Pro
Profile Complete
Pro
Profile Complete
BORN HONG KONG. TEENAGE ANGST. ACID HOUSE. GIRLFRIEND. ST MARTINS. LONDON FIELDS. AVID. MOVIES. WHIPPET. DIRECTED STUFF. LIFE MADE SENSE.
Gunning started her career at The Whitehouse Post in Soho, London where she edited a multitude of commercials for top agencies such as Wieden & Kennedy, 72 and Sunny and Mother for Nike, Levis, Adidas, VW, Guinness, Samsung and Landrover. Her work with directors such as Stacy Wall, Daniel Klienman and Jonathan Glazer lead to numerous awards, including D&AD, AICP, and a Gold lion at Cannes.
She met Anthony Minghella while editing a spot for Comic Relief, ‘Drop the debt’ written by Richard Curtis. She then cut ‘Play’ for him as part of the Samuel Beckett season for Film 4 which marked the beginning of a long running collaboration. After working on some musical sequences in ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, her first feature was Minghella’s ‘Breaking & Entering’ followed by his flagship pilot for ‘The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency’. She went on to edit several other movies including ‘Seven Psychopaths’ for Martin McDonagh and ’Salmon fishing in the Yeman’ for Lasse Hallstrom. Gunning also collaborated extensively with artist and filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson, first on her Palm D’or winning short ‘Love you more’ then ‘Nowhere boy’ and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. As a Film Editor she has helmed multiple BFI and BAFTA masterclasses and worked consistently on panels and workshops to encourage women and other minorities to find their voice in the film business.
This inspired her to find her own directing voice. In 2014 she wrote, directed and edited her award winning film for the band Goldfrapp based on five stories from their album ‘Tales of Us’. The film was streamed to over 500 cinemas across the world in March 2014. The segment ‘Annabel’ received a GLAAD award. Her collaboration with Goldfrapp continues with a documentary short ‘Tigerman’ currently in post production. Shot during the ancient festival of ‘Pulikali’ in Kerala, India the film centres around the themes of sexuality and identity.
2017 marked a turning point for Gunning and her commercial directing career. A move to LA brought a commission from Nowness for Mini Countryman and lead to numerous anthem campaigns for Kaiser, Hewlett Packard, Glenfiddich, Indeed, Subaru, Pacifico, American Airlines, Google, Honda and the award winning OnStar ‘Horn’ for Campbell Ewald.
Passionate about storytelling, she strives to access core emotion in her films, forensically developing characters and crafting performances.
“I’m interested in making things that move people… laughter, tears… transporting the audience somewhere else…” Gunning says.
“It’s magical when that happens.”