Emma Holtham was born in South East London. From a young age she enjoyed writing short stories and novels that she never completed. She also became interested in film when she began to hire out videos on a weekly basis to pass the time spent at her grandparents. After school, she went to university in Leicester to study Media, leaving with a 2:1 and a desire to work in the television industry. To get her foot in the door she worked as a PA/researcher at a successful media company that made one off shows for the BBC. She left there to gain more production experience in different companies and worked on a variety of shows for different channels. She took time out and took a postgraduate journalism course to improve her writing ability to gain freelance work. While completing work experience she was offered a job as a producer on an online entertainment show, which covered film reviews, premieres and interviews. It was too good an opportunity to miss for a film buff and Emma undertook this role for nearly two years until she left to be a freelance producer.