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talent spotting
Focusing on tomorrow’s generation of movers and shakers compiled by Jane Crowther
BSuzie Templeton
etter late than never is a suitable adage for Suzie Templeton, winner of this year’s BAFTA for animated short.
She didn’t start making films until she was 28 after being inspired by the animation industry in India while she was working there in a women’s refuge.
Explains Templeton, now 34. “I knew I wanted to do something artistic, so when I got back I signed up for the degree at Farnham College just to see if I wanted to do it or not.”
Not only did she find she did want to do it, she was very good at it. Her student short Stanley won numerous prizes from various festivals before she went on to do a masters at the Royal College of Art.
Her final film (and companion piece to Stanley) Dog was the tale of an uncommunicative father and son whose pet dog becomes ill with tragic consequences.
The film became a bit of a Templeton family project by the end of the exhausting shoot with her father, stepmother and broth- er getting roped in to help.
The hard work paid off with the BAFTA which Templeton hap- pily claims has opened doors for her with future projects. Her next film will be Peter And The Wolf, a collaboration with The London Musici Orchestra and independ- ent producer Hugh Welchman.
NWeil Marshall
riter-director Neil Marshall has Popeye’s favourite foodstuff to thank for his hit feature film debut, Dog Soldiers.
“There was a time when we were going to shoot it in the Isle of Man because of the tax breaks,” Marshall, 32, recalls, “then Canada, but one by one these things fell through and we settled on Luxemburg.
“Finally we received funding through the Kismet Entertainment Company in America who is basically this millionaire spinach magnate!”
With cash and a cast in place, Marshall, a Newcastle Film School graduate, was eventually able to make his Scottish Highlands-set werewolf horror.
He explains: “Every little step along the way has just been a major triumph; even getting a release at all was a major coup. To have Pathe support the film as they have done and then get such positive reviews has just been the ultimate reward.”
He’s certainly not going down the tried and tested route with his next project – which he describes as a “medieval heist movie, a sort of Arthurian crime drama” – and he’s not about to defect to America either.
“My ideal is to be able to stay in Britain and make films on a reasonable budget. Ultimately the lasting things are good char- acters, good acting and good stories. I just want to tell the stories I’d want to see at the cinema.”
ALmanda Foster
ondoner Amanda Foster, cur- rently the only black stunt- woman working in Britain, recently landed one of the top jobs in her field – doubling Halle Berry in the new James Bond movie, Die Another Day.
An actress and sports enthusi- ast, Foster started training to be a stunt double after being told there was a gap in the market for black stuntwomen.
In order to gain membership to Equity and the Stunt Register, she had to master six stunt dis- ciplines including weaponry, martial arts, hang-gliding and horse-riding.
Not your average job and Foster admits her family are fairly blasé about her work. “They just say ‘oh right, she’s getting shot in the head and going through a glass window – see you later.’”
Despite spending her working hours physically pushing herself, Foster enjoys an equal adrenalin- rush when she isn’t on-set, exer- cising racehorses.
“I did point-to-point about a month ago and I adore that industry as much as the film indus- try. I’ve just got my amateur jock- ey licence and if I ever got the opportunity to go into that pro- fession, I’d love it.”
Foster is particularly encour- aged by Halle Berry’s Best Actress win at the Academy Awards.
“The fact that she and Denzel Washington won Oscars is a good thing,” she says. “Hopefully more scripts will be written, providing more opportunities for ethnic people within the industry.
“I just hope that it opens eyes and people start to think a little bit more broad-mindedly because there’s some brilliant tal- ent out there.”
new talent, new media
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