Friday 16 February 2018
By Diaan Wajon
Education Manager

For the second consecutive year, APDG members judged the Best Production Design category in the Tropfest26 Craft Awards. Matt Putland APDG, Fiona Donovan APDG and I were invited to preview the 16 Tropfest finalist films, with the aim of both spotting ‘the rose’ (a.k.a. the ‘signature item’) and judging the entries to award one film with Best Production Design (including costume).

Fiona Donovan APDG at the podium introducing the award for Best Production Design – Image courtesy of Tropfest

Given two weeks to do our job, this task became less challenging when we discovered that not all entries credited roles in art, costume or design. Out of the 16 films we viewed, there were only seven films that had an on-screen credit that we could base our judging on. These ranged from ‘Production Designer, Art director, Costume designer and Art Dept. Asst. to one director even crediting herself in the Production Designer role on her film, to her credit I say! This was mentioned to Annie Parnell, Tropfest Coordinator when we delivered our decision, meaning that we would/could only award a prize to the film that acknowledged a person or persons in a ‘design’ role. She agreed.

The seven ‘eligible’ films displayed an array of design talent ranging from costume and location choices to the complete ‘storyworld’ designed for the winning entry ‘The last time I saw you’. This film acknowledged it’s design efforts with crew being credited in four, yes four!, design roles including costume. It was an ambitious project including exterior and interior settings all on location as well as SFX (a realistic explosion in ‘Syria’ and a rain fx /interior sprinkler bursting), vehicles, extras and livestock.

The APDG Screen Committee Co- Chair Fiona Donovan attended the Awards event on Friday 16 February, at the UWS Campus in Parramatta. Fiona presented the award to the Director Damien McLindon, whose film snapped a raft of additional awards, including Best screenwriting, Best sound and Best editing on the night. It also won third place in the overall competition judged by Susan Sarandon the following night. Unfortunately, Production Designer, Elena-Lyons Dawson nor any of her team was able to attend to receive the award in person, but we got word that she was very chuffed.

Thank you Fiona for presenting the award on behalf of APDG and taking the opportunity to speak about the role of design in screen storytelling. By taking every opportunity to ‘enlighten’ young filmmakers (well, mostly young) at this type of event, we can be sure that we are reaching out to future designers and promoting the Guild.

The APDG also sponsors awards for several other educational organisations, including Sydney Film School, Macquarie University – Focus Film awards, Deakin University, Filmy Film Awards, JMC Qld and TAFENSW Enmore, where we present awards for outstanding achievement and offer all recipients a one year full Guild membership. APDG members will continue to attend and present at these events, it is a wonderful opportunity to show our colours and to stand alongside the other Guilds with equal strength and passion for our industry.

All finalist films for Tropfest26 will be available on ABC Collection.