Griffith Film School (GFS)

Tim McGahan has achieved outstanding international success as a producer, cinematographer and creative business entrepreneur, since graduating with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Film and Television Production) in 2009.
Tim is the youngest ever Australian Cinematographer to be accredited by the Australian Cinematographers Society, and is the owner and company director of leading television (TV) commercial production company, Blacklab International. Tim has created more the 500 TV commercials, music videos, short films and TV dramas, including Blacklab’s most recent project WAC: the World Animal Championships which sold to Discovery Asia and Disney in the United Kingdom.
In demand for his creative vision and technical skills, Tim was Producer for internationally awarded time-travelling thriller Predestination, which stars Ethan Hawke and written by fellow Griffith Film School graduates.
It is this focus on creating world-class content and sustainable businesses, has seen Tim also establish Blacklab Entertainment, an emerging long form production company, and Filmlighting, one of Australia’s fastest growing independent specialist film lighting companies.

Graduating with a Bachelor of Music in 2011, Glenn was the the first Queensland Conservatorium student to be awarded the School’s three highest prizes – the Conservatorium Medal, the Music Medal and the University Medal. The same week he completed his studies, Glenn was appointed Principal 1st Violin of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO), the youngest Australian to ever to do so. He held this position until moving to the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2014, as the Core Member, Violin.
Glenn also formed a highly successful Lyrebird trio, who in 2013, won the Australian Pacific Chamber Music Competition and have been awarded two residencies at the prestigious Banff Music Centre in Canada.
In 2015, Glenn was accepted into the prestigious Prussia Cove School in the United Kingdom and continues to be in very high demand for many ensemble performances.

Twins Peter and Michael Spierig first became interested in film making back in the mid 1980s and at the age of 10 began making short films. While in High School Peter Produced and Directed a number of short films that won him “Most Promising New Filmmaker” acclaim at the Queensland New Filmmakers Awards (QNFA).
In 1997, the brothers graduated from the Queensland College of Art. Peter graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Television while Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design. While at university, they jointly produced and directed a number of award winning short films.
Peter and Michael continued to write and direct short films while making a living in the advertising industry. Their final short film “The Big Picture” went on to win and screen at several prestigious national and international film festivals including Rotterdam International Film Festival at which it was purchased by a US Distributor. After making over fifteen short films and dozens of television commercials, the Spierig Brothers decided to take the leap into feature film production in early 2000, writing and directing their first highly regarded feature film, Undead. Self-funded and made locally, the zombie film quickly gained a cult-following.

In 2010 Griffith Film School honoured their ongoing commitment to filmmaking and their continued support of local industry with the presentation of the inaugural GFS Alumni Award. The brothers work is continued through their production house Blacklab International Pty Ltd.

Twins Peter and Michael Spierig first became interested in film making back in the mid 1980s and at the age of 10 began making short films. While in High School Peter Produced and Directed a number of short films that won him “Most Promising New Filmmaker” acclaim at the Queensland New Filmmakers Awards (QNFA).
In 1997, the brothers graduated from the Queensland College of Art. Peter graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Television while Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design. While at university, they jointly produced and directed a number of award winning short films.
Peter and Michael continued to write and direct short films while making a living in the advertising industry. Their final short film “The Big Picture” went on to win and screen at several prestigious national and international film festivals including Rotterdam International Film Festival at which it was purchased by a US Distributor. After making over fifteen short films and dozens of television commercials, the Spierig Brothers decided to take the leap into feature film production in early 2000, writing and directing their first highly regarded feature film, Undead. Self-funded and made locally, the zombie film quickly gained a cult-following.

In 2010 Griffith Film School honoured their ongoing commitment to filmmaking and their continued support of local industry with the presentation of the inaugural GFS Alumni Award. The brothers work is continued through their production house Blacklab International Pty Ltd.

Angie Fielder is a producer and co-founder of production company Aquarius Films. Her films have won numerous awards and screened in high profile film festivals all over the world.

Angie’s feature film Wish You Were Here, starring Joel Edgerton, Felicity Price and Teresa Palmer, opened the Sundance Film Festival in 2012 in the prestigious World Dramatic Cinema competition. The film received rave reviews in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and 5 stars from Empire Magazine.

Projects Angie is currently producing through Aquarius Films include Kieran Darcy-Smith’s second feature film Memorial Day with US producer Ted Hope (21 Grams, Happiness), David Barker’s feature film debut The Second Coming, TV comedy/drama Sleepless written by Alice Bell, an untitled feature film collaboration with Brendan Fletcher (Mad Bastards), ARIA award-winning folk-pop musician Sarah Blasko and Archibald-winning portrait artist Del Kathryn Barton, Strawberry Fields – another feature film with Kieran Darcy-Smith, and romantic comedy The Post Office written by Emma Vuletic and Justine Flynn.

Angie has produced and production managed over 15 hours of television for a variety of networks including SBS, Discovery Channel, the Nine Network and Aurora. She has worked for the British Film Institute and the Sydney Film Festival, and holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Film and Television Production from Griffith University.

Mr Peter Hegedus has been making documentaries professionally since 1999. He has a Doctorate in Visual Arts from Griffith and has mentored numerous students and up and coming filmmakers. His films have won many awards from around the world and been broadcast on both international and national TV stations.
His drive as a filmmaker is about contributing to positive change in the world, and his company Soul Vision Films was established for the very purpose of producing documentaries that can make a difference in some way. Find out more about Peter’s latest work on the Soul Vision Films website.
Peter completed his degree and postgraduate studies in Film and Television at Griffith Film School and began making Grandfathers and Revolutions, a story about his grandfather who called in the Soviet troops to quash the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. At 24 he began his first feature length documentary as an international co-production. Inheritance, a Fisherman’s Story is based around the ecological disaster which occurred in Hungary in 2000. The film was shortlisted for the 2004 Academy Awards and won an additional five awards around the world.
One of his recent documentaries, My America, was six years in the making and looks at Peter’s personal struggle and transition from unpacking his childhood fantasy about America and beginning to see the world’s only superpower in a more realistic light. In the process he travels the world asking people what their dreams are. While only completed in March 2011, the film has already had positive feedback from several film festivals worldwide.
My America and Hegedus’ latest documentary, The Trouble With St Mary’s were both screened at the Brisbane International Film Festival in 2011 and have attracted national and international interest

After graduating from Griffith Film School in 2009, Mandy has been forging a career in editing in Sydney, working as an Assistant Editor on Heidi, The Blinky Bill Movie and Maya The Bee Movie (Flying Bark Productions).
She has also worked as a video editor for Plus7 Catchup TV with Yahoo!7, and most recently, on Mad Max: Fury Road as Assistant Editor.

The future looks bright for Mandy who begins work in 2015 on the Lego Ninjago movie at Animal Logic as an Assistant Editor

Gold Circle Films has bought the original screenplay Sex on the First Date from rookie writers Sall Grover and Emma Jensen. Grover and Jensen are Australian writing partners living in L.A. Emma is a Griffith Film School graduate so we couldn’t be happier to hear of her most recent success.

The duo recently spun their adventures into a forthcoming novel called The L.A. Team, which Working Title optioned for a TV series late last year. Sex on the First Date unfolds in a When Harry Met Sally… fashion as it explores the longstanding question of whether a solid relationship can result from sex on the first date. The production company paid six figures for the script.

Tony is a cinematographer with experience in features, TV drama, commercials (food, fashion, branding), documentary, music videos and corporate films. He specialises in motion control and visual effects photography.

Recent projects Tony has been involved with include Sea patrol (Season 5), Undertow, K9 Series (26 half hour episodes), Acolytes, Superman Returns, Bloody Footy, The Parlour, Anacondas, Peter Pan, Scooby Doo and Ghostship.

Between 2002 and 2005, Tony was the Director/DOP in house with Taxi Films (Brisbane) working in TVC’s and continues to work with directors making corporate TVC’s and music videos between drama commitments.

Anthony is a BAFTA and AWGIE award winning screen writer and director.
The projects Anthony has written and directed have won numerous international awards including a Primetime Emmy award, an International Digital Emmy award, two BAFTAs and three Australian Writers Guild awards.
He has been the creative director and lead writer on several award-winning interactive projects for major film and television productions including Lost, Spooks, Primeval, Flash Forward and Salt. Clients include ABC (US), Sony Pictures, ITV, BBC and National Geographic.
His short films and documentaries have competed in some of the world’s most prestigious film festivals including Cannes Film Festival, Aspen Shortsfest, Karlo Vary Film Festival and SXSW.
Anthony is currently the Creative Director of Hoodlum, a leading multi-platform studio based in Brisbane, Australia.

Queensland College of Art animation graduate, Marek Kochout was a traditional animator at Disney in Australia, before moving to America to pursue a job as an effects animator.
He is currently working as a 3D character animator at Dreamworks Animation in California and was a supervising animator on the latest Kung Fu Panda animated film.

In 2006, The Silence, a two-part mini-series co-written by Alice, was produced by Jan Chapman for ABC TV. A feature-length cutdown screened at the Toronto Film Festival that year and at other international film festivals including Seattle, Miami and Singapore in 2007. Other writing credits include episodes in both series of the Logie award-winning ABC kids’ TV drama My Place, as well as the Chapman Pictures mini-series RAN, made for SBS TV and shot entirely on location in the Torres Straits in 2004.

Her adaptation of Julia Leigh’s novel The Hunter, featuring Willem Dafoe, premiered in September 2011 at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released in cinemas in October 2011. The film was recently nominated for 14 AACTA awards, including that for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Alice won two Australian Writers’ Guild AWGIE nominations in 2011 for her screenplay, The Hunter, and for an episode My Place. The film script for The Hunter also won a Queensland Premier’s Literary Award.