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 Starting in 1963 as Editor of the Birmingham University Newspaper Redbrick, plus the unique honor of also being elected Editor of the cultural magazine Mermaid, Martin went on after graduating with a B.Soc.Sc. degree, to join the editorial board of the controversial counter-culture OZ Magazine in Londonwhile working as a freelance writer for Student News and Adfeatures.
A brief stint in television as a researcher for Songbreak made him enough money to leave for Toronto in 1967 where he gained a freelance job as feature writer on pop culture for the Toronto Telegram daily newspaper while simultaneously managing The Strawberry Patch coffee house in Yorkville and the local Sunshine Blues Band.
Between the UK and the US, from 1968 until 1980, he researched and wrote, created and produced a number of television shows including:
Magpie, Children’s Magazine for Thames TV (UK)
This Is Your Life, Thames (24 number one national rating shows featuring major celebrities, including Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark, Dudley Moore, Sacha Distel, Bob Hope and Muhammad Ali.)
Sports Choice with Jim Kiick and Larry Csonka for Slabach-Pobuda Associates, NY
Safari Quiz a pilot cable show in Worcester, Mass
The Dick Cavett /Eamonn Andrews Satellite Specials ( WOR, New York & Thames TV, London)
The Vidal & Beverly Sassoon Show, with KCOP, LA for syndication by Viacom
Kenny Everett Video Show, Thames
Hot Gossip - pilot for Show TV, LA, featuring the controversial British Dance Troupe.
Note: the Kenny Everett Video Show won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Most Original Show in 1978, and was later selected as the ITV national entry for the Golden Rose of Montreux International Light Entertainment Awards.
It also won the Pye International Award for Best Music Programming of 1978.
For this show, Martin produced videos with over 30 international music stars including staging the return of the Moody Blues (Octave), David Bowie, the Pretenders, Sting, Cliff Richard, Brian Ferry, Rod Stewart, Dave Edmunds &Nick Lowe (Rockpile), Pete Townsend, Ellen Foley, Thin Lizzie, Dean Friedman and Bonnie Tyler.
In 1973 he partnered Slabach-Pobuda in the marketing and distribution of the concert movie; “Ladies and Gentleman - the Rolling Stones” and (as the co-founder of Company Dog Inc) created a glitter parade and ball for the world premiere as a one-hour special for ABC Television at the Ziegfeld Theatre (54th St/6th Ave) in New York.
Re- settling in Toronto in 1981, after a sabbatical in Aspen, Colorado where he ran a service company for the rich and famous called Jeeves Goes West, Martin dramatically changed his career path by attending Ryerson University School of Hospitality & Tourism Management. Upon graduation in 1984, he started his own special events company called Many Fetes which produced a series of Hospitality Update and Tourism 2000 conferences as well as collaborating on over 30 events in the arts including: Hi ’88, the St Stephen’s Courier Classic, Ferragosta Festival, Circle Ball Fair, Toronto Arts Week-Third Rail & 4 at 401, Festive Earth – The River of Light and non-profit/civil society arena (Gabrielle Jeans Seminars, Odd Lot Management, Jack Layton for Mayor, the Casa Loma Summit for the Homeless) and most recently The World’s Largest Salad Bar as a brand name fundraiser event for Foodshare.
Other major events, international in scope, that Martin has created and produced are:
First Steps: A walk for the Future…in 26 countries…on 01.01.01...as the lead event for the United Nations, “International Year of the Volunteer.”
Beacon Millennium…52 sites across Canada for Eve 2000 *(see below)
World 2000: the Millennium Marketplace in February 1999
The 1000 Day Countdown, for the Millennium Council of Canada, April, 1997
(*Beacon Millennium was televised by the BBC/PBS to 60 countries on December 31st, 1999 focussing on the lighting of the world’s biggest beacon on a Thames barge at Tower Bridge, by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Martin, together with a select group of only 30 other participating organisers and sponsors, formed the specially invited ‘honour party’ for the Queen, Prince Phillip, and other members of the Royal entourage.)
Firmly committed to his Millennium program of producing events with an environmental and social activism theme, Martin has been co-producer of the Planetary Vision Festival … on March 20, 2001 - 31 sites across the globe including Japan, China, Nepal, India, Israel, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Russia, France, the UK, USA, Canada, Trinidad&Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, and Western Samoa
As well as Senior Consultant on the documentary of the event narrated by Sir Peter Ustinov with music by Peter Gabriel.
From December until June 2002, he was the founding web editor of www.FestiveEarth.com and the co-creator and site producer of the Living Rivers Festival on May 5th at the Don Valley Brick Works in Toronto.
After entering his 40th year as a writer, producer, communications consultant and strategist, Martin was elected as a Board Member of the Planet in Focus, international environmental film & video festival ( with a portfolio of responsibilities that included communications and international partnership development) swapping to membership of the Foundation Board of PiF in 2005.
He is currently the Founder and principal Producer of Ideas in Motion, which produces and promotes mini eco doc festivals internationally: including a video and arts event, called WaterWorks, for the World Water Forum, in Kyoto, Japan , March 20-24th, 2003 – and - a two day ECO video screening and cultural event in Beijing, China Feb 27-28th, 2004 called Youth in Action.
In 2004, Ideas in Motion also co-produced Gene Action Flix at the National Organic Growers Conference in Guelph, and sponsored The Hidden Story – Columbia’s Dirty War at the European Social Forum in London, England.
Since the onslaught of mantle cell lymphoma cancer in 2004, Martin switched his producer talents to personal passions of which the Ideas in Motion website is one…and… the elegant penthouse wedding that celebrated twenty years of living with his beloved partner Colette, a five month sabbatical taking in Venice, Spain, and stays with many UK friends, capped by the move to new quarters in their Yorkville condo, completed an amazing year of surviving in style.
By April 2006, almost two years to the day of diagnosis, Martin retured to the production fray with the launch of a fact and find mission in London, England. Called "Food for Thought" a day of screenings and meetings was created to facilitate the possibility of co-productions of future Ideas in Motion events in the UK.
Martin also continued to stretch his portfolio of interests by taking on the role of co-ordinating producer for a conference in Toronto, in July, 2006 for the Club of Budapest's "World Wisdom Alliance."
2007 Update
To complete an up-to-the-minute snapshot of a CV always in motion, Martin’s latest creation - a five hour video and musical stage show called “The Summer of Love” – has just been selected for the opening day of a ten day, three million dollar arts and community festival highlighting Toronto’s creative achievements from June 2nd, 2007, titled LuminaTO. (details at: www.LuminaTO.com)
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