Master of Arts: Film, Television and Digital Media Editing, 2005
Katie loves stories. She loves listening to them, reading them, watching them and crafting them.
As a film student at uni, she snuck into the tape-to-tape suite after hours to make a film for her friend, and a passion for picture-cutting (and 90s post-rock) was born.
Cut to 20 years later and Katie has edited a number of critically acclaimed shorts, documentaries and feature films which have screened at some of the world’s most prestigious festivals, including Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca, Tokyo, Palm Springs, Karlovy Vary, Sydney and Melbourne International Film Festivals. She was even lucky enough to have assisted fellow AFTRS editing alumnus, Roland Gallois, on the Cannes Camera D’Or winning Samson and Delilah. Her television work, both drama and factual, has screened across all Australian networks and also in the US and UK.
Katie’s first feature film took her to Cambodia to work with cinematographer (and alumnus) Bonnie Elliott on The Last Reel. It was completely in khmer language and a totally wild ride. Katie’s later work with another AFTRS alumnus Damien Power on his debut feature film, Killing Ground, was lauded by the likes of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter following the film’s international debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. Power’s short, Peekaboo, also won Katie the Best Editing Award at Flickerfest and nomination for Best Editing in a Short by the Australian Screen Editors’ Guild. The ASE also nominated Katie’s AFL documentary Outsiders, directed by Adrian Brown, for Best Feature Documentary and her recent work on ABC series, Fisk, for Best Editing in a Television Comedy.
Katie was also fortunate enough to spend a year or two editing documentaries in New York for Radical Media. An experience she will remember fondly, for the team as well as the unlimited access to cream cheese bagels. More recently, Katie flexed her factual-editing chops on Rogue Rubin’s debut feature documentary, Lion Spy followed by Filthy Rich and Homeless for Blackfella films and The China Century for Wildbear.
Most recently, Katie edited Jub Clerc’s debut feature film, Sweet As. Premiering at MIFF in August 2022, it has the distinction of not only an amazing directing and producing team but of being the first ever feature film by an indigenous woman from Western Australia. Right now Katie is back in the warm embrace of the comedy world with Kitty Flanagan and Tom Peterson’s second season of Fisk for the ABC.
AFTRS HIGHLIGHT
There are so many highlights from AFTRS it’s hard to know how to list them. To have spent every day for two years with a bunch of people who love filmmaking as much as I do while honing my craft with constant support, technical insight and critical feedback from the staff was both a privilege and a thrill. How lucky were we to get to go to a school for storytelling?
CAREER HIGHLIGHT
I suppose there are two real highlights of my career so far. The first being anytime I’ve had a job that took me to another country or even interstate (especially New York because I love that city so darn much). The second, equally enriching, highlight would be whenever I’ve been lucky enough to work with a really great team on a production. Our work is as much about our craft as the people we do it with.