About David

Posted by on Apr 27, 2011 in | Comments Off on About David

Hi, I’m David McVay, host of The Geek Actually Podcast. I have been a life long movie buff and before I started podcasting, I had originally trained as a film director and producer. During this time of my life, I worked for about 13 years in a video store (you’re not the only person to have this story Mr. Tarrantino!) and watched an awful lot of films. I have been told that I have an extraordinary general knowledge of film production, history and trivia. I thought the video store was an excellent place to work while I built my film career. I finally left the video store when I got very active working for my mother’s theatre company (The Playhouse Group). I helped stage (usually as the sound designer or video editor) or acted in numerous plays and even some TV shows (Neighbours, Feds, Janus and Mercury). I also taught film acting and film history to her students.

I fell in love with computers from the first time I laid my hands on a 16k TRS-80 in the very early 80’s. But it was at the theatre company I fell completely in love with Edgar (yes, I always name my computers, they are my friends). Edgar was a crappy (although great for his day) 386 PC running Windows 3. Since that early TRS-80 I have used or owned a VZ200, Commodore 64, IBM XT, Classic Macintosh, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga, PowerPC Mac, G3 iMac and every version of Windows since version 3. I currently run an Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro (Lilith 2.0), an i5 27″ iMac (Erica) and an Intel Core 2 Duo Windows 7 machine (Edgar II). Why is this relevant? My love of computers got me into graphic design and this is something that I did freelance (Murphycat Designs) for almost 12 years. It was my I.T. and graphic design skills that got me into teaching. I taught Multimedia Integration and basic I.T. skills for several years.

During all of this I have always been interested in photography. That started when I was 10 years old and staying in Germany for a few months. My uncle loaned me a Polaroid and a box of film cartridges. I shot hundreds of photos of just about everything. I moved to 35mm in my late teens and then onto digital about seven years ago. I shot as a hobbyist until I moved professional in 2003. I was shooting headshots for actors mostly. Actors liked coming to me because I understood the process of acting and could speak to them in their own language. Headshots can be a little creatively uninspired so I would still go out and shoot my own art at the same time.

Life has an interesting way of moving you in different directions than you originally intended.

In late 2005 my son, Nicholas, was diagnosed with Leukaemia (A.L.L.) and everything kind of came to a grinding halt. I quit teaching and became the home carer for Nicholas as my wife, Katie, has a good career as a scientist and I didn’t think she should sacrifice that. I was, quite frankly, really unhappy at the school I was teaching at and quite burned out. I was a zombie, teaching during the day, homework at night and headshots in any free time. My son getting sick made me re-evaluate life in general, I realised that I needed to enjoy what I was doing: enjoy life.

I stopped shooting headshots and freelancing as a graphic designer (MurphyCat Designs has been closed down) as neither of these occupations were fulfilling to me. I took a year off while looking after my son and found a little inner ‘zen’ 🙂 I found that I could not continue doing things just for doing them, I had to enjoy doing it.

Now, almost six years later, my son is back to health and is full remission. I have started podcasting (for two years now) about film and tech, two subjects that I am very passionate about and recently I have been getting the photography bug back. My single most important rule to life is that I have to enjoy doing what I am doing. If I ever find myself not enjoying something, I stop. I hope that love comes through on the shows and in my photographs.

Anyway, that is a brief overview of who I am. I hope you enjoy this site and the photographs. If you haven’t already, check out geekactually.com and try out our podcasts Geek Actually and Film Actually.