As part of a membership drive for people interested in being involved in the film industry, Screen Illawarra is hosting its first workshop ever in Kiama this Saturday.

“It will be an exciting opportunity to meet other creatives with the aim of upskilling locals in an in-demand job, as an entry level into the film industry or a new employable skill,” says Screen Illawarra’s Holly Trenaman.

This workshop, the first of four sponsored by Create NSW, is focusing on location scouting and management. .

“This includes not only making people aware of transferable skills they may have, but what is involved in having your property considered as a location,” says Holly.

The workshop guests, Matt Carroll and Cheryl Conway, work in Production Attraction at Screen NSW, and have very impressive biographies having attracted over $1 billion in production to New South Wales in the last 3 years.

Just a few of the major productions Matt has been responsible for include Furiosa, Shang-Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings, 3000 Thousand Years of Longing, Thor: Love and Thunder, Alien: Covenant, Wolf Like Me, God’s Favorite Idiot, Pieces of Her, Nine Perfect Strangers, and The Invisible Man [filmed at Dovecote House].

The Invisible Man brought Elizabeth Moss to film in our area

Cheryl has worked between the USA and Australia since early in her career, and has substantial experience working with other key territories, including the UK, Canada and China. Her experience covers production, development, and international production attraction and marketing; as well as content producing and programming the Australian industry's annual event, Screen Forever.

“Australia has seen more in demand than ever in recent years to host domestic and international production, and the Illawarra is an up-and-coming space for productions to use,” says Holly.

“We hope this workshop helps to train interested locals in order to start crewing them on productions that come down to our regions.

“It’s important to crew locally, and on most productions a requirement, so we need to get our locals ready.

“We hope these workshops provide good networking opportunities for like-minded creatives, but also help us to build our membership database so we can continue to hold these events and create a strong community of filmmakers in the Illawarra.”

Screen Illawarra Chair Sandra Pires says, ‘We want production in the Illawarra to not be a ‘walk in walk out scenario’ but to include skilled local industry professionals."

Register for the free workshop or join Screen Illawarra, a NFP collective working to promote the film industry in our area. Membership open to anyone interested in working in the film industry.