Power Grads
Ben Walker
My name is Ben Walker, I was originally from the Adelaide Hills, but I am currently based in Sydney at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.
It took a long time for me to realise that I wanted to work in the post production industry, but the School of Communication and New Media played a big role in actually getting me to this point. I came out of highschool with a fairly strong interest in design and multimedia, so I applied for a Bachelor of Multimedia at the School of Communication.
It was there that I took a series of animation, design and multimedia courses and eventually I picked up Film and Video as a submajor.
Film and Video ended up taking up the vast majority of my time as I became heavily interested in the aesthetic of film and how the image can be altered digitally.
When I completed my undergraduate degree I wanted to continue my studies and was invited back to the school to do an honours thesis.
Between tutoring at the school I eventually wrote a thesis primarily on advertisements and what I termed digital spectacular advertisements.
So, towards the end of my honours degree I applied for the Australian Film Television and Radio School. I was accepted in November of 2006, and by January 2007 I was in Sydney.
So, what is it I do here? I am currently working on a film called The Red Kite, dirtected by Mathew Mackereth, one of the MA students here. I am in lead of essentially creating the environments for the film and a lot of the overall aesthetic of the film.
Other projects I have worked on this year include some ABC 2 idents, a variety of title design, a series of Lipsmackers commercials. I was also the assistant visual effects supervisor on a short film called Plastic, a heavily VFX based short film.
I guess you could say for me that the School of Communication provided a basis on which I could really explore what I was interested in. It was open enough and provided enough opportunities for me to explore those avenues, and the support was there from the tutors and lecturers for me to do that.
Since coming to the film school, I’ve really built on what I’ve learnt at UniSA and the School of Communication, and the fact that I get to work with some of Australia’s best directors, cinematographers, producers, designers is a very humbling experience.
Thank you to the School of Communication and also thank you to Ian Hutchison, Ian Dinning, Denise Wood and all my fellow tutors and students at the School. Happy birthday.