BIOGRAPHY

My desire to work in the film industry began when I saw Django Unchained, it was being shown on free-to-air TV and my mother thought it sounded interesting, so we started watching. My mother realised too late that it might not be suitable for a twelve-year-old, but it was too late and despite her protests, I insisted that we keep watching, from the opening titles I was hooked.

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Tarantino’s unique and bombastic presentation combined with the prominence of his own name in the credits, woke me up to the fact that films are made by people, it seems glaringly obvious in hindsight, but children are often oblivious to such things.

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Before this awakening, I had been interested in films, novels and the broader world of storytelling, so with this realisation I began to take storytelling more seriously (as seriously as a twelve-year-old takes anything) it was mostly daydreaming in an engaged way, making up stories just in my head, in my first few years of high school I made some stop motion projects with Lego.

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It was in the second half of my high school years that I took a media class, which was mostly focused on photography, I learnt that the rules of storytelling still apply, and it gave me a sense of what it was like to work on a project with other people (we took photographs together because of the limited number of cameras).

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In Senior College I took Media Production, and Creative Writing classes, this was when my desire to work in the Film Industry was solidified. I was taught by two wonderful teachers in both subjects that fostered my creative potential and helped me on the path to honing my skills (still have a long way to go). This was when I made my first proper short film called Purgatorio, it was made in a rush during the lockdown, which meant that I would be the only member of the cast and crew.

 

I drew inspiration from my limitations and wrote the story to need only one actor (though in multiple roles) and to be shot on my family farm, I didn’t have access to any lights, so I shot the entirety of it at golden hour over a week. I look back at it now and see all of its faults (my acting) but I also look back fondly on it as one of the best weeks of my life, I loved working on that film.

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Since then, I have been educated at QUT undertaking a bachelor’s degree in fine arts (Film, Screen and New Media), where I have delved even deeper into the filmmaking process, especially what it means to collaborate effectively with others. My focus during this degree, however, was to upskill in as many areas as possible, as I seek to be a well-rounded practitioner and to make my own projects.

 

I have worked as a Director, Writer, Gaffer, Sound Recordist, Sound Editor (Pro Tools), Vision Editor (Davinci Resolve & Premiere Pro, Colour Editor (Resolve), 2nd AC, and Best Boy. I am always looking for new collaborative experiences in the industry to hone my skills and get better all the time.

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Stories are important; I know they’ve been important to me and the people I care about; I know they’re important to this country, and I want to tell Australian stories. I grew up in Tasmania (moved to Brisbane to study) it’s a place with a rich history, often overlooked, and I want to tell its stories. The film industry is in an awkward place right now, there are pressures on it from all sides that threaten to drown out smaller voices, voices without money, forces like AI that encourage the abandonment of technical skill and the replacement of writers by computers.

 

I think then that it is important to hone your skills now more than ever and tell good stories so that we can’t be replaced, people will only ever settle for art made by a computer when human artists no longer know what it is to be human, and no longer tell human stories, personal stories, well written. Stories that are both personal and universal, national and international. I want to do this, and I plan to whether in the industry or on my own, I love making movies.