Turning your life's passion into your profession is what most of us dream of. James Hyman has been living this dream since 1988 when, aged 17, he found himself in the right place at the right time, starting his career at MTV as the channel established a London HQ and launched through Europe.

An infamous multi-tasker, he achieved a 1st class honours B.A. in Film/Media at London Guildhall University while learning the ropes in music television from beginnings in the station's Press Office before moving forward as a senior producer/ director/ programmer. From 1988 to 2000, Hyman steered MTV through the emerging UK dance music scene, from its inception during the acid house explosion right through to its current global multi-million dollar culture. Hyman's MTV shows featured over 500 in-depth interviews with all the major players, many uknown at time of interview: The Prodigy, Goldie, Moby, David Holmes, Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Paul Oakenfold, Aphex Twin etc. etc.

Hyman, who was involved in all aspects of the dance playlist, overall strategy and programme production, was also responsible for producing/directing/editing over 200 pop videos, including clips for Fatboy Slim, New Order, Mike Oldfield, Moby, Prince & Michael Jackson. As well as maintaining a foothold in the print media during his MTV stint, as a columnist and correspondent for various international publications, Hyman began presenting specialist programs on terrestrial UK television,
including Frontal (Channel 4, 1999-2000) and www.personalservices (Channel 5, 1999; BAFTA-short-listed in 2000), as well as being a key expert commentator on ITV's series, The Dance Years (2001-2).

In 1999 and 2000, he also produced two long running dance music series for BBC's 'Play UK, 'Hey DJ' (40 episodes) & 'Joy of Decks' (60 episodes), both a continuation of the 'MTV Megamix' (100 episodes) another show James created, which segued music videos in the same way a club DJ mixes records. Many 'visual bootlegs' were conceived in these pioneering shows including 'Shady Fatboy' - a mix of Fatboy Slim's 'Rockafeller Skank' & Eminem's 'My Name Is'.

His interest in everything new and pop-culturally relevant resulted in the first ever daily internet show on television with MTV UK's 'Up For It'. In 1999, Hyman was voted #22 in MUZIK Magazine's poll of the 50 Most Powerful People in Dance Music.

By this time, Hyman had amassed a personal library of apocryphal proportions! Over one million magazines, 150,000+ vinyl, 150,000+ CDs and a broadcast quality Beta collection of 20 years of pop videos. A testament to Hyman's relentless pursuit of pop cultural knowledge, fanatical attention to detail and lateral approach to creating cutting edge content for all forms of media, this paved the way for Green Bandana Productions, the independent cross-platform media company set up by Hyman in 2000 that maintains a database of over 50,000 entertainment industry contacts.

Through Green Bandana, Hyman presented Sci-Fi Channel's 5th anniversary week and wrote/produced/presented 'Headf*ck', a critically acclaimed series for the Sci-Fi Channel exploring innovative contemporary visual work (8 x 4 hour shows).

Green Bandana has also diversified into 'Music Supervision' - films include Mean Machine, Suzie Gold, Alpha Male, Guy Ritchie's Revolver, Alan Bennett's History Boys & Living Neon Dreams. Adverts include compositions for Ford, placing Royksopp for Lynx, Pilote for T-Mobile, Man Called Adam for Gordon's Gin and Pepe Deluxe for Levi's 'Twisted' campaigns.

In 2000, Hyman took to the airwaves as a DJ on London's XFM, presenting, producing and programming two shows, The Rinse (nominated by MUZIK magazine as 'Best Radio Show' in 2002) and The Remix (among Campaign Magazine's Top 10 radio shows in 2001 & nominated for a Sony Award in 2003), which he co-hosted with Eddy Temple-Morris. The Remix became a platform for the cultural zeitgeist of bootlegging and remixing, with Hyman championing and becoming the spokesman for a DIY mix-and-paste musical genre which has propelled the likes of Sugababes ('Freak Like Me') and Liberty X ('Being Nobody') to UK #1 hits.

The Remix has spawned two compilation albums for Virgin/EMI and become a successful, ongoing club night at London's Cargo venue since 2000. Hyman has also compiled two CDs of popular cover versions for BMG, 'Covered I' & 'Covered II', interviewed Ice T to accompany the rapper's personal trip through hip hop history on Ice-T's 'Westside' double album selection.

Recently, Hyman added another Xfm show to his radio repertoire, Saturday afternoons from 3PM and Voice-over wise can be heard for HIT40UK's imaging/jingles and campaigns for Toyota, BT, Daily Star & Sony Playstation.

His mix-CDs have gone beyond cult status - the mash-up of James Bond/007 films was one of the Sunday Telegraph's 5 top albums for 2004; not bad for a promo-only album and the latest one mixing up tracks, dialogue and more from the works of acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino has received glowing reviews including praise from Tarantino himself.

Hyman continues to be an in-demand event DJ, manning the decks at launches like BMW's Mini, film-premiere parties for 'The Royal Tenenbaums', Britney Spears, Eminem, Will Smith ('I-Robot' & 'Hitch') and hosting the Rizla tent at the Glastonbury Festival.

...And a final fact for trivia buffs: James Hyman's father's first cousin was Brian Epstein, The Beatles' manager.