Noosa Film Academy’s Greg and Fiona Huglin teach Ipswich students the ins and outs of filmmaking during eight workshops

Students from eight different local schools were able to watch their own short films on the big screen after being tutored by an Academy Award winner

The Noosa Film Academy brought their workshops to Ipswich. They held an event at Limelight Cinemas to showcase the films made by students.

AN Oscar winning cinematographer gave Ipswich students a slice of life behind the camera as part of workshops intended to inspire careers in the film industry.

With more than 50 years experience and an Academy Award under his belt for his role on acclaimed documentary The Cove, there’s not many better than Greg Huglin to be teaching local teenagers the tools of the trade.

The American filmmaker and his producer wife Andrea arrived in Australia in 2014 after being granted a Distinguished Talent visa.

Ipswich students at Limelight Cinemas.

“In the visa it suggests you should give back,” Mrs Huglin said.

“Obviously it’s a suggestion, it’s not a contract.

“Greg he has gone through from being able to load film canisters and process actual film at the start of his career to now where he’s working with 12k Blackmagic cameras and it’s cutting edge technology on the digital side of things.

“I think he was at that point where he was ready to share the knowledge.”

They set up the Noosa Film Academy on the Sunshine Coast to do just that and their footpath has steadily grown over the past seven years.

This year they will travel to more than 100 schools around the state.

Their recent visit to Ipswich is the second time they’ve set up in the city and they conducted workshops in eight different high schools this time around.

Each day was spent producing, shooting and editing a short film around the concept of the ‘Umbrella Storyboard’.

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“They become everything; they’re the actors, doing the audio and coming up with the storyline,” Mrs Huglin said.

“We show them they can be a crane operator or a producer; there’s all these jobs around film and TV not just the actors and the guy with the camera.

“The umbrella is the only thing that’s the same in every single film. You get lots of different variations of why it’s in there.

“During the filming session Greg will have whatever the camera is seeing projecting onto the big screen. Then in the edit it’s the same thing. So everyone takes part in the whole process.”

Each of the films were then showcased at Limelight Cinemas with students invited along to a red carpet event in order to see their work on the big screen.

The workshops are funded by a Playing Queensland Grant from Arts Queensland.

“We try and show them what the goal is,” Mrs Huglin said.

“Try and get your work on the big screen and have a premiere and get it into a film festival.

“We try and be inclusive as possible so no one is missing out.”

Each movie is usually less than three minutes but Mrs Huglin said the opportunity to work behind the scenes for a day and put it all together was a valuable learning experience for students and teachers alike.

“We try and go in there and help the teachers with whatever subject or level that they’re that,” she said.

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“The process is really what we’re there to do shot by shot.

“At the end of the day they’ve got this short film as the outcome.

“It just seems to me we’re reaching teenagers with the language they’re speaking which is screens. We can tell them you can make this your life.”

Mrs Huglin said the long term plan was to remain in Queensland and with their two kids now at university, it gave them the chance to ramp up their work.

“If you told me 10 years ago when we were in California that we were going to be in the outback in Australia making films with teenagers I would have said ‘you’re kidding’,” she said.

“It’s just been an absolute labour of love. We’ve both really enjoyed it.

“I had a big mission to go and do a film overseas about women’s issues. Then COVID hit and I’ve put my full energy into this and I’m loving it.

“We’ll probably do some commercial work in between. Different things pop up here and there and Greg has a few projects on the backburner and I do too.

“It’s great to just get out there and get the creative juices going and bounce off the teenagers who have got some really great ideas. There were some really creative ideas in Ipswich.”

Read more stories by Lachlan McIvor here.

Originally published as Noosa Film Academy’s Greg and Fiona Huglin teach Ipswich students the ins and outs of filmmaking during eight workshops