Have had the best day in Birmingham at Neil Gorton's Prosthetic event. I got to meet Neil Gorton who stopped and chatted to me for a while about starting off in the business.
Neil is a special fx artist, visual fx artist who specializes in animatronics, prosthetics and make-up artistry. He is also a director of Gorton's studio who offer training courses in this art form.
I introduced myself to Neil after spotting him wandering around the show and told him I really liked his work. He asked me if I was just starting out and how old I was, I said 'yes, I'm learning about the art form and I'm 14'. He told me that was great and that he was 17 when he started. I asked him if he had any advice for me as a young beginner, he commented that the most important thing when you are just starting out is to not spend too much money, there are lots of cheap stuff on the market that you can practise and get confident with so you don't have to invest a lot until you are more proficient at it and ready to move into the industry. Neil also said, 'I know that advice may sound a bit strange coming from someone who sells these products', this comment shows the passion within this art form and that he is genuinely interested in helping industry new comers and is not just about the money making, which is nice to see.
I asked him if he had worked with anyone famous, he said he started out with Hollywood film productions and worked along side director Steven Spielberg and actors like Johnny Depp and Michael Caine. WOW, awesome. He's worked on the Dr Who programme series too for a lot of years and done the prosthetics for the villains, what a great job. He then had to go so I thanked him for his time.
It was a very busy day so he didn't have long to talk but it was brilliant to get to chat with him as I wasn't expecting to do that, awesome.
Wow! Must've been an amazing interview