Maxim Jago

Maxim Jago (born August 22, 1974) is a motivational speaker, film maker, author, and futurist. His work as a media technology author includes some of the standard texts used by many film schools and private training facilities around the world, and his award winning films have provided a basis for many of the techniques expounded in his educational texts. Jago's 'screen-captured' online training materials have received millions of views via established platforms including YouTube, Adobe TV, and Lynda.com. Having directed over over 30 short films, Jago received the Best Director award at the Monaco Film Festival 2014.

Jago was born in London in 1974 to artistic parents; the playwright and poet Malcolm Hobbins, and artist Ellen Zaks. At a young age, his mother moved with Jago and his brother to Brighton, where he would study theatre and photography at Varndean college.

Later, he attended the film school Surrey Institute and The Bournemouth & Pool College of Art and Design (now Arts University Bournemouth). His experience led to him helping run the Raindance Film Festival, multiple public speaking roles, a continued work as a consultant, trainer and public speaker for media and technology companies such as Adobe, HP, Google, Arx Pax, Avid, RED, Nvidia, and FilmDoo.

In 1998, Jago helped run the Raindance Film Festival in London. This experience led to a lasting friendship with the founder, Elliot Grove. Over the following 20 years, Jago produced a number of independent short films, with mixed success, while working on screenplays for longer productions. One script, Almost Alive, won a UK Writer's Passage award, leading to substantial training and mentoring.

Jago went on to direct over 50 independent short films and one feature-length documentary about the work of abstract theatre director Richard Foreman. In 2003, he began public speaking and teaching media technology, eventually as a Master Trainer for both Adobe and Grass Valley. This work led to authoring over 30 books and training courses, recording more than 1,500 screen-capture lessons. One of these, the Adobe Premiere Pro Classroom in a Book, published by Adobe Press, is a standard text used by film schools worldwide to teach post-production film and video skills.

In 2014, having established his role as a media technology expert, Jago expanded his public presentations to incorporate Futurology, describing socio-technical trends and forecasting future changes.

As of 2015, Jago is a regular speaker at NAB, IBC, the Sundance and Raindance film festivals, occasional speaker at the Dubai Film Festival, and a regular contributor to podcasts and online training platforms; notably Adobe TV (several of Jago's tutorials are part of the Adobe online Help system), YouTube and Lynda.com. He continues to write and direct films, and is a member of the HP Advisory Council, and the Nvidia Technology Advisory Council.

Jago's film work continues with the development of two feature length fiction projects, The Inner Garden, based on a stage play originally written by his father, Malcolm Hobbins, and Orpheus Rising based on an award winning script written by the director.

Short Films