David Kenny
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David Kenny is a director with a varied background, starting his career in the UK; he set up ShashMedia Ltd in 1999. His first client was Watermark PLC to produce and direct video footage for Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic staff parties at Branson’s house.
He was then commissioned by Channel 4 to take what had started out as a student project "Fear, Panic & Censorship" a documentary about Video Nasties and the Internet, and make it suitable for TV. When Fear, Panic & Censorship was broadcast it gained a 92% increase in the audience share, pushing the viewing figures for the station up, from 500,000 to 1million. It has recently been released on DVD as part of the series Box of The Banned. [1]
Whilst filming Fear, Panic & Censorship David met Factory 2000, [2] infamous horror fetish film makers from New Jersey, famed for their film "Duck: The Carbine High Massacre" which caused a media sensation in the USA, when the film makers were arrested for taking guns on to school grounds and an FBI investigation followed, alongside nationwide TV coverage. Having gained access inside "The Factory" David was able to document the whole affair. "Fear, Panic & Censorship" was Factory 2000's first ever appearance on UK TV.
Having to get a proper job David left the underground film world in order to produce features on premiership football firstly for a Singaporean dot.com millionaire and within a matter of weeks, Leeds United FC and then Football365.com had noticed David’s skills and soon ShashMedia was producing weekly soccer content for the UK and Asian markets. This led to David joining the aptly named Sky Pub Channel as senior editor. All the time David kept a passion for the underground and regularly contributed features for cult publications such as Bizarre magazine and Headpress.
In 2002 David was offered the position of Director of advertising for the Pub Channel but refused this lucrative position, to chase a vague promise of a low budget feature film in USA, with Factory 2000.
David then spent two years under the name Johnny Crash filming, editing, and directing a huge number of films and documentaries with Factory 2000 and EI Cinema. [3] Helping make a young Factory 2000 actress he first met in 1999, who already had over 25 low budget films to her name, Misty Mundae, a cult star along the way. The most commercially successful of their films together was Spiderbabe [4] which was voted B-Movie of the year 2003 by the Howard Stern Show.
In 2004 David returned to the UK and continued with ShashMedia to make cutting edge documentaries and alternative films. Projects include "Sex, Drugs & E-mail" a documentary about legendary Japanese rockers Electric Eel Shock. [5] "Slay Misty for Me", which is an access all areas insight into the life and times of Misty Mundae and her film maker friends in New Jersey. "Scabs" an extreme cinema short, with the Psycho Cyborgs and most recently "Murder Music" a study of the genre of music known as Black Metal, which has been commissioned by Redemption TV.
David has also directed a number of acclaimed music videos including Electric Eel Shock’s “Scream For Me”. [6]
