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SIMON GOSLING Not everyone in the film industry
knows – or cares – whether their
movie plays to full cinemas in Taiwan or Estonia. But for Simon Gosling, making sure Takeshi Kitano’s latest ends up being dubbed into Russian is of paramount importance.
After cutting his teeth as a run- ner on mainstream fare like Goldeneye and Surviving Picasso, the 25-year-old’s since become a movie sales executive for HanWay – part of Jeremy Thomas’s Recorded Picture Company empire - and a prime mover in selling the films he handles to those all-important foreign territories.
“For example,” he reveals, “a Tibetan film called The Cup took nearly a million dollars in Australia alone. I want to produce at the end of the day and by doing this, I’m learning that for- eign money can finance almost an entire film.”
Mentored by Oscar-winning pro- ducer Thomas, he now schmoozes his way round the world’s film markets, from Cannes to Santa Monica. So what is the best lesson he has been taught by the down-to-earth British producer?
“One day,” remembers Gosling, “Dennis Hopper came into the office. I was a runner at the time and some people in the business wouldn’t want their celebrity friends chatting to peo-
ple lower down the food chain. But Jeremy says, ‘Oh Dennis, this is Simon’, and it made me realise that ever ybody’s important.”
And while he’s happy handling the hard sell for now, that producing bug should eventually rear its head. “I’m a big fan of the thrills and spills,” laughs Gosling. “Jerry Bruckheimer, in particular. His movies may be a bit cheesy and over-the-top, but ultimate- ly they’re entertaining.”
“Someone once told me to remem- ber that we’re circus masters. That was five years ago – and it’s stuck.” ■
DEANNA
V’LCEVSKA
ing on
ed I should go into the theatre.”
“Most of my fami- ly are artists,” she continues. “My father’s a painter, my uncle’s a sculptor, so it’s always been quite an artistic family.”
And her showbiz
experience now gives
her the unique gift of
being able to pick out
future stars. She
grins, “You see some people when they start out and think, ‘oh, you’re not
going to make it’. And you can get quite close to people, because they tend to tell you more.”
The next step is, obvious-
ly, full-length movies. “That’s the good thing about make-up,” she says. “You can always upgrade.”
“It’s just nice working on
something you knew when you were growing up.” She laughs. “When I was in Sydney last year,
George Lucas was filming Episode II and I was going, ‘I want to stay, I want to work on Star Wars!’ ” ■
ANDREW COX As most film technicians
know, freelance work is a
fragile commodity. A lucra- tive three-month contract may have to make up for five months waiting – not the ideal way to earn a living.
So 33-year-old Andrew Cox – a costume supervisor of ten years
who’s worked on shows like Soldier, Soldier, as well as for the BBC – decided to do something about it.
He created a website called filmunit-e.co.uk, which for a £40 per year subscription fee, “is basically an information exchange. We offer an online CV and profile service, as well as production news. It’s ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’”
The title is a play on words. He smiles: “I’ve always hated the snobbery between films and TV so I’m trying to bring it together - hence film unit-y.”
Self-funded (“I’m a bit of a con- trol freak in that sense”, he jokes), it’s taken 14 months to come to fruition. ACADEMY catches him on the day the site goes live. “My social life has been out the window recently,” he admits, “sitting in front of a PC until two in the morning.”
But chatting to fellow crew mem- bers has provided nothing but posi- tive feedback. “More and more people are using PC’s,” says Cox. “And with the advent of WAP technology, crews who are, perhaps, filming in the mid- dle of a field, will be able to find out what’s going on by emailing the site from their mobile.”
“Similarly,” he continues, “if some- one is filming and an employer wants to get a hold of them, the technician can say ‘just log onto the site’.” He pauses. “This is the future.” ■
www.filmunit-e.co.uk
TALENTSPOTTING
TALENTSPOTTING
FOCUSING ON TOMORROW’S GENERATION OF MOVERS AND SHAKERS
M
y first job was work-
David Soul’s album cover,” remembers Deanna V’lcevska. “That was like, ‘Woah!’. Insane.”
Well, “touch- ing up” Hutch
would do that to
a person. Luckily
for the 27-year-
old, it wasn’t
what you think as
she was the
make-up artist,
and making the
Seventies heart-
throb look good was her first step into the real world after a year-long course at Westminster.
Since then, she’s covered everything from short films and music promos to Gail Porter on C5’s The Movie Chart Show. But then, it has been a dream long in the making.
“I’ve been wanting to do it since I was thirteen,” admits V’lcevska. “It started when I was doing a first-aid course and they were doing scars and special effects and my teacher suggest-
COMPILED BY BEN IRVING
New Talent, New Media
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