The Crew

BECK COLE
writer/director

Beck lives in Alice Springs with her partner Warwick, daughter Luka May, doggie Milky Eyes and rabbit MC Hip Hop. Here I Am is her first feature film after making lots of documentaries and a couple of short films. Her best known work is probably Making Samson & Delilah, the irreverent documentary about the making of the feature film directed by Warwick. She was a writer/director on the acclaimed SBS history series First Australians: The untold story of Australia, and another cheeky little favourite is half-hour doco Wirriya: small boy about a day in the life of seven-year old Ricco from Hidden Valley community in Alice Springs. Her two short dramas Plains Empty and Flat both premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (in 2005 and 2004 respectively).
Little known fact: Beck was a teenage weather girl on the Central Australian television station – Imparja, and her nana has a VHS of footage to prove it.

KATH SHELPER
producer

Kath has produced many celebrated short films and a couple of documentaries with many wonderful directors that have screened at festivals and on TV around the world. The two people she has worked with the most are Warwick Thornton and Beck Cole – first on shorts and a documentary and now on features. In 2009 she produced Warwick’s Samson & Delilah and now Beck’s Here I Am. Recently, much to her surprise, she has become addicted to Chai tea.

FIONA PAKES
associate producer

Fi was the production manager on Samson & Delilah and did whatever was required from cooking breakfast for the whole cast and crew to tracking down missing actors in the back streets of Alice Springs. Naturally we wanted her on our team again – this time with a promotion to Associate Producer.

WARWICK THORNTON
director of photography

Warwick started his professional career as a cameraman in Alice Springs for CAAMA Productions. He then got side tracked into writing and directing because he started writing the types of films he would like to shoot and then was bossed into directing them too. But cinematography has always been his first love and something he enjoys. He has shot most of Beck’s films over the years and his next job is shooting the feature film The Sapphires.

SAM WILDE
production designer

Sam was the production designer on Beck’s short film Plains Empty back in 2004 in Coober Pedy. He’s cute, smiles all the time and is great at his job – so naturally we wanted to work with him again. He is currently working on Packed to the Rafters, which made him a very popular crew member with many requests for set visits from the local Sydney girls.

DIAT ALFERINK
casting

Diat is a national treasure. She is originally from the Torres Strait but has spent most of her working life in Adelaide where she has worked in all different areas of the arts. She manages many musicians and artists including Radical Son. Diat searched high and low to ask anyone who was interested in auditioning to come and meet us in Adelaide and helped us put together a terrific cast. She is currently living back on Thursday Island and getting up to whatever mischief she can there.

ROLAND GALLOIS
editor

Roland is quiet and patient. Good qualities in an editor. He is also a talented artist and the edit suite is often peppered with his black ink drawings. We have been working with Roland on different films since 2004 but most recently on Samson & Delilah. Check out the little film he made of the film camera roll-off between takes in the behind-the-scenes section. He originally cut this together for our wrap party at the end of the shoot.

LIAM EGAN
sound designer

Liam also worked on Plains Empty, Making Samson & Delilah and lots of other films with us. He’s pretty much part of the furniture when it comes to our sound design team because he’s so good at his job. He and his team won the AFI Award for Sound Design for Samson & Delilah.

JULES WURM
camera assistant

Jules has been joined to Warwick’s hip, being number one camera assistant and focus puller for him for many a year. She makes him look good – well at least not fuzzy. Jules has travelled all over the countryside working on our short films in Alice Springs and Coober Pedy, First Australians in Tassie, WA and Victoria, Samson & Delilah in Alice and for Here I Am she got to stay home in Adelaide.

HEATHER WALLACE
costumer

Heather is one of the loveliest people you are ever likely to meet. She makes everyone feel calm just by being on set. And she has the most amazing eye for costume design. She has worked on all our favourites – Green Bush, Plains Empty, Samson & Delilah and now she also got to stay home to work on Here I Am. Heather is currently studying to be a yoga teacher.

CAROL CAMERON
hair & make up

We first met Carol on Samson & Delilah when she braved Alice Springs and working with the obstreperous Rowan McNamara who was constantly pulling off his SFX makeup and generally being a naughty teenager. We thought if she could put up with that she could probably handle eight or nine boisterous women who all like to talk at once. And besides, she’d recently fallen in love with an Adelaide man (our caterer Phil) so it all worked out well.

JEREMY SAUNDERS
key art designer

Jeremy, or ‘Jem’ to his friends, is a very talented fellow. He came to Sydney many years ago, made friends with some people in the biz at a pub one day and demonstrated to us that not only could he use a computer but he had a noggin for good design. In a very short period of time he has proved himself indispensible for filmmakers desiring sexy bits to promote their films.

CHRIS CHAMBERLIN
publicist

Chris hails from Bundaberg in regional Queensland. He was our publicist on Samson & Delilah and did a jolly good job, but that’s not why we asked him back. Chris was in a pantomime in high school called Peer Pressure. The following year he was in Peer Pressure Too. He played a goodie two shoes and his girlfriend fell victim to peer pressure and was seduced by alcohol. The writer of the plays used to be in Les Girls and he moved to Bundaberg to run the local cinema. Later, Chris appeared in a community service announcement based on the same theme. We think he has exactly the type of community spirit and moral fibre that we need more of in this world.