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Director

Neil Schell is an accomplished actor, acting coach, director and producer in film and television.  He has been working in the film industry for over 25 years. 

In the early lean years as an actor, Neil was offered an apprenticeship in the editing department at Golden Era Productions in Los Angeles.  Wanting to learn everything he could about film making, Neil snapped up the opportunity.  He studied and worked for over 6 years cranking out more than a dozen half hour films and a half a dozen hour-long films.  Although these films were industrial in nature, they were all story driven and of a quality second to none.  Despite his love of editing, he couldn’t keep his acting impulses on hold forever.


To keep his acting career alive in the early days, he starting teaching a class for actors on maintaining continuity, hitting marks, frame sizes and how they affect the actor, etc., to help actors cross over from the stage to screen.  His initial classes filled up quickly and the demand for more of his teaching lead Neil into coaching acting technique as well which he still does to this day right across Canada from Toronto to Vancouver and every major city in-between.

As an actor, Neil has appeared in several TV series (Cold Squad, Da Vinci’s Inquest, Outer Limits, Eureka, Fringe, Caprica.), feature films (Dr. Dolittle 3, Funny Little Thing Called Murder, Watchmen, The A-Team) and dozens of commercials. 

Neil’s most recent expansion in the industry has been directing.  He completed the direction of 52, 1/2 hour episodes of the Kenyan drama series Higher Learning and 26, 1/2 hour episodes of the new Kenyan medical drama Saints - both of which air on NTV.  Directing has come naturally to Neil having a strong background in both editing and acting and coaching actors. 

Working with extremely low budgets and compressed time schedules, Neil has successfully completed over 2000 pages of script, 4500 camera setups, and work with over 200 actors.  Directing under these circumstances challenges one’s ability as a filmmaker and raises the necessity level which makes a better filmmaker.  One has to draw from ever fibre of their existence to make a high-quality product. 

Neil’s strengths in directing are in working with actors (this he comes by naturally having been an actor himself and having trained actors for over 17 years) and having an acute sense of what works in film which he gained as a film editor.

 
 

Neil Schell

Director

Neil Schell is an accomplished actor, acting coach, director and producer in film and television.  He has been working in the film industry for over 25 years.

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Press Release

In 14 months, Neil directed 78 half-hour episodes of drama for Kenyan TV.  One of the series, SAINTS, has now been sold to a Nigerian broadcaster and will be airing there soon.