James Martin

James Martin was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. His early interests centered around the sciences which enabled him to attend the University of British Columbia on several scholarships. But it was during his freshman year that he decided to put all his efforts into his greatest passion – filmmaking. Supported by his family in his decision, James enrolled in the University’s fine arts program and majored in Film and Television. In his Junior year he formed his first production company and produced, wrote and directed a documentary, Returning the Heartbeat for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. Knowing early on that a film degree alone wouldn’t pay the bills, James completed several business programs enabling him to confidently move into the role of producer.

His business abilities led him to create Sim Video West – a high tech digital company that created production and post production work for such films as Needful Things, Legends of the Fall, Indian in the Cupboard and television’s Entertainment Tonight. It was during this time that he began to hone his skills as a writer, first tackling Dostoyevsky’s short novel, The Double, which he successfully adapted into an award winning screenplay. In four short years, he completed five more feature length scripts, two of which garnered Hollywood’s interest – Sea Monkeys and Take A Number . At the same time he was hired as the CEO of Image Pacific Communications, a company specializing in electronic press kits for such feature films as The Sixth Day, The Thirteenth Warrior and The X-Men. He also wrote for television including Canadian commercial spots for Molsons, McDonalds, Canadian Tire and Labatts.

He eventually moved to Los Angeles. During that time he incorporated Sim Video Los Angeles which provided digital services for such recent movies like The Sixth Day, K19, Undercover Brother, Bulletproof Monk and Jackpot. Concurrently, he formed Wolves at the Door Productions, a company specializing in producing low budget, indie-style feature films for the film festival circuit. James’ most recent script, The Infernal Exile combines all of his dark, comedic writing styles into a supernatural tour de force modeled after Dante’s Inferno.

Currently, James is in pre-production on one of his scripts, Take A Number – a dark comedy to shoot this winter in British Columbia, starring Cloris Leachman as a woman who strikes it rich on a slot machine at the local Indian Reserve. The film is being Produced by Tom Rowe and Lisa Richardson of Reunion Pictures in Vancouver, and Executive Produced by Jim Martin and Wendy Winks. Jeremiah Chechik will direct.