A fun illustration based project for Dream Home Australia, 7 Network that required 40+ layered sketches of proposed renovations envisaged by the contestants. I worked with supplied photos and architectural drawings to create animated sketches of what each home would look like on completion,
Bunnings - Mimosa Outdoor Furniture
For this TVC to showcase Bunnings’ - Mimosa outdoor furniture range, I animated a menagerie of garden animals throughout the scenes. I hand drew several hundred frames of animation, using traditional cel animation techniques to fit with the painterly aesthetic and feel of the project.
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Mountain Goat Ginger Beer
It’s not every day you get asked to put a ginger wig on a goat but that was exactly what was called for in this campaign by Mountain Goat to promote their new ginger beer. I had a lot of fun creating the three ‘ginger’ mountain goats that were used across a TVC, billboard and social media campaign.
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Australian Indigenous Voice Referendum 2023
I had the opportunity to work on this official government TVC designed to provide information to voters about the referendum. The project involved working with a team of compositors, tracking and rotoscoping key messages into the physical environment of each shot.
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The Summit - Nine Network
The Summit Australia has been nominated for an International Emmy Award. As a New Zealander I enjoyed having the opportunity to be involved in a show set in the beautiful and rugged Southern Alps of New Zealand. Contestants have to compete and collaborate to reach the summit of a mountain which involves several days of climbing and obstacles.
I worked on the project helping create the opening title sequence with the team at Studio Pancho, Melbourne.
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Studio Ghibli Park and Museum
I was thrilled to finally have the opportunity to visit to the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo and also the newly opened Ghibli Park in Nagoya on a recent trip to Japan. I have always had a huge admiration for the work of Hayao Miyazaki and the films produced by Studio Ghibli, it was an amazing opportunity to learn more about his creative process and the inner workings of the studio.
Ghibli Museum > view website
Ghibli Park > view website
36 Days of Type Challenge
A personal project I worked on for the annual 36 Days of Type challenge. Each day contestants must design, or animate a letter of the alphabet and numbers 0-9 over every day for 36 days. This was the first time iI had entered and I admit it was quite a challenge to animate a letter every day on top of daily work and life, but still got as far as Z but not the numbers.
I chose the typeface Chunky Junk by Sombrero Craft as a base, each letter seemed to have a personality or a character waiting to be brought to life. The hardest part was then to find a way the animation then related to a theme beginning with the particular letter.
Overall I enjoyed the challenge, it’s purpose was to think quickly, loosen up free of any commercial requirements or rules, explore what could be achieved in a very short space of time, working with very limited options. I owed a lot of creative ideas to my son (9 yrs) who could see an animal within the shape of a letter which is missed and who helped me all the way through, and was also a tough critic to keep things on track.
For more personal projects visit
> RSDM Instagram
Portrait Of Cate Blanchett - National Portrait Gallery
I worked with the Visual Effects company XYZ and also directly with the photographer and director of the project David Rosetzky on this video piece for National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. The work is a video portrait of well known Australian actress Cate Blanchett. It was filmed in a vast warehouse used to build theatre sets as the backdrop. My role as compositor was to subtly finesse various elements in post-production that were requested by the director David. The work involved a mixture of rotoscoping and paint, facial tracking and plant tracking techniques.
University of Melbourne
I had a lot of fun working with the team at the University of Melbourne creating a set of six kawaii style animated loops of their mascot ‘Barry’. To achieve the desired movement and look I used traditional frame by frame cel animation in the majority of the character loops.
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VÖOST TVC
A 15 sec TVC and digital campaign for the vitamin company VÖOST. Working as the art director for the project we pitched the idea of an abstract production line that creates effervescent VÖOST tablets through a series of fantastical machinery and processes. The kinetic mechanical rhythm synced to the music is a nod to the precision of German engineering linking the brand’s German connection.
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Streamy Awards nomination
The latest production from the Jacobson brothers - Mordy Koots directed by Clayton Jacobson and starring Shane Jacobson has been nominated for Best Visual Effects in a Web Series at the Los Angeles, Streamy Awards. I worked with Clayton as the visual effects supervisor and compositor for the series, compositing green screen live action with CGI gaming footage and studio sets and then grading each shot to create a 1940s technicolor effect.
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Mary and Max - The Exhibition ACMI
The Mary and Max exhibition at Melbourne's ACMI gallery has on display some of the talented and often painstaking work from the animation crew involved in the production of the latest claymation feature film by Adam Elliot.
The exhibition features character models, costumes, sketches, sets, storyboards, props and behind the scenes footage of the crew. The animation and post-production was completed in Melbourne, Australia where I had the opportunity to work as part of the visual effects team for several months.
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Visual Effects as a Creative Process - St Kilda Shorts
Thanks to all those who came along to my talk on visual effects as a creative process at Dog's Bar, St Kilda Shorts. As part of a Monday night series of industry guest speakers I was asked to present a collection of short films to discuss the various creative and technical processes involved with creating visual effects.
Also a big thanks to the directors and crews involved in the films and productions that were screened.
Fantasy based visual effects shot breakdown examples:
ABC 2, Ident AFTRS (Dir: Reece Sanders)
Junkyard, Short Film AFTRS (Dir: Reece Sanders - Mungo Horey)
Winner, Short Film - Directed by Kathryn Jamieson
The Simms 2, TVC AFTRS (Dir: Richard Richard Vilensky)
Style based visual effects shot breakdown examples:
Mordy Koots, Series (Dir: Clayton Jacobson)
Lipsmackers, TVC AFTRS (Dir: Scott Pickett)
Cosmetic based visual effects shot breakdown examples:
Shot Open, Short Film AFTRS - (Dir: Scott Pickett)
Mary and Max, Feature - (Dir: Adam Elliot)
Plastic, Short Film AFTRS - Directed by Sandy Widyanata