BIOGRAPHY

"Being a digital producer is not just about understanding new media, it's about creating content that people want to engage with and share."

Billy Cometti has been creating content across nearly every media platform for more than 20 years.

Starting his career in New York City, Billy worked on dozens of hours of American prime time television programmes, including high profile documentaries for A&E, MSNBC and the Discovery Channel. He worked on projects as varied as a Biography about the life of martial arts master Bruce Lee, to a documentary about the making of the Broadway hit "The Producers"

As Producer, Editor, and Writer, Billy's prison documentary, "Lockup: The Inmate Diaries" won several awards, including a 2002 Cine Golden Eagle.

In late 2002, he took a job with the United Nations as a video webcast producer. His work there won him a prestigious UN 21 Award for "outstanding achievements in improving United Nations efficiency" for his work on the UN's live streaming webcasting operations. He represented the organisation at several major international conferences, including UNCTAD XI in Sao Paolo and the 11th Crime Congress in Bangkok.

Relocating to London in 2005, Billy worked for the BBC as a producer, editor and celebrity interviewer for the multi-platform "BBC Movies" project.

In 2008, he became the British Red Cross' in-house video project coordinator. While there he has overseen the growth of the Red Cross' presence on social media channels such as YouTube, increasing views within 2 years from only tens of thousands to more than two million. He left the Red Cross in 2012 to become the video and print manager for the charity ARK.

Billy's work has always been about combining technical know-how with story-telling skills. He is a BBC-trained cameraman, an experienced director, writer and video editor. He has worked on several mobile phone apps as a project manager and believes the mobile platform will soon be replacing the desktop one, as the primary vehicle for video storytelling.

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