The Jury will watch the films and make their decision on the night for all awards (with the exception of Audience Choice).
Catherine Pettman
Catherine is a principal director of Rummin Productions and loves producing stories in both documentary and feature format.
Catherine has managed docudrama and factual programs screened on ZDF, RTE, SBS and the ABC and has received several awards for her short films including Stripped Bare and the current international hit Doing it Scared.
For more information about Rummin’s projects follow their Facebook page or visit the website.
Sandi Sissel
Among Sandi’s numerous Academy Award and Emmy winning documentary credits are Mother Teresa, Jane Goodall: Chimps So Like Us, Blood In The Face, Chicken Ranch (she also co-directed). In addition she has been director of photography on network television, including Young Americans, Night Stalker and The Wonder Years and has many, many cable and TV move credits as director of photography. Sandi served as director of photography on the Academy Award nominated motion picture Salaam Bombay received the Camera D’or at Cannes. She has been 2nd Unit DOP on major films including Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Daredevil, Stealing Harvard, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the Academy Award For Cinematography winning Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World. Most notably for genre fans, Sandi was the director of photography of the Wes Craven cult classic The People Under the Stairs (1991). She was inducted into the American Society Of Cinematographers in 1994 and the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2004.
Helen Shield
Helen Shield presents Your Afternoon weekdays on ABC Radio Hobart and across Tasmania, which generally less gory terrain than the Tasploitation Challenge but certainly full of local storytellers and hectic deadlines.
She will not be swayed by bribes involving human sacrifice or reanimated pets so don’t bother trying.
Shaun Wilson
Shaun is an award-winning director and producer based in Hobart, Tasmania. Most recently his focus has been directing TV comedy, including the second series of The Ex-PM and episodes of Rosehaven. He is the co-founder of production company Sky Machine, through which he co-created and directed Noirhouse, an ABC comedy series that picked up a slew of awards including Best Director at both Melbourne Webfest 2014 and Webfest Montreal 2015.
Shaun is also the owner of Pananda, a commercial video production company that creates commercials for TV and online. He sits on the board of Wide Angle Tasmania, and is a founding member of the Tasmanian Filmmakers Alliance. And his team The Dying Arts won the Tasploitation Challenge in 2016 with the film The Things We Take.
Dick Marks, OAM
Dick has had almost 40 years experience in the film and television industries. He began his career as a studio hand, then floor manager, studio cameraman and TV news cameraman. Dick then went on to write, produce, direct and photograph numerous award winning documentaries, and has written, directed, photographed and edited thousands of commercials for cinema and TV. He is a member of the prestigious Directors Guild of America and has shot in Europe, UK, USA, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Japan, Africa, India, Indonesia, Fiji, Hawaii, New Guinea, and, of course, extensively in Australia. It is not uncommon for him to commit to large shoots for months at a time. A few of the most identifiable campaigns he has worked on, (a great many of which have won international awards in the USA, UK and worldwide), are: New South Wales Rugby League campaigns for 1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995 with Tina Turner, Qantas “I still call Australia home” original campaign, Lux Shampoo with Catherine Zeta-Jones for Japan, Sunsilk Shampoo with Laura Dern, Sugarine with Elle Macpherson and Pantene with Rachel Hunter.
Heath Brown
Heath Brown’s work as a composer and sound designer ranges from film and TV to performing arts and installation. He has written scores for feature films (Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla, 41 and El Monstro Del Mar!) and over 40 shorts. He also composed the score for the multi-award winning web series Noirhouse. Heath has written extensively for the theatre, notably for Terrapin Puppet Theatre (Big Baby, The Waltzing Tree) and Tasmanian Theatre Co. He is a produer and key artist of the theatre collective Radio Gothic, along with three Tasmanian playwrights. Their new works will debut in Dark Mofo 2017. Heath is also a past winner of the Tasploiation Challenge for his film Bring the Cat In, which he made in collaboration with his two daughters and partner. Visit HeathBrown.com.au for more information.
Briony Kidd
Briony is a Tasmanian-based filmmaker and theatre maker and graduate of Melbourne’s Victoria College of the Arts (VCA). Her short gothic melodrama The Room at the Top of the Stairs recently debuted on the Shudder.com platform internationally and her latest short,Watch Me, a thriller written by Claire d’Este, premiered at Monster Fest and is now on the international circuit. Briony and co-producer Catherine Pettman are currently developing a feature supported through Screen Australia’s Gender Matters program, a post-apocalyptic psychobiddy thriller. As a member of the Radio Gothic theatre collective she is producing two new horror radio plays for Dark Mofo 2017. Briony is also the director of the Stranger With My Face International Film Festival, returning 4-7 May 2017, and a freelance script editor specialising in genre. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here.
