Tamworth director Glendyn Ivin thriller The Cry grips international viewers

The four-part series has been hugely successful in the United Kingdom, with seven million people tuning in to watch it every week.

The show has found similar success in Australia, however in a different format, with millions binge watching it online at ABC's iView.

The former Oxley High School student said The Cry was "intensely gripping in the best way possible".

"Once you start watching, you can't stop," Ivin said.

"I've had friends message me saying, 'I was only going to watched one episode - now it's 1am and I've finished the series'."

The Cry follows young parents Joanna and Alistair, who travel from Scotland to a small coastal town in Australia to fight for custody of Alistair's daughter. Not long after arriving, their baby son Noah goes missing.

Ivin said the audience was handed pieces of a jigsaw, "one piece at a time".

"At the end, once the last jigsaw clicks in to place, it is a very different picture to what you thought it was," he said.

"I think it's so popular because it feels so real, and the audience is constantly asking the question 'What the hell is going on? What would I do in that situation?'"

With half the show shot in Australia and the other half in Scotland, the series was "by far the biggest project" the Tamworth product has been apart of.

The Australian part of the series takes place in an imaginary beach town called Wilde Bay, created out of several places.

"There was a house in Williamstown in Melbourne, parts of Queenscliff, St Andrews Beach in Melbourne. The wide shots of Wilde Bay were shot at Apollo Bay," Ivin said.

"All up, making this was a year and a half of my life. I spent seven months editing in the UK. It was a big for my family as well, they moved over with me."

Ivin said he fell in love with the city of Glasgow and the surround highlands.

"The Scottish landscape felt familiar to me - probably in party because in Tamworth, you're always surround by hills and you're near to nature," he said.

"It's similar - not far out of the city you have the most beautiful wildness. There is something about how damp and beautiful it is."

Ivin next project is a feature-length film.

"I've always wanted to make a film that I could take my daughter and mother to," he said.

"I can't say too much more, but that hopefully it should in cinemas soon."

The talented Tamworth man was also responsible for telling one of Australia's most iconic war stories, in the mini-series Gallipoli.