Gareth Edwards (director)

Gareth Edwards
Edwards at the 2014 WonderCon.
Born	(1975-06-01) 1 June 1975 (age 41) Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom
Occupation	Director, screenwriter, cinematographer, production designer, visual effects artist
Years active	2002–present

Gareth James Edwards (born 1 June 1975) is a Welsh film director, film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, production designer, and visual effects artist. He first gained widespread recognition for Monsters (2010), an independent film in which he served as writer, director, cinematographer, and visual effects artist. He subsequently directed the 2014 reboot of Godzilla, and the epic space opera film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), the first in the Star Wars Anthology series.

Edwards was born on 1 June 1975 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. He is of Welsh parentage. He attended Higham Lane School. Since childhood, he wanted to direct his own films, stating that "Star Wars is definitely the reason that I wanted to become a filmmaker".

Edwards studied BA (Hons) Film & Video at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, formerly the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, graduating in 1996. In 2012, he received an honorary Master of Arts from UCA.

Edwards got his start in visual effects; creating digital effects for prestigious shows such as Nova, Perfect Disaster and Heroes and Villains, the latter of which a series for which he made 250 visual effects which won international recognition. In 2008 he entered the Sci-Fi-London 48-hour film challenge, where a movie had to be created start-to-finish in just two days, within certain criteria. Edwards won the contest and went on to write and direct Monsters, his first feature. Edwards personally created the special effects for Monsters using off-the-shelf equipment. Besides the two main actors, the crew consisted of just five people.