Richard Janes | |
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Born | Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom |
Occupation | Director |
Richard Janes (born 1980 in Guildford, Surrey) is an English actor, film and theatre director.
From the age of 11, Janes was brought up spending his summers at The Cannizaro Park Open Air Theatre in Wimbledon, London, where his parents ran the bar as an offshoot from their Wimbledon-based café and catering business. Janes started as a child actor, working on a wide range of television programs such as The Demon Headmaster, Kavanagh QC with John Thaw and Longitude, where he played opposite Jeremy Irons.
Deciding he also wanted to work behind the camera, Janes went back to school studying an intensive two-year degree at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication, the centre for excellence in professional broadcasting in the UK. Whilst studying and gaining experience in all areas of production, he worked under some of film's top directors, from Terry Gilliam and Tarsem to Sharon Maguire.
As part of his graduation, Janes produced and directed his first film-based short film titled Representative Radio. Based on a radio DJ who receives a phone call from a distressed man on the edge of suicide, the film dealt with cause and effect of media spin. Representative Radio went on to receive a nomination for best student film in the non-factual category of the 2002 Royal Television Society Awards.
After leaving Ravensbourne, Janes was then approached to direct a three-week London run of R. C. Sherriff's classic Journey's End. The play ran at the Courtyard Theatre, with some of the best attendance figures the venue had ever seen. Fakers, a sharp, fast-moving tale of blackmail and forgery set in the upper echelons of the international art society, marks Janes' feature-length directorial debut.