Nigel Ashcroft has been making award-winning films and television programmes for thirty years. He has worked in Drama, Commercials and Animation, but has specialised in Natural History and Science. Currently Nigel is developing a range of science and natural history programmes as well as a ground-breaking WW1 feature-documentary for cinema.During 2008 and 2009 Nigel was Natural History Producer for Terrence Malick on his much awaited film, "The Tree of Life" starring Brad Pitt,Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain. Nigel's unit shot in a range of extreme locations in 11 countries. "The Tree of Life" was awarded The Palme d'Or for best picture at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.In 2007 Nigel directed the acclaimed PBS astronomy special, Seeing in the Dark, based on Timothy Ferris’ best-selling book of the same name. As a producer, director and executive producer, his programmes include the British Academy nominated Saving the Tiger and Wild India, for Channel 4, the Emmy award winning Crater of the Rain God for National Geographic, 11 episodes of the Jackson Hole ‘Best Limited Series’ awarded, The Ultimate Guides and Journey to the Centre of the Earth – winner of the Best Earth Science award at The Jackson Hole film festival in 2003 – both for The Discovery Channel. Nigel started his film career as an editor, building, evolving and running one of the first post-production facility houses ever, “The Production House” in Bristol before moving on to producing. He cut more than twenty episodes of the BBC's Natural World and Wildlife on One as well as Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" - the most awarded music video of all time. Nigel is co-founder and Managing Creative Director of the long established Bristol based production company Green Umbrella Limited. He is a regular judge at international film festivals and frequently runs courses and workshops to share his wide knowledge and experience of the film and television business with the next generation.