About Me.

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“For me a great 1stAD has the right mixture of experience and intelligence. Experience is invaluable as it provides insights and skills learned through direct hands on practical application. Intelligence, on the other hand, allows a 1stAD to understand the principles behind their craft, analyse information, make sound judgments, and draw meaningful conclusions from their experiences. The synergy of these two elements allows a 1stAD to approach every challenge with confidence and an open mind.

I also think its crucial to absolutely love your job and be passionate about creative collaboration and storytelling. You need to ask questions, and really listen to people until you fully understand departmental counsel and technicalities, before forging a path forward as a team. I’ve always worked by the maxim 'God is in the details’, which means paying attention to the little things, in the manner of military planning. I always strive for professional excellence and 100% commitment in everything I do. Finally a healthy sense of humour and a positive outlook is essential”!
- Marco Ciglia 2022

INTRODUCTION: Marco is a Budapest based 1stAD with 30 years experience working in Features & HETV. He has worked on some of the world's biggest EMMY award winning shows; including GAME OF THRONES (HBO), THE WHEEL OF TIME (Amazon), CARNIVAL ROW (Amazon) and THE TERROR (AMC). The experience and responsibilities gained guiding these large-scale, highly complex, $150MM budget productions to a successful conclusion, have made Marco supremely capable of handling any size of feature film or TV drama project.

ACTION & SPECIAL FX: Marco's work in the fantasy/action genre and his expertise in VFX production have made him uniquely qualified at the planning of major action sequences, ensuring seamless integration between the Stunt, SFX, Creature FX, and VFX teams, be it other-worldly monsters, epic period battles, or stunt heavy car chases, fire fights and helicopter work.

PRE-PRODUCTION PLANNING: Marco has a consistent track record of successfully managing & delivering projects on schedule, while ensuring to cater to the priorities and vision of the creatives. He brings vast knowledge & experience to the pre-production stage, excelling at creating robust & accurate schedules, with an incredible breadth of oversight, attention to detail, and a level of meticulous planning that is hard to match.

RUNNING THE FLOOR: Marco likes to run a calm and focused floor, engendering a strong work ethic and promoting a culture of professionalism and mutual respect. He helps to drive a unit forward, creating a positive momentum with a shared sense of purpose. Always friendly and approachable, he is totally unflappable under pressure, maintaining his composure and a positive attitude even in the most challenging circumstances.

TEAM MANAGEMENT: Marco excels in fostering a collaborative and positive work environment. By interweaving the essential threads of active listening, effective communication, problem solving know-how, confident leadership, all with a healthy dose of good humour and grace, Marco helps create a cohesive dynamic between departments that ensures productions run smoothly.

SAFETY FIRST: Marco is extremely mindful of his health & safety responsibilities, in the knowledge that a safety-conscious 1stAD forms the foundation of a safe set, Extensively trained in H&S, he regularly updates his best practices to ensure work place safety. He is proactive in contributing his expertise to the identification, development and effective communication of production H&S controls. He holds both DGA & UK safety passports.

SHOOTING OVERSEAS: Marco has developed a unique skillset to deal with the specific challenges of foreign filming and is very comfortable effectively communicating with large multilingual cast and crews. He has filmed drama projects in Hungary, UK, Czechia, Italy, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Slovenia, Malta, Luxembourg, Austria, RO Ireland & N Ireland.

EARLY LIFE AND CAREER: Marco was born in 1975, into a large Italian-English immigrant family. Growing up as a child, he took particular inspiration from his two uncles, (the Powell and Pressburger of South London!) who made brilliant Super 8 films. Determined to to pursue a life in the movies, he left school at 16 and trained on Arriflex 35mm cameras and Steenbeck flatbed editing systems with a local filmmaking charity. His career began as a set PA at 17, before working his way up through the AD ranks to Key 2ndAD, before transitioning to 1stAD for the last 25 years.

PERSONAL INTERESTS: Marco enjoys running and Chinese martial arts which help give him a high work rate and calm mental focus on long shoot days. For R&R, he likes reading classical and spiritual philosophy, spending time with family, sauna, playing chess, and road trips. Watching movies is naturally a big passion, everything from Italian horror to 70's kung fu cinema. Most of all Marco likes meeting good friends for Italian style espresso! La dolca vita!