Alone Australia Series Two

Alone Australia series 2 is about to be broadcast in Australia on SBS. In 2023 I had the privilege to work on the series when it was filmed in the South Island of New Zealand. I worked on the series as a hub producer and shooter producer. As a high percentage of the series was filmed by the contestants on Go Pro camera’s, I spent much of time time out in the wilderness filming landscape and nature footage. However we were always on standby to film when the contestants pulled out and their departures needed to be filmed and the pack downs of their camps. It was an amazing series to work on and had many challenges being shot in the fiordland area of New Zealand and on lakes. I needed to have a light small camera kit so filmed with the Sony FX6 camera and various e mount prime lenses.

Sydney Shooter Producer

In June 2023 I flew from Sydney to the outback in Queensland to film a new series for Seven Mate called Adventure Gold Diggers. In the series, we follow various mining teams around Australia as they prospect for gold. On the series, I worked as a shooter producer and also drone operator. It was the first series I have worked on using my new Sony FX6 cine line camera. The camera has a great dynamic range and with it being smaller and lighter it was perfect to use following around gold miners as they dig for gold. I rigged the camera up with a Zacuto gratical eye EVF and Zacuto shoulder plate. My main lens was the Tamron 35 to 150 lens which is a great combination to use with the Sony FX6. For drone shots I used the new DJI Mini Pro 3. Here is a trailer below for the series. It can be watched on Seven Mate or online on 7 Plus.

Australia behind bars

Australia Behind Bars is a Nine Australia series I worked on as a shooter producer in 2021. I spent four months in Wellington and Silverwater maximum security prisons filming the day to day lives of both correctional officers and inmates. I met some amazing people and saw a very different side of life. The series takes a look at what day to day life is like in Australian prisons and correctional centres. I was a one man team producing, directing and cameraman shooting on my Sony F5 camera and using various cinema lenses and tools such as DJI Ronin gimbal and drone.

It took awhile to gain the inmates trust to film and we were granted access to pods where the inmates are held. We were thought of as a news crew and it took time spent with the inmates chatting and hanging out for them to start to trust us and open up. The series has just gone to air on Nine and can be watched on Thursday nights at 9pm.

Shooter Director located in Sydney, Australia

I am a shooter director based in Sydney, Australia. I have worked on a variety of documentary and television shows over my career both here in Australia and in the UK, Spain and New Zealand. I am currently working on Discovery series Outback Opal Hunters which is being produced by Perth based production company Prospero. We have been shooting two series of the program back to back, twenty one hour episodes.

Other series I have worked on over the past few years are:

Emergency - Nine Network , Shooter Producer and Cameraman

Beyond The Boundary - Network Seven , Cameraman

Mega Zoo’s - Nine Network, Shooter Producer

Fire Fight Australia Relief Special - Seven / Foxtel, Shooter Producer

Struggle Street - SBS , Director and Cameraman

Go Back To Where You Came From - SBS, Director and Cameraman

Restoration Australia - ABC , Producer / Director / Cameraman

Lights Out In The Cross - ABC, Shooter Producer

Master Chef Australia - Network 10, Producer / Director

Bondi Rescue - Network 10, Shooter Producer

Bondi Vet - Network 10, Shooter Producer

You can see examples of my work on my website under the tv and branded content sections. Also by following these links through to my Vimeo and You Tube accounts.

Outback Opal Hunters - Shooter Producer Mark Hooper

In Australia in 2020 with the Covid 19 pandemic there are very few television series that are still able to be filming. I have been very fortunate that the Discovery series Outback Opal Hunters made by Prospero Productions out of Perth has still managed to keep filming.

The decision was made by Discovery Channel to keep filming for as long as we could and to film two series back to back. A huge job of 20 x 1 hour episodes. To enable this to happen four different film crews worked in different states in different parts of the country. We also stayed in each location for the duration of the filming of the series creating a production bubble.

I have spent the past six month working on the series as director and cameraman or shooter producer as it is sometimes called in Australia. We managed to be able to keep filming as we are a small production team of only two people and usually film opal mining teams that only have two to three people in them. Before filming started Prospero Productions put into place very strict Covid filming plans and when we arrived on location in Lightning Ridge in the outback of New South Wales we had to go into a quarantine period of two weeks before we could start filming.

The series has been very challenging to film so many episodes but we are getting some great content and it has been amazing to live in the Outback and meet so many amazing characters.

Outback Opal Hunters filming in Lightning Ridge, NSW

SBS Landmark series Filthy Rich and Homeless - Director / Cameraman

Last year I had the privilege to work as a shooter producer / directing cameraman on Filthy Rich and Homeless. The SBS documentary series made by Blackfella Films runs over three nights and takes a hard look at the issues of homelessness in Australia. Five Australian personalities have all their possessions taken off them and they are sent out into the streets of Sydney and regional New South Wales to fend for themselves for ten long days and nights. Along the way they stay at certain services that support the homeless and they get to meet people who are homeless and use these facilities.

I filmed the 12 hour day shift and handed over to producer / cameraman Ben King for the night shift. The shoots were very challenging as we were a one man filming crew having to direct, be the cameraman and also look after the audio. It was a huge challenge to film the series as we were placed with one of the participants in this social experiment and followed them around as they lived on the streets. It was winter and the days and nights were wet and cold. I filmed with television and radio personality Dr. Andrew Rochford. We spent two nights in western Sydney and then headed to coastal towns Nowra and Wollongong where they is also a large homeless community. We met some truly beautiful people and it was an experience I will never forget. The series is available to watch on SBS on Demand.

Emergency: Nine Network - Shooter Producer and Cameraman

I have just finished up working as a shooter producer and cameraman filming a new Nine Network series Emergency. The series was filmed at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and is a gritty new observational real-life medical series that lifts the curtain on one of Australia’s busiest hospital emergency departments.

We had unprecedented access to the department and access to the emergency and trauma rooms as the doctors and nurses worked. Emergency will reveal the tribulations and triumphs of the doctors and nurses at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Told through the eyes of an extraordinary and dedicated team of medical professionals, with a busy stream of patients coming through the door, Emergency will give viewers a unique insight into the inner workings of Victoria’s first hospital.

From life-threatening conditions like strokes and heart attacks to patients treated after car accidents, falls, assaults and major public emergencies, the series will reveal the compassion and amazing composure of doctors and nurses as they battle to save lives.

Emergency was be produced by WTFN, creators of Nine’s hit series, Paramedics.

WTFN’s Director of Content, Steve Oemcke, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Victoria’s most famous hospital on this compelling new series. Australia has fallen in love with the heroes of Paramedics, and we’re excited to now tell the story of the doctors and nurses at the Royal Melbourne as they take over the life-saving care of these patients.”

Nine Program Director, Hamish Turner, said: “The success of Paramedics highlighted the real appetite for this style of blue light factual and storytelling. Emergency will go behind-the-scenes of one of the country’s busiest hospitals to showcase the incredible life-saving work performed by the unsung heroes who work there.”

Emergency will go to air on Nine later this year 2019.

Struggle Street: Series 3 in the Riverina, NSW - Director and Cameraman

I spent four months in 2018 and 2019 working as a director and cameraman filming the third season of controversial SBS series Struggle Street. In the third season of the series we follow the lives of people living in the Riverina rural area of New South Wales.

The new series will go to air on Wednesday the 9th of October at 8.30pm on SBS.

We meet people living on the breadline and struggling to survive in rural and regional areas of Australia. We explore the economic, social and inter-generational struggles facing Australians in rural and regional communities.

The series is four one hour episodes and is an observational documentary series. The stories explored are representative of the issues affecting people throughout Australia, including the impact of the current drought, unemployment, access to healthcare, homelessness, the effects of drugs and alcohol, the challenges facing those with mental ill-health and physical disabilities and the decline of small-town rural Australia.

Restoration Australia Series Two - Producer and Cameraman

Restoration Australia is finally going to air on the ABC in Australia on March 17 2019. you can see the series online on ABC iview or use this link: Restoration Australia to view it on my You Tube channel. I spent two years working on this series for Fremantle Media as a Producer / Director and Cameraman. It was a challenging series filmed all over Australia. Most of the time I worked on my own as a one man team or shooter producer as its called in Australia. My camera set up was the company Sony PMW FS7 or my own Sony PMW F5 Cine Alta camera when I needed to shoot in 4K and get slo mo shots. For my lenses I shot with the Fujinon MK series and Rokinon and Canon primes.

On the busy days filming with the presenter Stuart Harrison and the home owners, I often directed as we had two cameraman on the shoot to cross shoot and also do the drone shots. We filmed drone shots with the DJI Phantom Four Pro.

The series has a new host, heritage architect Stuart Harrison. Series two of Restoration Australia follows homeowners across the country as they lovingly restore forgotten heritage gems into living homes. This time the restoration challenge moves beyond old colonial homes to embrace houses from all periods, including iconic modernist masterpieces and even an inner- city gasworks. With greater budgets and increased time pressures, the homeowners battle white ants and water-damaged walls while discovering fascinating insight into the origins of these houses, their histories, and why they were built the way they were. The ambitious restorations are a journey of discovery for both homeowners and viewers alike, with take-away tips for audiences that can be applied to everyday home renovations.