JACK McHINE

Watson, McHine Associates
3, Percy Street London W1P 9FJ
phone 0161 323 9777 fax 0161 323 9766 email postmaster@wma.siriusnet.com Curriculum Vitae

Jack McHine
(b. 1948, Oxford)

Jack McHine has been a television documentary director/producer for almost 25 years. He started work as an Assistant Floor Manager on the ATV music programme 'Ready Steady Go', berfore becoming editorial assistant to Paul Watson, who was already establishing a reputation as a 'fly-on-th wall' documentary producer. (Watson's series 'The Family' is widely regarded as the epitome of the techique.)

In 1972, McHine directed his first documantary about the Swedish pop group The Sheets, on tour in England.This revealing back-stage intrusion on four argumentative musicians in a failing hit band was a 'cause celèbre' in television annals, for its liberal use of swear words. The programme won the documentary Golden Bear at the San Francisco Film Festival in 1973.

Between 1973 and 1979, McHine made many documentaries on entertainment personalities or, as he called them, 'Celebrities with nothing to celebrate'. McHine was not well-liked by agents and managers for his ruthless methods, but his victims, often on a downside in their careers, were usually happy to bask in the notoriety of these programmes.

Following a sabbatical of seven years in India, during which he studied sand painting, McHine returned to England to form Watson, McHine Associates with his former mentor. From the inception, the company specialised in the Business World, bringing new insights of a world normally concealed from the consumer. Many of today's cable television business formats owe much to the pioneering work conducted by McHine. His five year production of the magazine review 'DasKapital' for London Weekend TV, is credited with changing the Saturday morning habits of managers and economists – leaving cars unwashed in countless of drives, as millions tuned into McHine's brash mix of fact, explanation and exposé.

In recent years, McHine has combined his geopolitical management consultancy skills with programmes for transnational corporations. Most of these films are not seen publicly. He regards these projects as therapeutic tools to expose the weakness in management structures. "By documenting and analysing the daily life of a transnational company, I can demonstrate the energy which is often not seen by isolated upper management and is therefore not a factor in their decision making. It's like psychoanalysis – except it's the company board that lies on the couch".