Moniton Pictures
biographies - andy cassels
Andy first became involved in films as an actor back in 1998 when he appeared as an extra/walk-on in Gilles McKinnon’s film Regeneration whilst still at University. After a few years as an extra on several Scottish television programmes and films, Andy was cast in the principal role of Kilda Siddall in Steve Johnson’s independent feature film Union in 2002. On the set of Union he met two Scottish independent film-makers Andrew Gunn and Peter Smith and the following year Andy was cast as David Meeks in Gunn’s low-budget feature Bleeders.
After the filming of Bleeders in 2003, Andy began to become involved in scriptwriting, producing and directing. After spending time off-screen to concentrate on writing and learning the skills of production, Andy decided in 2005 to form a company with the help of both Gunn and Peter Smith. The company was formed under the name of Workshed Films (which was the name of the collective Andy, Gunn and Peter were part of during Bleeders), but after a few months Andy decided to change the name to Moniton Pictures to avoid any confusion with the projects which the Workshed Films collective had been involved in previously.
Also during 2005 Andy met Ray Tallan, Jonathan Rush, Jason Weidner, friends who would become principal crew/cast in Andy’s first film in 2006. Late 2005 Andy returned to acting, playing a small role in Uisdean Murray’s short-film Sweet Stained. In January 2006, Andy made his directorial debut with ‘Party Piece’, a dark comedy which he had written back in 2004 starring Jonathan Rush, Carmen Pieracinni and Kenny Fulton.
Since August 2006, Andy has assisted his local football team Greenock Morton by filming all competitive games for training purposes during the 2006/7 season.