Previous Masterclasses – International Casting
International casting secrets and challenges for a global market, a masterclass on casting for directors and producers.
This two hour seminar focuses on international casting considerations for producers and directors. It covers the process of casting, using casting agents vs actor agents and highlights how casting directors work together with production.
Panel:
Nikki Barrett, Casting Director
Kirsty McGregor, Casting Director
Mark Morrissey, Casting Agent
Andrew Mason, Producer
Jodi Matterson, Made up Stories
Rob Gibson, Stan
Rachel Ward, Director
Hosted by Felicty Stanton, VP Development & Production at Animal Logic Entertainment
Felicity Staunton
Vice President Development & Production, Animal Logic Entertainment
After graduating with a Bachelor of Media and Creative Technology majoring in Animation, Felicity joined Animal Logic in 2011 working alongside Producer & CEO Zareh Nalbandian. With a passion for developing unique and compelling stories in the family and animated entertainment space, Felicity joined the Animal Logic Entertainment team in 2013 as a Creative Executive focused on building a slate of hybrid, animated and live action projects.
Felicity now splits her time between Sydney and Los Angeles as a Creative Producer across ALE projects in active production while shepherding a slate of over 20 projects through packaging, story and visual exploration, many of which are now set up at major studios including Fox, Sony, Warner Bros, Lionsgate and New Line.
As an active member of the screen community, Felicity brings extensive experience in commercial film packaging along with strong talent, crew, producer and agent relationships both locally and internationally.
Felicity’s credits include The LEGO® Movie, Walking With Dinosaurs 3D and The LEGO® Batman Movie and most recently Associate Producer on the Animal Logic Entertainment/Columbia Pictures family animated/hybrid film, Peter Rabbit.
Members: $25 / Non-members: $55
Kirsty McGregor
Kirsty McGregor worked as an actor from the age of six before discovering, 20 years later, she much preferred being behind the camera.
She established her company, McGregor Casting in 2001, and today works side by side with her fantastic team, including Casting Directors Stevie Ray and Gemma Brown.
Credits include films such as Animal Kingdom, Lion, The Rover, Berlin Syndrome, Thor: Ragnarok, and the upcoming Judy and Punch, Palm Beach and Danger Close.
Television credits range from drama to comedy including Top Of The Lake, The Let Down, Secret City, The Moodys, Doctor Doctor and the upcoming mini series’ Fighting Season and Lambs Of God,. and comedy Mr Inbetween.
As a casting director, Kirsty has been nominated for an Emmy Award, three Artios Awards (for the Casting Society of America) and 11 Casting Guild of Australia Awards. She is very proud to have won the CGA award for best feature casting three years running, for Last Cab To Darwin, Down Under, and Lion.
Kirsty is a proud card carrying member of both the Casting Guild of Australia (of which she is currently serving as President) and the Casting Society of America.
Mark Morrisey
Celebrating his 33rd year in the entertainment business, Mark Morrissey is founder and Managing Director of Morrissey Management, one of Australia’s most successful and leading talent agencies. In 2010, he added another string to his bow with the joint venture re-launch of Mushroom Pictures (now known as M4 Entertainment) with business partners Michael Gudinski and John Molloy.
As a manager, Mark has nurtured some of the biggest names in Hollywood to fame including brothers Chris Hemsworth (Ghostbusters, In The Heart of the Sea, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Rush, Thor 2, Avengers, Snow White and The Huntsman), Liam Hemsworth (Independence Day, Hunger Games, Expendables 2) and Luke Hemsworth (Kill Me Three Times, The Anomaly, The Reckoning) Jai Courtney (Suicide Squad, Insurgent, Unbroken, The Water Diviner, Die Hard 3, Jack Reacher) Luke Bracey (Hacksaw Ridge, November Man, Point Break, Best Of Me, Monte Carlo) and Callan Mulvey (Batman VS Superman, Kill Me Three Times, Miss Meadows, Zero Dark Thirty, 300).
Some of his female clients include Kate Ritchie (Nova 96.9, Home and Away, Mr & Mrs Murder)) Melissa Bergland (Winners & Losers, Relative Happiness), Rebecca Breeds (Home and Away, We Are Men), Georgie Parker (Home & Away, Rapture, Blister, Burn, Play School, City Homicide) and Yumi Stynes (The Circle, Can of Worms, Mix 106.5, The 7PM Project).
His venture with M4 Entertainment has seen Mark involved in production for some of Australia’s leading projects. These include, executive producer for Molly (Channel 7 mini-series, 6.5 million viewers cumulative), The Last Time I Saw Richard (WINNER AACTA Award for Best Short Film 2014), Head First, Sound City, Such Is Life: The Troubled Times of Ben Cousins, Wolf Creek and the notable, Chopper.
Mark is an in demand lecturer, industry teacher and mentor throughout the entertainment industry. He maintains close contacts with all major TV film, marketing, PR media and music production and continues to market performers internationally with major contacts in LA and the UK.
Andrew Mason
Andrew began his film industry career in the early 1970s as an editor, before moving to producing and heading a successful commercial production company. He managed Atlab film laboratory for two years and was then co-founder of Australia’s first visual effects company in 1983. He worked as Visual Effects Supervisor on a number of Australian films and in 1993 Mason served as visual effects supervisor and second unit director on the dark and iconic The Crow.
Mason produced Alex Proyas’ kafkaesque thriller Dark City, released in the U.S. in early ‘98 by New Line. That was followed in the period 1998-2003 with Producing or Executive Producing a string of US studio pictures including the Wachowskis’ The Matrix and its sequels, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, as well as Red Planet, Scooby Doo, Queen of the Damned, and Kangaroo Jack.
He established City Productions to develop and produce Australian films, including Swimming Upstream (2001) and Danny Deckchair (2003). Mason spent 2004 in Romania producing Bruce Hunt’s horror thriller Cave and 2005 in Canada for French director Christophe Gans’ film Silent Hill.
Returning to Australia in early 2009 after an extended period in Paris, Mason produced for Omnilab the highly successful screen adaptation by writer turned Director Stuart Beattie of well-loved Australian novel Tomorrow When the War Began.
In 2009, Mason joined forces with Writer John Collee and Hopscotch Distribution principal Troy Lum to form development/production company Hopscotch Features.
Mason was a member of the board of the Macquarie Film Corporation, and spent a number of years as Deputy Chair on the board of the NSW Film and Television Office. He is currently a board member of the Sydney Film Festival and serves on the Council of Australian Film Television & Radio School.
Nikki Barrett
Nikki Barrett has been casting Australian and international film and television for over 20 years. Her work includes acclaimed features such as Fury Road, Hacksaw Ridge, The Babadook, The Great Gatsby, Slow West, Maos Last Dancer, The Sapphires, Somersault, Holding The Man, Oranges and Sunshine, Jewboy, The Railway Man and Candy . Television work includes Picnic at Hanging Rock, the Jack Irish series and the final season of HBO’s The Leftovers. Projects in 2017 included Peter Rabbit, Nekromancer, I Am Mother and The Nightingale, as well as Simon Baker’s first feature, Breath and Rachel Griffiths’ debut, Ride Like A Girl. She has just completed work on Justin Kurzel’s, screen adaptation of Peter Carey‘s novel, The True History of the Kelly Gang.
Jodi Matterson
Jodi Matterson serves as managing director of Australia and producer for Made Up Stories,.
Jodi started her film career assisting Australian producers Al Clark (PRISCILLA – QUEEN OF THE DESERT, CHOPPER) and Andrena Finlay (PAWS, ME MYSELF) and then worked in development in London for various UK producers.
She produced her first feature film THUNDERSTRUCK with director, Darren Ashton, a rock’n’roll road movie set to the music of AC/DC. Her second film RAZZLE DAZZLE set in the dance world was also directed by Ashton. It screened at more than 20 film festivals around the world including Berlin.
Jodi went on to produce the romantic comedy NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN directed by Oscar nominated Peter Templeman, the black comedy DOWN UNDER from rising Australian director Abe Forsythe and the romantic thriller 2:22 directed by Paul Currie.
On the TV side, Jodi produced the miniseries POWER GAMES: THE MURDOCK-PACKER STORY with John Edwards / Endemol for the Nine Network which won three AACTA awards.
Jodi also has previously been one of the top producers for commercials in Australia with over sixty commercials from both renowned Australian and International directors.
She is currently in post production on Abe Forsythe’s LITTLE MONSTERS through Made Up Stories.
Rob Gibson
Rob is Head of Originals for Stan, Australia’s leading local SVOD service. Since joining Stan in 2014, Rob has been instrumental in developing and implementing Stan’s creative and commercial strategy for original programming. In this role, Rob is responsible for the overall management of the commissioning slate, overseeing the discovery, rights acquisition, development, financing, production and launch of all original programs for the service.
The rapidly expanding Stan Originals catalogue includes two seasons of AACTA and Logie Award-winning comedy series NO ACTIVITY, now also a CBS All Access original comedy from Funny or Die/Gary Sanchez Productions, starring Will Ferrell, Bob Odenkirk and JK Simmons; two seasons of AACTA Award-winning drama series WOLF CREEK, based on the notorious films of director Greg Mclean; ROMPER STOMPER, a thrilling drama series continuing the story of one of Australia’s most iconic cinema gems; THE OTHER GUY, Matt Okine’s delightful and affecting auteur relationship comedy series; the network’s high profile stand-up comedy specials, ONE NIGHT STAN; Stan’s first feature film, THE SECOND; two global dramas going into production in 2018 with international partners, supernatural drama BLOOM, and crime mystery THE GLOAMING; as well as numerous other programs currently in production and development.
Rob’s role involves managing all aspects of the Stan Originals business, from maintaining deep relationships with the creative community in Australia, the US, UK and elsewhere, to content and talent discovery and development, creating and driving new
financing and co-production models, and liaising with all relevant industry bodies and stakeholders — driving outcomes all the way through the end-to-end process of generation, creative stewardship, packaging, greenlight and production of Stan’s award- winning, critically acclaimed original programming.
Prior to working at Stan, Rob was engaged on an overhead deal as producer for Circle of Confusion (STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, THE WALKING DEAD), and was a producer and partner in production company Known Associates (PRIMAL). Previously, he was a highly experienced media and entertainment lawyer, working for Allens, Foxtel, Festival Records and Fairfax Media. As Corporate Counsel for Fairfax Media, Rob helped establish the Stan joint venture between Fairfax and Nine Entertainment Co.
On the creative side, Rob is a screenwriter with experience writing screenplays on assignment for LA and Australian production companies, and with Screen Australia development support. Rob is also a singer-songwriter and screen composer with feature film credits, and released two albums and toured Australia with his band, Todd Sparrow. He studied drama at the Actors’ Centre Australia, and has performed in and directed for the theatre in Australia.
Rachel Ward
In her former life as an actress, Rachel Ward was the recipient of several International drama awards and nominations, which includes two Golden Globe nods. She’s starred in a number of International films throughout the last 20 years including Against All Odds, Dead men Don’t Wear Plaid, After Dark My Sweet, How to Get Ahead in Advertising and The Umbrella Woman. Rachel is probably most well known for her portrayal of Meggie Cleary in one of the most successful mini-series of all time, The Thorn Bird.
Today Rachel focuses her experience and knowledge of film making into writing and directing, moving from two 25 min shorts, Blindman’s Bluff and The Big House, to the acclaimed SBS short feature film Martha’s New Coat (50 mins).
Rachel won the Australian Critic’s Circle Award for two of her short films, The Big House and Martha’s New Coat, but both of these films where also nominated for a number of other top Australian awards in their respective years. The AFI awarded The Big House, Best Short Fiction Film in 2001 and Martha’s New Coat was a Dendy finalist in 2003. All three of her shorts were sold commercially and screened in International festivals and competitions, such as Sundance and the Clemont Ferrand.
In 2008, Rachel adapted and directed, BEAUTIFUL KATE, a novel by American author, Newton Thornburg. Starring Ben Mendleson, Rachel Griffith and Bryan Brown. Released by Village Roadshow in August 2009. BEAUTIFUL KATE was nominated for 10 AFI awards, winning one for best supporting actress, Rachel Griffith. BEAUTIFUL KATE, was selected for both the Sydney Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival in 2009. In 2010 Rachel directed two episodes of RAKE for the ABC and three episodes of MY PLACE for ABC3. She directed three episodes of THE STRAITS starring Brian Cox for ABC and three episodes of RETURN TO THE DEVILS PLAYGROUND for Showtime (which won ACCTA 2015 for best mini series) and directed AN ACIDENTAL SOLDIER for ABC which was nominated for AACTA Best tele-feature and for best director.
She has several feature films in development.
Other Past Masterclasses
Quality Content for Audience
Be Outrageous, Daring and Authentic: Stop Being the Best Kept Secret
All 3 Media – Building Capacity in a Competitive Marketplace
This intimate series of masterclasses was supported by Create NSW.
