Hazel Grian

Hazel Grian is a writer best known for How to Build a Robot (2017), Star Trek Save Vulcan Alternate Reality Game (2009), KateModern (2007) her work with the band Portishead and with Aardman Animations. The Simpsons (1989) creator Matt Groening described her as a "funny filmmaking genius" when he chose her animation Baby-Cue (1997) as one of his all-time favourites. Hazel began as a writer/performer in theatre, film and radio. Based in Bristol, UK, since the 1990s, Hazel worked very closely with Portishead, making their distinctive stage visuals for the World Tour 1997/98. Her short film Road Trip is included in PNYC: Portishead - Roseland New York (1997) With Web 2.0 she moved into digital interactive media and became internationally renowned as a creator of Alternate Reality Games (ARG) and was a writer on the pioneering Sci-Fi Web Drama Kate Modern (2007) With Bristol's Rubber Republic, Hazel co-created an ARG with J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot for Star Trek (2009) She then became a Creative Director at Aardman Animations, making children's online games including for Cartoon Network and BBC. Whether it's Virtual Reality (VR), robots or games what all Hazel's projects have in common is character, story and humour. Her most recent project is Channel 4's How To Build A Robot (2017) narrated by David Tennant and directed by James W. Newton In this documentary Hazel and the team of designers and engineers create an AI robot that, when alone in the street, asks people what it means to be human. The project is lead by David McGoran who brought Hazel on board because of her "unique set of skills as a writer, performer and voice artist who understands 21st century audience experiences."