Just So Director Brady Hood Directs Two Episodes of Top Boy

Just So director Brady Hood has worked on two episodes for Netflix's latest series of Top Boy, an episodic television crime drama about drug dealing and street gangs in East London.

This big overnight success is the result of a long life of preparation, hard work, attention to detail and absolute love for the craft.

Passionate about creating commercially accessible stories with social commentary, Brady started from the ground up. He was lucky enough to find his feet working as an assistant to film directors such as Joe Wright, Lone Scherfig, and Otto Bathurst; which lead him to be accepted onto the prestigious MA Directing Fiction course at The National Film & Television School.

His graduation film 'Sweet Maddie Stone' won numerous worldwide awards including 'Short film of the year' at the Critics’ Circle Film Awards and the “Brief Grand Prix” at Bristol Encounters Film Festival. With a very restrictive budget which presented many challenges, Brady proved his great talent in telling stories with heart that, at the same time, deliver a deep social commentary, a characteristic that permeates all of his commercial and narrative work.

His commercial success started with Luck - A commercial for Think! and Kodak for which, with one single take shot on film, Brady won ‘Best Director’ at the Kodak/Nahemi Student Commercial Awards and was nominated for 'Best Student Commercial' at the British Arrows Craft Awards 2016.

Moving into longer format, Brady is working on his first feature film, an adaptation of the short ‘Sweet Maddie Stone', in development with Shoebox Films and Creative England, and two television dramas, while his first TV show, Endeavour, produced for ITV is in the running for a TV Choice award.

Brady’s work, commercial and narrative, preserves his style and voice: with projects that explore reality and our own society, Brady wants to tell important stories that carry an important and current subject matter, giving a voice to struggling communities whilst still sparking wonder into the hearts of the viewers.

On shooting Top Boy, Brady says: "This is an underrepresented part of the world and one we need to have a conversation about. Whilst this may be set in a small part of East London the themes are still very universal. It's about family values, love, loyalty and respect. They may be doing the wrong things but they are doing them for the right reasons. Therefore if we, as storytellers, can portray an understanding rather than a patronising look at this part of society then hopefully we can start the conversations that need to be had."

Just So also works with the Netflix marketing team and have just released their second and third episodes of the Made in the UK series featuring two of the cast from Top Boy: Ashley Walters and Little Simz. These episodes were directed by Just So Directing Duo It Drew Itself.