Class of 2022

James Hawes CO82

Career Talk with Upper Sixth Leavers – 6 July

James Hawes visited the School for the last day of summer term, invited by the Head Andy Johnson to be Honorary Guest Speaker at Speech Day.

James attended Truro School between 1975-1982 along with his sister Lucy CO86 and younger brother Michael CO94. At one time an aspiring lawyer, he very early found his career as a successful BAFTA- Award-winning TV and film producer and director. James now lives in St Margaret’s, south west London, with his family.

During an enlightening presentation about his career to the soon-to-be Upper Sixth leavers, James talked about what being a TV and film director involves and how he got started. James said he started off working with the Fringe Theatre, which gave ample experience and acted as a great starting point. James talked about the challenges of working with actors and joked that they are similar to children and need unrequited love at all times. Actors can be sensitive to the smallest things, he said, like crew leaving the room, or a change in production. Practically, working as a director is like building a company from scratch at least once a year. Due to the freelance nature of the work, James has to compete to get a job, and once he gets it has to start with a bare skeleton for a project and build it up, hiring crew, scouting locations, rehearsing with actors and much more, until the project is ready. He said that the first day of filming is then the most terrifying, and feels much like sitting a school exam.

The students asked James what his favourite part of directing is. Two things, he said: the first is directing a scene between two amazing actors, full of dialogue and nuances. The second is coming up with the soundtrack at the end, and really bringing the story to life through music.

His tips for anyone thinking of a career in any kind of storytelling is to remember that they know more than any other generation before them already. He also said that people in the industry only want to see passion and commitment, and advised to take opportunities where possible as a starting point.

We interviewed James for Truronian (December 2020) previously and asked him about his time at school:

I have extremely happy memories of Truro School; rich memories. It wasn’t all roses. That trudge up Trennick Lane on a wet, dark, January morning would suck enthusiasm out of most teenagers. There were subjects I enjoyed, where I could do well, and others where I was, frankly, an embarrassment. Mainly Physics. And Maths. Definitely Maths. I was a chorister from soon after my arrival and the choir would be a huge part of my time at the school. Some of my most powerful memories are of singing in various venues such as small Cornish chapels and the Royal Albert Hall.

I made life-long friends at school, and my very happiest memories focus on them; the stupid pranks, the discos in the new gym, beach and house parties, and every party in-between. It was a tremendously social school.

Immediately after leaving, James shared with us that he completed, what was then called ‘seventh-term Oxbridge entry’, with intention of applying to Oxford University for Law. It wasn’t to be, but the process was rewarding: “that term spent with some very close friends, in our very own tutorials with Mr Weeks (TS 1957-1992) and other teachers. Those weeks were among the best studying experiences ever.” A gap year was then spent travelling across both Europe and the USA (“usual thing – Greyhound buses and Interrail”) before accepting a place at Warwick University for Law. It was then that James began to plan his career in film and television, with Warwick being the home to the largest theatre complex in the UK outside of the National Theatre. “Some friends would tell you that I studied theatre and occasionally joined the law course.”

Despite moving away from Cornwall for university, James returned with his family in 1999 to live just outside Constantine, the village in which he grew up. I have recently directed two films for the Netflix ‘Black Mirror’ series. I am currently setting up a new drama for AppleTV, a London-based thriller starring Oscar-winner Gary Oldman.

His daughter, Isy, was born there and later became a student at Truro Prep School. “It was very special to see her in the TS uniform!” Sadly, as with many Cornish residents in certain industries, work made it impossible for James to remain in the county, leading to a move back to London in 2006. However, James shared that he normally visits Cornwall several times a year, with his parents and Michael still living in the county along with some old school friends. James was also in touch with Watson Weeks

“My brother and my parents still live in the county. I visit several times a year, sometimes meeting up with old school friends, and had been in touch with Watson Weeks until his death a few years ago.”

James now travels all around the world for work, to places such as Vancouver and Sierra Leone. Having recently been working for American networks, however, production has been based in LA and Budapest. “The key fact is that I am freelance and have been for most of my career. Even in my eight years in documentaries at the BBC, I was on a contract basis. I work wherever the project takes me. I sell myself, market myself and largely represent myself. I operate as a limited company.”

What does your current role entail?

As a director of high-end television drama, I am the key creative on the show. My role is to transform the script into pictures and performances. I am responsible for developing a vision for the show and driving the look and feel of the finished product. If I am launching a series or directing a single film, I do everything from deciding the crew and the cast to choosing the colour of the walls, the locations and the way a set will be lit and shot, right through to the music.

Is there anything that you are especially proud of relating to your life or career?

I set up The Young Shakespeare Company and toured productions around the UK and New England, over three seasons. I directed HRH Prince Charles in a documentary he wrote and presented about the challenges to the global environment. We flew around the world (Hong Kong, Sumatra, Italy, Scotland, the US...). The film was part of a Europe-wide season of programming about the environment. I was 25! I made an investigative documentary about fraud and sharp practice in Sierra Leone that led to the UN negotiating a better deal for the country. I launched David Tennant as the tenth Doctor Who, directing the first ever Christmas Special. Winning a BAFTA nomination for a film starring Helena Bonham Carter. Helping to set up Directors UK, the organisation which represents screen directors here. Making a TV movie about the investigation into the Challenger disaster starring William Hurt. It won the Royal Television Society award for best TV movie. And my daughter! Above all - my daughter!

Andrew Cainey CO82

My time at Truro School planted seeds for my life in surprising and serendipitous ways.

In 1981, at the end of my Lower Sixth year, I had the fortune to be one of the winners of a Lloyds Bank-sponsored trip to China: “The trip of a lifetime”, as the West Briton reported. A trip to China in those days merited a second article on my return: “China trip was just marvelous - Andrew”. This was just five years after the death of Chairman Mao. I remember walking the car-free streets of Beijing in our group, noisily ringing the bicycle bells that we had bought. The trip introduced me to China – and to McDonalds, which at that time had not reached Cornwall.

Little did I know then that I would return to China in 1999 to advise the son of one of Mao’s confidants on how to restructure the bank that he was in charge of, or that my wife and I would move to live and work in China in 2005, study Chinese and raise our son there for the first six years of his life, living 100 metres from the Shanghai equivalent of Covent Garden and the site of the first meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (which are both in the same place!). Now, China plays a role in most of what I do: advising businesses, governments and non-profits on China and what the opportunities and risks are; also as a board director of a Schroders investment trust investing across Asia, and mentoring Masters students on international public policy at Oxford.

My passion for languages – and so, different cultures – has been a constant and helped take me there. European languages, spurred by great teachers such as Mr Worsley-White (RGWW or ‘Root’ TS 1963-1987), Mr Hunt, M ‘Loopy’ Laupretre (TS Teacher of Modern Languages 1953-1992), ‘Daisy’ May and Mr Triggs (TS 1980-2003), and a bit of Latin thrown in by Mr Dunbar (TS Teacher of Classics 1965-2006), gave me the chance to work across Europe, live in Munich and work in the former East Germany after the Berlin Wall came down. And then Asian languages – dabbling in Japanese and working in Tokyo when Japan was on track to be ‘number one’ in the late 1980s; some basic Korean to help me get around when I moved to Seoul; and finally Chinese. I can look back now on a long consulting career with two of the top global consulting firms: Boston Consulting Group, where I led the Asian Financial Institutions practice, and Booz Allen, where I was China managing partner. My interest in economics and public policy have also found an outlet, both in my time working on health and education with the Conservative Party Policy Unit and leading Tony Blair’s government advisory activities across Asia after he left office, which gave me memorable opportunities to contribute and to learn in Vietnam and Mongolia, in particular.

I have also recently co-founded a non-profit organization to improve the UK’s knowledge about China (the UK National Committee on China), and I keep researching and writing with the UK’s top think tank, the Royal United Services Institute.

Film-making at Truro School set me on my way too. RGWW famously also oversaw the Film Unit, where we made films on 8mm (pre-video) and projected cinema films weekly to paying pupil audiences. Film-making at school propelled me to film-making while reading Economics at Cambridge, which helped me land a summer internship with Chase Manhattan Bank in London (making their recruitment video as well as analysing company financials). The following year, my video-making skills took me to AIESEC, a student business society, and helped me land an investment-banking internship on Wall Street.

I have moved around a lot since Truro – working across Europe in strategy consulting; spending a summer in Tokyo while doing my MBA at Harvard; later moving to Seoul (just as the Asian Financial Crisis was about to hit and where I met and married Mari Heesoog, my wonderful Korean wife), and then on to Singapore followed by a spell in London before Beijing, Shanghai and Seoul again. We came back to London six years ago and our 15-year-old son has now lived more of his life in London than anywhere else. Covid permitting, we still travel to Asia regularly and my wife works on bringing Korean contemporary art to a UK audience. Yet throughout, continual visits to Cornwall have also been part of our annual pattern. For pleasure and for memories and, in the past couple of years, also for some work: I’ve been pleased and proud to provide some advice to the Eden Project as they expand in China and launch a site with Chinese partners in Qingdao.