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talent spotting
Compiled by Jane Crowther
Adrian Sturges
drian Sturges prides himself on being a “nurturing” pro- ducer and not the type to wade on to location in wellies for creative bust-ups.
“I’ve spent the last week bar- becueing for everyone on-set because we had a very low budget,” he said.
“My closest relationships are with the writers and directors that I work with and I hope I’m helpful and supportive to them. I’m definitely more about talking quietly and helping along rather than shouting!”
A Cambridge graduate who produced the Footlights tour (“It prepares you for being criticised massively!”) Sturges started out as an assistant to Ann Scott and Simon Relph at Greenpoint and Skreba Films.
“Working with Ann and Simon gave me a taste of the other side of it, especially the end product and when you’re putting your film through the festivals,” he recalled. He went on to taste the hard graft of producing by taking part in the Inside Pictures course run by the UK Film Council which took him to LA for ten days – “an eye-opening experience.”
His producing duties have recently taken in shorts Subterrain and Post and he’s just completed a Spanish feature, Only Human. In the pipeline are numerous international projects including feature films Specks In The Sky, Fourth Wall, Media, Shakespeare’s Cafe and Mexico, shorts Uncle Douglas and Hotel Infinity plus a BBC comedy series, Hostages.
A partner in the production company Picture Farm Limited with a gang of similarly talented young writers, directors and actors, Sturges, 26, is thrilled to be so busy with so many projects.
“I really like the international aspect of producing – working with different countries and being able to cross boundaries that way. I’ve been fantastically lucky... but I think it’ll be a while before I can afford an assistant!”
DBavid Bowles
olton-born actor David Bowles is looking forward to the Olympic games next year – but not the lycra-clad, satellite-dispersed modern exer- tions in Athens.
Together with Greek producer Paul Pissanos and Bowles’ pro- ducing partner Paul Flannigan, he’s producing (and starring in) Olympiad (due for release in 2004), a big-budget, big-name movie looking at the ancient Olympic games through the eyes of three great philosophers of the time.
Bowles is playing Kimon along- side Roy Dotrice’s Anaxagoras and narrator of the times, Brian Blessed. The film will re-create the 448BC games in every detail – right down to the dangerous chariot races performed by leg- endary stuntman Gerard Neprous of The Devil’s Horsemen.
The role is a gift to 50-year-old Bowles whose forte is character actors. He’s played Thor, Orpheus and many a Shakespearean role during his career which has taken him to work in the US, Hong Kong and Africa.
His role in Olympiad is particu- larly special because he gets a chance to combine his acting and producing skills through his UK company Unizarre. The com- pany has a number of projects on the go including a TV drama series and a musical about Josephine Baker – all of which are looking for funding.
“If we get some of the bigger projects online and invested in then the production company can help other budding talent in the UK,” Bowles enthuses.
And helping UK talent is some- thing close to his heart – “I wish there was more cooperation between UK and US productions because a lot of them are cast over there but made over here and that can mean UK talent sometimes loses out.”
JBon Sen
radford is the home of The National Museum of Film Photography and Television but apart from Rita, Sue and Bob Too, not much actual film has come out of the town. Jon Sen, 29, aims to change all that.
A Cambridge graduate who taught himself to edit film, Sen became a documentary film edi- tor on projects such as What’s The Story? and The Secret History before winning a Metroland com- mission from Carlton to direct his own documentary.
The resulting film gave him a taste for direction and in 2000 he went to TV25 at the Edinburgh Festival where he won a “pitch” competition to write and direct a short film. His pitch, The Love Doctor, was drama rather than
documentary and filming in Bradford gave him his own cine- matic style – “I combine docu- mentary camera styles and approach with drama.”
After The Love Doctor came short film Re-ignited which was picked up on by producer Catherine Wearing who offered Sen the opportunity to direct the recently-screening Second Generation.
An Asian love story spanning London and Calcutta (where Sen’s father is from), the Neil Biswas-scripted Second Generation boasted a huge cast of new and established Asian actors from Parminder Nagra to Om Puri.
It proved a pleasantly nerve- wracking experience for Sen. “It’s good to feel slightly out of one’s comfort zone, because you’re always making sure you push yourself.”
Currently writing a thriller for the BBC called The Pact (also set in Bradford), Sen is keen to com- bine writing and directing. “I get a singular joy out working with writers on scripts and working towards a vision.
“I love the collaborative nature of the whole thing. I really want to continue making awe- some pieces of television but I don’t want to be known as a job- bing director – and that involves having the courage to say ‘no’ to certain work.”
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