ARRI Alexa Mini LF night now Nov 4
And the Winners are..... Awards Not So Live Stream
Russell Boyd ACS ASC Screening & Q&A Wrap up
Hotel Mumbai screening & Q&A with Nick Mathews ACS
Pro AV Solutions Post Awards Special Offers
Invite to Flinders Screen Production VIP Sunset Screening
Profile Dave Birrell

 


When: Monday November 4
Time: 6pm for 6:30pm start
Where: Picture Hire Australia
Rear entrance, 26 Clarke St, Norwood, SA 5067
Catering: Drinks and nibbles provided
Cost: Free but booking preferable

Click to view the 2019 Awards Winners List

Click to access the 2019 Awards photo gallery
The password to access the images in the gallery is: Adelaide2019
The download pin # 2823

Dave Birrell Profile
 

Dave, what got you interested in our industry and how did you get started in film and TV?
 
Well my father George was an aerial photographer, then documentary filmmaker in the 60's and 70's, much in the Leyland Brothers, Malcolm Douglas mold. I grew up helping set up projectors and screens in Town Halls and earning pocket money flogging snacks at interval. I’ve always been interested in photography and carried that into Film & TV at Arts School.  One day I saw an ad in the paper for a traineeship at the ABC and the rest is ancient history.

Tony Clark ACS (from Rising Sun Pictures) and I started at the ABC on the same day, beginning the now sadly defunct Production Operations Trainee (POT) course.  As he would agree, it was the best start in the industry that anyone could have.  It’s a shame that training like that: thorough, incredibly broad, technical and paid (!) just doesn’t exist anywhere any more. The opportunity to work in every discipline has been the best asset to my career.

There’s nothing better for building a cooperative team than knowing exactly what everyone else is going through.

Tony went into cine-camera and I went into editing, but I had always hankered to do camera or sound.
 
What did you do when you decide to further your career...?

I moved on to a post house called Network 8 as an online editor, got involved in drama post production for the SAFC and spent two mini-series supervising colour grading too. I eventually followed that into post management at Crawford Productions in Melbourne.  From TV I moved on to feature films and was lucky enough to work on some films that took me to the UK, US and New Zealand.


What has been your most interesting project so far?
 
Long story, but as you’ll have guessed, I’m a bit of an ACS fringe dweller. After years in Post, I saw that there was a disconnect growing with the introduction of digital media. There used to be a lab person who looked after your film, rang the DoP with comments, thumbs up, issues to address etc. and that role was suddenly missing.  Media was turning up to me in editing and I knew no one had seen it or knew what it should look like. I got involved gradually through transcoding media in the cutting room, then talking to DoP's, tweaking rushes a bit in Resolve, which lead to computers, screens, road cases, a generator, a van…. suddenly I’m a DIT. Then I became a DIT/Post Supervisor and here we are full circle. That evolution has been the most interesting, challenging and satisfying project so far.

Tell us some of that challenges you face as a DIT?
 
Late, late nights and worse, midnight to midday shifts.  For a DIT, the challenge when you’re effectively ‘jet lagged’ is to not screw up. It’s too easy to lose track of media if you don’t have a pilot’s check list of tasks to complete.

 

THE DIT’s job sets up the entire post path, is that where you think your future lies?
 
I’ve come back to post production through a chain of circumstances, but in a much more encompassing role. I believe in keeping data handling and QC on an editorial/camera nexus. It keeps it all in the family if we have good lines of communication and do as much testing as we can manage in preproduction.  I’m really enjoying the top to tail approach.
 
What projects are you working on right now?
 
I’ve been working on Stateless in SA and second series of The Heights in WA.  So I’m working on two exciting projects with two great ACS members and DoP's, the lovely Bonnie Elliott ACS and equally lovely Jim Frater ACS.  We’ve just started shooting The Heights in Perth and just finished Stateless in Timor-Leste. I have just returned from a week of data managing from a Hotel room in Dili, so you never know where this business will take you!



Tell us something about yourself that not many people know.
 
I was the maximum eligible age for the ABC POT training course; Tony Clark was the minimum.
The bugger sent me Fathers Day cards for several years afterward!
 
Thanks Dave.

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