Dan is an 8-times Emmy nominated showrunner who specialises in factual TV for the US and UK markets. He started out at the BBC Natural History Unit in the 1990s where he worked on series including Sir David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals and British Isles: A Natural History with Alan Titchmarsh. But in 2004, not long after he was kidnapped by Quichua Indians in Ecuador, Dan decided that perhaps it was time to take a break from natural history film-making. His MacGyver-esque escape ultimately lead him to Sydney (and then LA) where he soon became showrunner for a TV show that went on to become the 2nd most watched factual TV series in history, the phenomenon that is MythBusters. During his 10 years at the helm, Dan was responsible for the creation and implementation of 220 hours of television featuring more than 700 original ideas. It was under his leadership that the show received 7 Emmy nominations, two invitations to The White House, 12 series renewals, and over 18 billion views (sounds wrong, but isn’t). It was also under his leadership that the MythBusters accidentally fired a cannonball through someone’s house, but that’s another story. Alongside MythBusters, Dan’s other pop science credits include White Rabbit Project (Netflix), The Search (Discovery), Supercar MegaBuild (National Geographic), Twinstitute (BBC), Prototype This (Discovery).
In 2017, and now back in the UK, Dan took the opportunity to return to his first passion – natural history film-making but this time with a twist: In Deadly Dinosaurs, Dan was able to marry natural history with computer graphics. At Silverback since late 2018, Dan has been able to continue that amalgamation while working on a ground-breaking new series that is currently subject to too any NDAs to go into. What we can say is that Dan inspires his team to combine great visual flair with strong story-telling, all the while promoting the concept of kaizen – the constant desire for improvement.
When Dan’s not at work, he lives in Cheshire with his wife Jess, his two boys and an eclectic menagerie of animals. He’s also not embarrassed to admit that he’s a total cricket badger.
