Meet the Team
Max Lovell-Hoare
Producer-Director
Max and his Nikon F80 have shot in over 30 countries in the last five years and will be adding at least another 10 to their list in the coming months. Max takes a particular interest in experimental photography and digital imaging, and is keen to bring feature-film techniques and equipment into documentary making. His latest ‘toy’ is a 25ft filming crane, which has already been put to good use in the London docklands.
Sophie Ibbotson
Assistant Producer and Writer
An enthusiast for languages no one else can read, Sophie deals with the intricate bureaucracies, histories and idiosyncrasies of places we usually haven’t heard of. She is obsessed by tea, thinks taking it as snuff has potential, and will probably pour it over your head if you insist on putting milk and sugar in Darjeeling.
Sophie Ibbotson: sophie@maximumexposureproductions.com
Derek Helwig
Executive Producer
Derek cut his teeth working on the Emmy award winning show The Amazing Race and at Paramount Pictures. He's worked his way across north and south America, Europe and Africa and his film Holocausts was screened at Cannes in 2006. Derek will be working closely with both the Tracing Tea team and international tv channels to bring Tracing Tea to your screens.
Michael Pye
T.T. ‘The Preview’ Logistician
A Classics graduate from Selwyn College, Cambridge, Michael has a pathological affinity for extreme challenges, such that driving a taxi through eighteen different nations had an almost natural appeal. A keen logistician, he specialises in red tape circumvention, employing poor Russians to charm Central Asian officialdom, and filling the team passports with multiple, aesthetically pleasing stamps. Mike has the unenviable task of getting all of the team’s press visas for the forthcoming journey
Andrew Daynes
Logistician and member of T.T. ‘The Preview’
A compulsive traveller, Andrew was unable to turn down the opportunity to take part in the project of a life-time and has delighted in seeing Tracing Tea evolve from a half-baked student plan to the professional venture it is today. Along the way he has discovered an interest for filming he never knew existed, and very much enjoyed the chance to get out and try his hand at the thing during 'the preview,' he's not sure whether he sang or swam, but is glad at least to have had a go. Though, like sam, not a natural tea drinker, five months in a london taxi with two avowed addicts has gone some way towards convincing him there may be something in it, particularly in Darjeeling on a cold December morning with a Glenarys cake on the side.
Sam Datta-Paulin
Lead Researcher and Expedition Mechanic
A graduate in Middle Eastern history, Sam is well placed to head up our research team. Formally an avowed coffee drinker, he is slowly catching the tea bug and, to his horror, recently woke up after a night out to find he’d unconsciously spent the entire content of his wallet on a bag of rare white jasmine silver needle. Sam is an award-winning stand-up comic and also enjoys radio DJing, skills he’ll be drawing on both behind and in front of the camera.
Megan Boot
Researcher and Administrative Assistant
Having spent time up until now acquiring a sense of danger (you put nine novices in a ₤20,000 boat and see what happens), a taste for the dramatic (copious hours spent prancing around on stage) and a love of exploring different cultures (with the obligatory 20+ hour ride from one destination to another) Megan is thrilled to be involved in ‘Tracing Tea’. Whilst her opinion on tea seems to lack the finesse of other members of the team – Megan tending to like those brews that others politely refer to as ‘different’ – and her foreign language skills unlikely to be useful unless the tuk-tuks get utterly lost and end up in Patagonia, Megan brings a set of research skills honed at Cambridge, and over 14 years of practical experience in the media and arts to Maximum Exposure Productions.
Email: megan@maximumexposureproductions.com
Anthony Coates
Researcher
Anthony’s misspent youth surfing the net has proved an unexpected boon for MEP: there is nothing at all this man cannot find online. His skills (and patience) in image editing are much appreciated by the rest of the team, whether he be rotating Samuel Pepys or, to our surprise, removing and re-inventing parts of people’s anatomy. He doesn’t drink tea at all, but we won’t hold that against him…much.
Catherine Kemp
Locations Scout and Researcher
Catherine graduated from Cambridge with a degree in history and works for Maximum Exposure finding the sites and sounds that make stories come alive. She generates material for Tracing Tea, promotes Tracing Tea's message of inter-cultural understanding internationally, and also looks to the future, planning and researching upcoming MEP productions.
Catherine Kemp: cath@maximumexposureproductions.com
Daniyar Usenov
Trilingual Central Asia specialist
Educated in Kyrgyzstan and Europe he is able to use his first-hand experience of the TT route and the government organisations en-route to guide TT through bureaucracy and cultural norms. Daniyar's translation skills are invaluable and he's becoming a dab hand at being a camera assistant too.
