"IF IT CAN BE WRITTEN, OR THOUGHT, IT CAN BE FILMED"
- STANLEY KUBRICK
A LITTLE ABOUT ME.
To kick things off, I grew up on the Kapiti Coast of New Zealand. My passion for looking through viewfinders developed at around the age of 6 and hasn't stopped since. From the creation of home-made stop-motion LEGO movies to now critically acclaimed and internationally successful short and mini-feature films, my ideology when it comes to filmmaking is experimentation. I like to push boundaries and break rules in order to exceed audience expectations, but all of it only to communicate narrative in new and bold ways.
In my earlier years (2013 - 2014) I gained national and international success with a line-up of back-to-back award winning short documentaries; "Predator", "Someday", and "To The Rescue".
Gradually I shifted my sights to narrative film-making, bridging the gap with an award-winning scripted short 'mockumentary' "Eutha-nation" and then winning Best New Zealand Film (Year 12, New Zealand Student Film Festival) with my first publicly released narrative endeavour, "Stage". During this time (2014 - 2015) I also honed my skills on various other unreleased narrative short films, music videos, mockumentaries and stage shows, most notably being my award-winning rendition of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus" which won Best 5 Minute Piece, Best Connection Between Actors and Best Original Piece at the National Sheila Winn Shakespeare Festival.
In 2016 I left home at the age of 17 and moved far down south to Christchurch, New Zealand where I had been accepted under alternative requirements as the youngest ever applicant to the Ara Institute of Canterbury (formerly known as CPIT) where I began to pursue a Bachelor of Screen and Television Broadcasting Degree. Here I finally met likeminded classmates and made life-long friends of many of them. Almost immediately I began production on a huge extra-curricular project, my first 40-minute documentary "The Common Touch" about high-profile cancer survivor Jake Bailey, which has since been chosen as Official Selection at the Oscar® Qualifying Doc Edge film festival, New Zealand's only and Australasia's premiere international documentary film festival.
Also during my first year at The New Zealand Broadcasting School I worked on numerous short films in and outside of course requirements. I strived to keep myself busy and to build to my portfolio. I created "Clean", a 2-minute short film as part of my course and later in the year I wrote, directed and edited a 24-minute short film "Befriended". Simultaneously I continued to work on a documentary podcast about the criminal framing of Mississippi Elvis Impersonator Paul Kevin Curtis in the assassination attempt on U.S. President Barack Obama in 2011. I was also a Production Assistant on Martin Sagadin's debut feature "Spring Interlude", Producer and Director of Photography on Isabella Walsh's short film "Antarctica" and wrote and co-directed another controversial but multi-award winning short 'mockumentary' "Generation G" with James Murray.
In 2017 I started my second year at The New Zealand Broadcasting School. My mini-feature documentary "The Common Touch" had it's World Premiere in Wellington, New Zealand and was met with raving reviews. It has since been licensed by New Zealand Netflix streaming alternative Lightbox for national release. During this time I also wrote and directed a 12-minute super-villain short film "Oswald" and released a short documentary "Dukun" about the origins of black magic sorcery in Bali, Indonesia. I also worked tirelessly on my debut feature "Limp-dick", an extremely low-budget mumblecore drama that I conceived, wrote, produced, directed, shot and edited within 4 months, using my spare time around my studies. In my final few months at the New Zealand Broadcasting School I developed a short proof-of-concept scene for a potential New Zealand historical drama-horror feature "1882". I was able to pull stars from all over the country; Erana James (The Changeover) and Stig Eldred (King Kong), and walk away from Christchurch with an exciting future ahead.
In 2018 I completed a 6-month internship as a Tournament Director and Video Producer at Let's Play Live, an Esports media company based in Auckland, New Zealand. This marked the end of my degree from the New Zealand Broadcasting School. I was also fortunate enough to be accepted into Columbia College Chicago, where I will continue to push myself as I pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Directing.
That's all there is to know, I guess.