Last night in Sydney nearly 100 editors ate and drank in the lush '20s
atmosphere of the Vanguard Jazz venue in Newtown. We were all there
together as The Australian Screen Editors Guild accredited six
editors at the 2005 Accreditation ceremony and Christmas Party.
The
official presentations kicked off at 7:50pm with Andrea Lang ASE
playing host. Andrea introduced the night with an extremely
humourous welcome and somehow managed to relate editors to wombats with
the mange - she had the room in hysterics. After her welcome Andrea
invited our Motorbike Riding President, Pete Whitmore ASE to the
stage. Pete spoke about how great it is to come together to
celebrate and honour 6 talented editors with accreditation; editors who
have made an outstanding contribution to the film landscape. He
mentioned that acknowledging editors was especially important this year
in the context of the AFI Awards split. Before the presentations took
place, Peter invited our keynote speaker Brian Rosen to the stage.
Brian
is the CEO of the Film Finance Corporation and has worked through
the years in different roles as a filmmaker (producing, directing). He
gave a fantastic, warm speech in his soft Irish accent, showing his
support and clear love for editing and editors and how we all fit in
the big picture of the Australian film industry. Brian spoke about the
plans the FFC has and he ackowledged a couple of times how in the end,
editors put films together - and (to a rousing cheer) suggested maybe
we could do with a little more time in post.
After his speech,
Pete joined Brian back on stage and the 2005 Accreditation
presentations began. Six guild members were accredited this year:
Andrew Arestides
James Bradley
Darren Jonusas
Tim Lewis
James Manché
Barrie Munro
Andrew Arestides was not available to come to the
ceremony and his award was accepted by Emma Hay ASE, while Darren
Jonusas and Tim Lewis sent video messages from London and Melbourne
respectively.
Before the presentation was over, Pete made a
special announcement congratulating and welcoming John Leonard to the
Australian Screen Editors Guild as an Hounourary Life Member. John will
be receiving his Life Membership in Melbourne at the Victorian
Christmas Party on Sunday the 18th of December.
After the presentations, the celebrations really kicked off as
people relaxed into the Christmas Party atmosphere. The music, food,
wine, champagne and beer all flowed as all our editors embraced the end
of the year on a gorgeous, balmy evening in Sydney.
Congratulations must go to Andrew Arestides ASE, James Bradley ASE,
Darren Jonusas ASE, Tim Lewis ASE, James Manché ASE, Barrie Munro
ASE and John Leonard.
I big thank you also to the Accreditation sub-committee for doing an excellent job and also to the event sponsor, the FFC.
