“Gaia Meucci-Astley served as script editor in the development of a short film script that I recently worked on. I would highly recommend Gaia for her insight, knowledge, dedication and contribution to the project.

I found Gaia to be not only knowledgeable in the craft of storytelling, narrative structure, form and genre, but also highly professional, communicative and receptive to my vision.

Gaia provided invaluable suggestions to enhance the story’s emotional impact and strengthen the thematic elements. Her ability to identify areas of improvement and offer constructive criticism was excellent.

She effectively balanced maintaining the integrity of my original vision while incorporating her own innovative ideas, resulting in a well-rounded, engaging story.”

Hardey Speight Writer / Director – Black Lab Films

Testimonials

“I have been developing my first feature script with help from Gaia. Her caring process and knowledge of story development have helped me understand what I am trying to say and how to achieve it. Her clarity and vision helped me discover aspects of my story I hadn’t seen before. She has been friendly, supportive and encouraging. My project was shortlisted for the Sundance Development track, which wouldn’t have happened without her help and advice.”

Carolina Petro

“Even though we only had a short time together, the consultations we had were extremely productive and helpful. You touched exactly what I felt was missing in my script, pointing out in exact words what was not working and guiding me towards finding solutions that could work in the benefit of the film. It was a true delight to work with you and have my project read by you!”

Leila Basma, mentored as part of Focus Script at Cannes Cinéma Du Demain

“I had a session with Gaia on a feature-length drama script. Gaia really dug into the script and characters and provided insightful, considered and challenging notes and advice that finally unblocked the issue and has very much helped to fly through a speedy re-write.”

Jessica Ostler

“In advance of our meeting, Gaia asked me to send her links to all of my short films plus any additional creative work that would help her gain a fuller picture of me as an artist and a filmmaker. This made me feel like Gaia was truly paying attention to my work, and that she was fully invested in doing her best work with my story. Gaia gave me notes on my story structure, story logic, turning points, my protagonists' goal, each of my characters individually, and the wider themes and concepts of my idea. I felt Gaia was thorough, encouraging, honest, and knowledgeable. I felt our session was essential to push my story forward. I feel like I now have a much clearer vision of the targets I'm trying to hit. I'd love to develop my story further with Gaia and I would 100% recommend Gaia to other filmmakers.”

Rhona Foster

Gaia worked with me on my short film Canker first as a consultant for the screenplay, and later on as an overall consultant as I received helpful notes from her when I showed her different cuts of the final film. She helped me figure out the main plot points in the screenplay and suggested that I gave them the foremost attention while manifesting them, which was a really important note since the film has a sort of maximalism style. With the different cuts, she also very carefully pointed out the specific moments where she thought the cut was dragging or where it worked emotionally and led me to later on produce a more intense cut. Overall, I think working with Gaia is a very pleasant and effective experience, as she has a great eye for good art and is a great communicator.

Tu Lin, writer-director of Canker, short film selected at Cannes Critics’ Week

“Working with Gaia was an amazing experience. She took the time to get to know my previous work first before reading the short film script I sent her and she was incredibly positive about my growth as a writer. When it came to the script she asked me a lot of questions that I found really useful because they helped me identify blindspots in the story but the main thing I took from the session and that I have carried forward every time I write a new script was this question: What do you want the audience to walk away thinking or feeling after they see this film? That will be your guiding light'. Since I met Gaia I approach work in that way and it has made everything stronger and much clearer from the start. I would 100% work with her again.”

Ana Torre