Charlotte Chimes has always believed that the best acting performances are those which are ‘real.’ Others might choose the words ‘truthful’ or ‘believable’ for the same effect, but whichever term is used, it’s clear that Charlotte has carved quite the niche for herself as a leading Australian actress regularly called to play real-life people in gripping dramas.

Such is the impressive significance of her reputation in Australia, Charlotte played the key role of Katrina in the acclaimed Channel Nine movie, “Schapelle.” Directed by award-winning “Better Man” filmmaker Khoa Do, “Schapelle” tells the story of Australia’s most notorious and high-profile convicted drug smugglers in the nation’s history. Schapelle Corby spent nine years in an Indonesian jail cell, and maintained her innocence that she did not plant marijuana found in her bodyboard bag by Indonesian airport security. The case drew international headlines and remains as one of Australia’s most well-known real-life stories, and was therefore the country’s most highly-anticipated television event when it aired, drawing millions in viewers.

Any actor who would be involved in the narrative production documenting Schapelle’s story could easily therefore be called successful, because the story is so well-known; the fact that Charlotte Chimes played a key role “Schapelle” therefore puts her in the top echelon of Australian actors.

Co-star Krew Boylan, well-known for her roles in Logie-winning series “Molly” and international favourite “A Place to Call Home,” speaks very highly of Charlotte. “I had the pleasure of working with Charlotte [on SCHAPELLE]. Charlotte is a gifted actress…I highly recommend her skills, dedication, craft and talent for any work both in Australia and abroad.” Boylan, who is also one of the founders of the Dollhouse Production company alongside Golden-Globe nominated star Rose Byrne, played Schapelle herself. “Krew was lovely to work with,” Charlotte explains. “We had a great time exploring the story from all different angles.”

In addition to her work in “Schapelle,” Charlotte is also well-known for her role as Anya Habschied in “Catching Milat.” Charlotte explains her character well. “Anja Habschied was one of Ivan Milat’s seven victims  –  it was so important that all of his victim’s stories were told in this mini -series…to honour them.” The mini-series was especially important in the Australian film industry because it was directed by Peter Andrikidis, Australia’s most prolific television director also responsible for helming the award-winning ABC series “Janet King” and the feature film “Alex and Eve” with “Chasing Life” star Richard Brancatisano.  

In another strong reflection of her truly unique talent and incredible accomplishments, Charlotte featured as Erin Everett in the successful series “Deadly Women.” Her performance was therefore available to 300 million Netflix subscribers all over the world who watch the popular program. For her role in the chapter titled “Green Eyed Monsters,” Charlotte explains the importance she placed on bringing truth and giving justice to the real-life story of her character. “Female murderers are rarer than male murderers and often become quite famous for their crimes, as the media sensationalises them. It was important to portray her not simply as a one dimensional monster but a three dimensional heart-broken woman who made some very grave choices.”

Charlotte, who has also given critical turns in film “Loco” (with “Neighbours” star Taylor Glockner) and TV series “The Verge” (with “Twilight: Eclipse” actor Matt Deane), warmly expresses her gratitude when it comes to her career success.

“At the end of the day, I feel very lucky that I’ve been able to give voice to such interesting and complex, real-life characters.”

The music industry is comprised of driven professionals who are fueled by a love and passion for their work. More often than not, the initial spark of inspiration is ignited by one or more successful precursors and blossoms over time with rigorous practice and determination. For the emerging Chilean sound engineer Josué Catalán, his musical brilliance was firstly motivated by his love for music as a whole, combined with a childhood spent listening to Pink Floyd, U2, and The Beatles. No matter his age, music has always existed as a part of Catalán’s life in a very deep way, and it’s now a craft he’s proved himself to be quite gifted at both mixing and mastering in very significant ways.

Born and raised for the majority of his life in Chile, the start of Catalán’s career as an engineer began in early 2011 during his studies at Duoc UC in Santiago, Chile. In addition to a rigorous course schedule, Catalán was part of a live sound company where he engineered live concerts, recorded his first album from rock/blues band Trio-b in 2012, and soon after achieved his first big success after working with folk band ZOI.

“We produced ZOI’s first album together,” said Esteban Pavez of ZOI. “We recorded the complete band live at the studio and did the overdubs at Josué’s house, where it was mixed and mastered. His sharp ear allows the sound details to be worked with delicacy. Undoubtedly, his work of mixing and mastering is of very good quality and, in my opinion, his hearing and emotional sensitivity allows him to have a better connection with the musician and his music.”

When it comes to the details of his job, Catalán is responsible for taking care of capturing and further processing all of the elements and instruments that compose a song and crafting a final phonographic product from them that can be delivered to the public. Expanding upon this, Catalán explained, “When the artist and the music producer have a song ready, my job is to record it the best way possible, depending on the music genre and the song’s instrumentation. Then I mix the song, a process that consists of putting all of the instruments and vocal takes together in a perfect balance, ultimately creating the experience of listening to a whole band and arrangement in any type of playable format.”

Of course, acquiring the knowledge necessary to create the musical pieces of virtuosity that Catalán has requires dedication, repetitive practice as well as some experimentation, and mentorship. In 2014, he received just the latter upon becoming sound engineer and music producer Barry Sage’s (The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and New Order) assistant at Studio Master. Sage was the very first to introduce Catalán to the world of professional studio and record production. The following year, he had the riveting opportunity to learn firsthand from music producer Joe Chiccarelli (U2, Frank Zappa, Alanis Morissette, and Jason Mraz) at an exclusive master class in Chile.

Aside from learning from some of the most monumental names in the music industry, post Catalán’s 2015 graduation from Duoc UC where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sound Engineering in addition to the award for academic excellence in his studies, he began engineering for a vast variety of them.

While Studio Master was the launching place of Catalán’s professional career, it was only the start of his renowned success. For nearly two years, Catalán worked as the studio chief sound engineer at Studio Factoria where the hit, soul-pop single Son Con Soul was completely mixed and mastered by Josué himself. Son Con Soul was awarded at the 2016 Fox Music USA Awards for best pop ballad and has been aired by some of the biggest radio stations of the country.

The Fox Music USA Awards are held annually and are dedicated to promoting the music of Latin creators worldwide. Both established and emerging artists are eligible in the competition, ultimately providing the possibility of opening new doors for all.

“The Fox Music USA Awards stems from their organization (Fox Music USA) which holds the vision to promote Latin culture and create a community that supports Latin talents worldwide. It started back in 2004 (the awards in 2010), and since there are not a lot of international contests apart from the Grammy’s and Latin Grammy’s, to have worked on a song that was awarded among some of the best exponents in the Latin world is a big credit,” Catalán shared.

When one makes music, not only is winning a highly prestigious award such as a Fox Music USA Award a big credit; receiving recognition via being played by a handful of the most popular radio stations serves as testimony to a musician’s talents, too. The majority of artists create with the hope that their products will one day reach vast audiences, but not all do. Josué Catalán’s work, on the other hand, is one of the exceptions.

Most of the singles and albums Catalán has worked on has reached listeners through cable TV, Spotify, live radio shows, and/or online and FM radio stations, to name a few. When asked what hearing one of the songs he worked on through one of these mediums for the very first time, Catalán reacted by saying, “To me, hearing my work on the radio or television feels like success because the goal is to deliver the experience and the message of the song to the biggest number of people you can. Knowing that my work is being heard gives me a combination of feelings. It makes me feel prideful, but such exposure is also very adrenaline-inducing.”

It is because of these intense emotions that Catalán values his senses of humility and professionalism when it comes to his work. It takes a lot more than just talent to create the overall success of a project, including fighting against one’s own ego in the way that, “You don’t let your own thoughts and emotional attachments interfere with the song and the potential it has,” Catalán explained. Even past colleagues would agree that these are some of Catalán’s strengths, and contribute to what makes him so good at what he does.

Folk/Rock musician Fepe Aguirre, who’s 2015 album Somos De Tierra was recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered by Catalán, praise the sound engineer’s demeanor, work ethic, and talents enough. “Working together with Josué is knowing that the result has an assured quality. He is open-minded and is clear with his opinions and knows exactly what he is looking for. There are many elements that make up his professionalism: his dedication, constant study, and the way he’s always acknowledging new music. As for his personality, he is very capable of facing great challenges without intimidation, and he has great will and great strength. This has led him to meet great personalities in the music industry and become the engineer he is now.”

These few examples above only touch upon the notable resume of professional experience Catalán has achieved in his career as a sound engineer thus far, and is a testament to how exceptionally far he will go.

Currently, Catalán is working on a couple of singles from Chilean blues artist Jano Letelier, various pop ballads from singer Dani Ilabel that are set to go straight to national television grid, and a pop single from singer Hueso Carrizo.

For more information on Josué Catalán, please visit: www.josuecatalan.com

Not every actor gets to spend most of their time employed. Even more rare is an actor who gets to spend time on a critically lauded TV series. And even rarer than that? Acting opposite Academy-Award winners. Fortunately for him, Alastair Osment can say he has achieved all three, as this busy leading man recounts his rewarding experiences on highly esteemed shows like “Deadline Gallipoli”, “Home and Away” and “Top of the Lake” – all shot in Australia, and all loved the world-over.

Most recently, Alastair offered a scene-stealing turn playing the role of Morgan in the Golden-Globe winning series, “Top of the Lake: China Girl.” Besides two of his highlights being that he shared screen time with “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Mad Men” star Elisabeth Moss, as well as “Game of Thrones” fan-favorite Gwendoline Christie, it’s no surprise that a huge part of this project’s appeal was his chance to join a cast that included Oscar-winning superstar, Nicole Kidman. “Nicole is obviously a world-renowned actress with a huge career behind her; to meet her would be an honour for any actor, but to be in the same cast list as hers is an accomplishment of which I’m very proud.” Although it’s significant, Alastair’s role in “Top of the Lake” isn’t the only acting accomplishment for which he receives kudos in his native Australia. “Although the show winning awards is impressive, my job as an actor and in playing Morgan was to bring as much life to the character written on the page.”

Prior to his work on “Top of the Lake,” Alastair also played an incredibly important role in “Deadline Gallipoli,” a big-budget Australian mini-series that aired on the ‘Australian Home to HBO’, the Showcase network. “I personally love the Showcase network, so I was very excited to be working with them, along with the production company “Matchbox Pictures.” Also produced by “Avatar” superstar Sam Worthington, who also starred in the series, “Deadline Gallipoli” tells the story of journalists who struggle to report the true story of events occurring at Gallipoli during WWI in 1915. The period drama, which further featured Oscar-nominee Rachel Griffiths and Emmy-nominee Hugh Dancy in the cast, gave Alastair the opportunity to explore his country’s history and represent the ‘Australian everyman’ in the character of Melvyn.

The production, which was awarded multiple AACTA-Awards (Australia’s equivalent to the Oscars), was especially important to Showcase and Matchbox because it involved telling a story about an event that helped birth Australia’s identity. Alastair felt a responsibility to bring humanity to his character, as his character’s actions resulted in a monumental turning point in the psychology of the main character Charles Bean, played by actor Joel Jackson who stars opposite “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe in the upcoming film “Jungle.” Producers frequently talk deep respect when discussing the critical importance Alastair played in not only the success of the production, which averaged incredibly high ratings in Australia, but also story-wise.

“I brought pathos in the form of human loss and the loss of friendship, the scene where my best friend Arthur dies in my arms was described as one of the mini-series’ most heartbreaking and moving scenes.”

It’s clear that Alastair embodies the typical Australian man, given his characters that live in the time of WWI up until modern day. In the hugely popular series “Home and Away”, a show on which “Thor” star Chris Hemsworth appeared in a lead role and a series that is sold in over 100 countries around the world, Alastair played the important role of Cal Jackson.

Alastair therefore not only shared his acting talents with viewers in Australia, but with countries like Ireland where “Home and Away” is the number one TV show and entertains millions with its storylines about the residents of a seaside town called “Summer Bay.” “I felt very fortunate to play Cal, because the trajectory of two other main characters hinged on my performance.” Indeed, as Cal, Alastair plays a university student who causes something of a love-triangle when Summer Bay High students visit an art gallery where Cal exhibits his artwork. The emotional depth Alastair portrayed in the storyline provided the foundation upon which writers and producers built a major story arc around the two leads’ relationship.

“Home and Away” star Nic Westaway, who appeared in 387 episodes of the show over four years, offers his thoughts for what makes Alastair a successful actor. “What makes Alastair truly extraordinary to work with is his generosity as an actor. He is always willing to work collaboratively to achieve the greatest outcome for the story and the production.”

The importance of Alastair’s roles in such highly-regarded television productions ironically seems small when compared to the rest of Alastair’s hugely impressive career. Alastair gives credence to the notion that actors are not merely ‘performers’, but storytellers and artists who need a finely-tuned instrument and highly refined understanding of the craft to inject humanity into what is otherwise just words on a page. The fact that Alastair Osment has worked on the same productions as Oscar, Golden-Globe and Emmy-winners is obviously impressive, but he has also shown how in the age of social media and Kardashian-culture, pedigree and skill build integrity and success.