AiG Team
Rohan Jones
Whether through Writing, Directing or Acting, Rohan is compelled to explore stories with powerful universal themes: brotherhood, genocide, racism, obsessive love, blind revenge, political tyranny, heroism, and the psychological and emotional trauma caused by combat. Initially (and preferably), he seeks the expression of these themes via his passion for creative writing. Only with substantial time to investigate is he able to strip back and fully explore these themes– as they are deeply rooted in his (and others’) human experience.
Rohan’s other creative love, is acting. He loves to work with actors to realize the interpretation of universal themes into the ‘coming alive’ on screen. He believes acting is one of the two greatest art forms (singing being the other).
Acting utilises a person’s physicality, their intellect and their emotional experience to express, and transcend themselves; in order to truthfully live out a conceived character’s experience.
We have all witnessed performances that have lifted a film to cult status or to greatness. It is Rohan’s aim to write and direct screen stories that reach these heights.
In 2011, Rohan was named one of Melbourne’s Top 100 most influential, inspirational, provocative & creative people by ‘The Age’ newspaper’s ‘Melbourne Magazine’.
Rohan was the Development Producer and Screenwriter on the feature film ‘Hermano’ – Venezuela’s entry for the 2011 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Set in the slums of Caracas, ‘Hermano’ also screened at:
Cannes Film Festival – Junior.
The 32nd Moscow International Film Festival: Won the Golden George for Best Film, Critics Award and Audience Award
Huelva Latin American Film Festival in Spain: Won Best Film
Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival: Won the Audience Award
At last count, Hermano has won thirteen awards at ten International Film Festivals, screening at 52 festivals in 40 countries. The film was released in Venezuelan cinemas to critical and audience acclaim, with over 400,000 people flooding their local multiplexes. The audience response kept the film in packed Venezuelan cinemas for four months. This led to multiple nominations for ‘Hermano’ at the Venezuelan Feature Film Awards (the ‘Roman Chalbaud’s’) for 2011; where it took out Best Film, Best Script and Best Actor. It was also released in cinemas in Spain, and has been purchased for cinema release by multiple international territories – through it’s sales agents ‘M-Appeal’ (International) and ‘Music Box Films’ (USA).
Rohan has recently completed a treatment for a feature film based on Geoffrey Bardon – the man credited with starting one of Australia’s, and the world’s, greatest art movements: the Western Desert’s Papunya Tula. For this project Rohan was awarded a mentorship with The Australian Writer’s Guild, which was financed by Film Victoria.
Short films Rohan has produced, written and/or directed have screened in the UK, USA, Russia, China, Japan, Latin America and Australia, winning prizes such as The Audience Choice Award at the Chicago International Latin American Film Festival (2006), and making the final 16 of Tropfest 2009.
He has had extensive experience crewing on over forty feature films, television dramas, short films and music videos and over 250 television commercials; performing a variety of roles, including: First Assistant Director, Art Director and Unit Manger.
He has a Post-Graduate Degree in Film and Television from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) Film and Television School (2003), where he won ScreenSound Australia’s ‘Outstanding Drama’ award, and AAV Australia’s award for ‘the best script from a graduating student in film, video and animation’.
He also has a Diploma of Performing Arts (Acting, 19920), having worked as an actor with some of Australia’s most experienced film and television directors – George Ogilvie, Ian Watson and P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding), as well as stage productions directed by Peter Sardi, Jenny Kemp, Richard Murphett and Brett Adam.
Rohan has twenty-five years experience in the Arts and Entertainment industry.
Gerlee Scanlan
Gerlee Scanlan is a Producer, Director and Editor with a background in Visual Art and Design. Her career path took on many different forms before she found Film & Video – the vocation that she was destined for! Several years found Gerlee milling around the corporate sector. Heady days sporting sneakers and suits, sipping lattes and succumbing to the 3 o’clock sugar hit eventually gave way to homework, procrastination and cramming. The birth of her first child was the catalyst for Gerlee to move out of the cubicle and into the classroom. She tried her hand at shoe making, illustrating/writing children’s picture books, and took on the odd graphic design job. She eventually consolidated her various skills and in 2008, Gerlee graduated with distinction from The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) with a degree in Animation and Interactive Media. It was there that her love of filmmaking began. In particular, it was the post-production process that Gerlee was drawn to and she has since worked on several productions as an Editor, Sound Editor/Designer, Title and VFX Animator/Designer and Colour Grader.
Gerlee has produced, written and directed a number of short films and animations. Her award winning short film ‘The Delivery’, was a 2009 Tropfest finalist and enjoyed screenings in Australia and Internationally.
Currently, Gerlee is developing an outline for a Comedy Webseries that she will write and direct; Is develeoping a feature script for an epic cross-continental love story, has set up innovative screen acting workshops for AiG’s education division: ‘Working the scene…’, and, is exploring innovative ways of integrating the www into our workflows.
Joshua Smith
Joshua is a Screenwriter & Producer. He graduated from the Australian Film Television School in 2010, under John Maynard in Producing. There he was mentored by Robert Connolly, Luke Devenish and Steven Sewell in screen writing for his feature script “spit on me”. Spit on me is a feature film project written by Joshua Smith about his own experience as a suspect in a murder investigation. The story follows the journey of a young man, Louis Flynn, accused by the Australian Federal Police, largely driven by stereotypical assumptions and steered by old faction style policing, to his personal triumph and conquering of long term mental illness and self actualized independence. The project is now in final draft stages.
In 2011 he produced the short film “KIN” directed by Rudolph Fitzgerald-Leonard, Cinematography by Edward Goldner, Sound Design by John Kassab which took out the Film Victoria Award for Best Undergraduate Production (3rd Yr & Honours) at the V.C.A 2011 Production Awards. The film also picked up the Silver ACS Student Award 2011 – Australian Cinematographers Society for Edward Goldner. KIN is currently being circulated internationally for the festival circuit.
The same year he production managed another VCA grauduate film “Silent Night” which won the award in best direction for Bec Kingma.
Joshua continues to develop his craft and passion for story-telling by producing short films with stories that engage him, and reflect the world he lives in.
