WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ASPECT OF WHAT YOU DO?

I love the concept of meeting with people and having them express their ideas to me and then  collaborating to help them achieve what they would like to do, I feel like that's a very rewarding experience.

 

HOW DID YOU GET INTO FILM?

I went to Wollongong Uni and did a major in media and communication, so really nothing to do with film-making, but I (also) majored in film studies, which was basically watching movies and analysing them, but there was also a component to the course which was studying video artists like Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono.

 

In terms of training I didn't do any industry training, I never went to a film school or sat down and got taught how to light something, after Uni i went away for a year and just travelled for a bit, came back and got a job as a runner and that's where I met a great DoP by the name of Bonnie Elliot, she really moulded the way I approach cinematography.

 

I don't have a really technical mind in terms of what specific lights to use and things like that, I'm getting better but my training was  just watching films and being on sets and seeing how everything looks and every so often asking the DoP or the Gaffer who's shooting as to why they have a specific light in that way and what that light is and that was kind of it. I guess I subscribe to (the idea) that film school is a waste of time, making a film is completely subjective and there is no right or wrong way to go about making a film.

 

HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON ANY PROJECTS RECENTLY?

This past year I worked on a photography project called 'instances' where i got  to photograph the lovely humans who live in Redfern, Waterloo and Greensquare areas.

I love art and the practice of art and I've never had the chance to participate in that world in that degree, so I just pitched a project to 107 (107 Projects Redfern) and their lovely people and they facilitated me to make that project, without them it wouldn't have happened.

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I just got to photograph and take lovely portraits on my 35ML camera of people who live in the area and ask them about one particular instance in their life and that turned into a text, photography and audio visual work that's still available online so people can even add to it if they'd like to. It was a nice process to do that and work in a visual way that wasn't cinematography, it was a great exercise, my dream position as a cinematographer would be to shoot video-art, that would be a tricky one to get into but I just love that format and I think it's a great way to tell a story outside of film-making.

 

HAVE YOU SHOT ANY VIDEO-ART BEFORE?

I got to do my first one this past year with Nicole Monks, who's an artist based in Newcastle. I got to shoot a video for her and it got exhibited in a gallery, it was just a  really nice experience  (to make video-art) she's a incredible artist and just a very collaborative human in general.

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DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR ANYONE WANTING TO GET INTO FILM?

I heard this advice from an interview, they basically said that you shouldn't care about how you shoot things or what art or film you're making, it's a huge liberation to sit back and be like no i don't care I'm making something that I would like to make and I have other people on board who are supporting me.