Gay-Rees: Driving pressure behind high-profile documents

James Gay-ReesAlthough he's attempted the film business for two-and-a-half decades, James Gay-Rees isn't jaded. Contrary, he finds creating, they does since 2002, invigorating."It's kind of addictive," states Gay-Rees, who needed doc "Exit Using the Gift Shop" to Sundance this season (it later nabbed an Oscar nom) and taken introduced "Senna" for the Park City fest, where it won an audience award.Situated working in london, producer started his film career at Miramax in 1991 after graduation from England's Southampton U. getting a diploma in overall costs and accounting. (His stepfather, director Mel Cruz, helmed "Tall Males" for your studio in 1989.)Carrying out a year in NY, Gay-Rees grew to become an associate of Orbit Prods. round the Vital lot in La as mind of development, but eventually left to pursue operate in creating.Directed by secretive street artist Banksy, "Exit Using the Gift Shop" marked Gay-Rees' first-time developing a documentary. Although experts and audiences believed that pic was some form of hoax, it absolutely was among last year's finest-grossing docus."It might have been so desperately to engineer that," states Gay-Rees. "It's almost too surreal to become hoax."Merely a year later, producer made another splash at Sundance with Asif Kapadia's "Senna," about legendary Brazilian Formula 1 racing driver Ayrton Senna."It's very important with documentaries that you consider great tales that stand out. The setting, for instance, Formula 1, comes second for the human drama."Gay-Rees is developing a story, "The Wedding Video," directed by Nigel Cole ("Calendar Women") additionally to a different doc, tentatively titled "The Pappas Brothers and sisters" about Australian skateboarders who self destruct."I wouldn't condition that it absolutely was any kind of accident that we experienced creating, however don't think in the event you understood how hard creating was you would not always enter into it to start with. It certainly doesn't have any simpler as you grow films made. It's just that after you are doing this, even though you probably know how hard it's, it'll get below your skin and you also continue coming back for further. Properly or wrongly."10 PRODUCERS To Check Out 2011Jason Michael Berman Borderline Films Tyler Davidson & Sophia Lin James Gay-Rees Lawrence Inglee Red-colored-colored Granite Pictures Laura Rister Jonathan Schwartz Diarmid Scrimshaw Kevin Walsh Contact Addie Morfoot at news@variety.com