to move away from animation and towards live-action instead. Nick Park was making A Grand Day Out at the time.

Herman was a schoolfriend of musician Henry Priestman, who like Herman is a Hull City A.F.C. fan.

In February 1983 Priestman as Harry Amber and Herman as Mark Black, together as Amber and Black, along with the Hull City players themselves, released the song "The Tigers are Back". It was made to raise funds to help pay the players wages, as the effects of Hull City's previous seasons money struggles were still visible. Herman reworded the song "Out of Luck" by Priestman's previous band Yachts, to get the lyrics. The record sleeves and records themselves contained the made up record label logo Don Records in tribute to Hull City's then chairman Don Robinson, and the made up issue number COL001 in tribute to their then manager Colin Appleton.

In June 1983, Herman filmed Hull City's end-of-season tour of Florida, where the players and staff visited Walt Disney World, and played the Tampa Bay Rowdies who were managed by Rodney Marsh, in the return leg of the Arrow Air Anglo-American Cup. It was directed and edited by Herman, with Priestman composing the music. Herman released the documentary online in 2016 with the title A Kick in the Grass.

He made his directorial debut on his final graduation film See You At Wembley, Frankie Walsh (1986), which he also wrote. It won the Foreign Student Film award at the Student Film Awards. He then spent the next 2 years writing for the BBC.

Herman co-wrote lyrics for the songs Ideal World, Hooverville and Sad Songs for Henry Priestman's band The Christians on their first album, The Christians (1987), alongside Priestman himself. Priestman had done a football themed song for Herman's film See You at Wembley, Frankie Walsh, and Herman had done the lyrics for it, however the lyrics didn't fit the song, so they were scrapped. However they tweaked the lyrics, which were eventually used for Ideal World instead.

On 1 January 2008, midway through Hull City's Premier League promotion season, Amber & Black, released the song "The City's on Fire" on Myspace. It was their first Hull City song since 1983. It was later re-released just before 2014 FA Cup final between Hull City and Arsenal F.C.

Feature film career
Herman’s first feature-length project was Blame It on the Bellboy (1992), a comedy of mistaken identity starring Dudley Moore and Bryan Brown. It failed at the box office, and with critics.

Next, Herman wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Brassed Off (1996), following the members of a colliery brass band, still struggling to survive a decade after the miners' strike.

In Little Voice (1998), adapted by Herman from Jim Cartwright's play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Jane Horrocks reprises the title role of a harried young woman whose only escape lies in the memory of her father and in imitating the singers he admired.

Purely Belter (2000), adapted by Herman from Jonathan Tulloch's novel The Season Ticket, is the story of two teenage boys trying to get together enough money for a couple of Newcastle United F.C. season tickets. Hope Springs (2003), is an adaptation of New Cardiff.

His most recent work is the adaptation of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It was produced by David Heyman and stars David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Sheila Hancock and Rupert Friend. Herman directed and adapted the work.

Herman is a fellow of Film and Television Production at York St John University, York, England, and has received Honorary Doctorates from Hull University and Leeds Beckett University.

Jessica Winter in The Rough Guide to Film criticises Herman's fondness for "cloying" close-ups and "contrived melodramatic showdown[s]", saying of the film Purely Belter that it "probably didn't create many new converts to Herman's partly gritty, party feel-good socialist realist strain of filmmaking".

Filmography

 * See You At Wembley, Frankie Walsh (1986)
 * Unusual Ground Floor Conversion (1987)
 * Blame It on the Bellboy (1992)
 * Brassed Off (1996)
 * Little Voice (1998)
 * Purely Belter (2000)
 * Hope Springs (2003)
 * The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)

Awards and nominations

 * Student Film Awards 1987 - Foreign Student Film winner for See You At Wembley, Frankie Walsh.
 * Empire Awards 2000 - Best British Director nominee for Little Voice.