Jess Gell is a documentary director, producer and artist from Tooting.
Her films range from exploring the lives of artists to discovering family histories, with commissions for arts organisations, cultural heritage groups, mental health charities and hospices. As an assistant producer, she has worked on productions screening on Sky, BFI Player, and major cinemas.
Jess' Re:Create Story
Faced with a challenging climate in film and television, Jess applied to the Re:Create Wandsworth programme to help sharpen her business skills to help strengthen her creative practice.
Keen to reinforce her identity, branding and services, Jess was matched with branding expert and business mentor, Laura Mulhern. They addressed four key areas to improve her business planning approach and help Jess achieve her ambitions.
This included honing her networking and pitch preparation, focussing on promoting her business through showreel and continuing to build portfolio, setting achievable goals and evaluating feedback.
Thanks to the learning in the mentoring session, Jess was able to apply her skills at a networking session with a major broadcaster:
“Developing my ability to pitch myself and my practice was really helpful. Off the back of one of our [mentoring] meetings I attended a networking meeting at a major broadcaster and have since been recruited to their talent pool” she said.
Alongside benefitting from Laura’s expertise, Jess cited the accountability and support involved in working with a mentor as key motivators:
“I feel more confident in defining my creative practice between my industry work and creative work. Having ongoing mentorship kept me motivated and on my feet, with more accountability and yearning to keep on track with my goals.”
The year ahead
Jess also reports confidence in increasing her workload for the coming year:
“I look forward to initiating further creative collaborations and commissions this year and utilising what I have learnt from the scheme. Since the scheme has finished, I have worked on a further arts documentary with Sky, screening later this year. In my personal work, I am continuing to develop a series of interviews in artist spaces and have met some fantastic fellow artists through the Re:Create scheme who I hope to work with as part of this.”
At the end of the programme, Jess expressed an increased confidence in how to grow and sustain her creative practice and is feeling optimistic about her ability to tackle future business challenges:
“With the business skills I have developed through this scheme, I aim to set up my own production company in the next few years.”
To find out more about Jess and her work as a documentary filmmaker and artist…
Click HERE to visit her website.
