Charlie is a screenwriter, story consultant, script editor, director, producer and screen content creator. His screen credits include feature films, television drama, short films and documentaries, including two feature documentaries for cinema release.
Originally from Hobart, Charlie was based in Auckland from 1989 until 2000, where he mixed producing, writing and directing on a range of projects on commercials and high end corporates for production companies VidCom and Communicate before establishing his own production company, Nomad Films. His clients included ZESPRI International (the NZ Kiwifruit industry marketing organisation), Nobilo Wines, Air New Zealand, the New Zealand Navy, Telecom and Wella. He was a key creative on global brand launches for ZESPRI International and Nobilo Wines.
Using his commercial work as a financial base, Charlie wrote and directed three New Zealand produced short films - Secrets, A Moment Passing, and Flying. A Moment Passing screened at numerous international film festivals, including Venice, Cannes, and Melbourne, The film was nominated for the Golden Bear for best short film at Venice, and won Jury Awards at Dresden and New York. Flying screened at the Hawaii, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch International Film Festivals, at the Sydney Flickerfest and the Madrid Experimental Short Film Festival, and at the Giffoni, Montreal, and Hyperbad International Children’s Film Festivals. Flying and A Moment Passing were Best Short Film category finalists in successive New Zealand Film Awards. Both films have sold extensively to international television and between them have screened at more than 26 international film festivals.
Charlie worked as a writer/director on the award winning New Zealand drama series True Life Stories, and has written two short features for New Zealand television - Highwater (sole story and screenplay credit) and Money For Jam (co-writer and script editor, uncredited at his request). He also wrote and directed two documentaries for New Zealand television, High Hopes and A Load Of Rubbish.
Since returning to Australia in 2000, Charlie has focussed on developing feature drama and documentary projects, as well as diversifying his industry involvement. He delivered nine short films as Supervising Producer for Queensland screen organisation QPIX between 2004 and 2006, and has undertaken extensive training as a script developer with financial support from Screen Australia, including the residential Arista Script Developers Workshop (2008), and the Script Factory's script assessment workshop(2011) and Wrestling the Redraft script editing masterclass (2012). From 2009, he has been an assessor for features and television projects for Screen Queensland and Screen Tasmania (for whom he also acts on occasion as an external project officer).
Charlie has worked as a script and story consultant on three features for Limelight International – Undertow, Bad Karma and Absolute Deception. He was script editor on the 2013 ABC telemovie Cliffy. In the factual arena, he wrote Cathy Henkel’s feature documentary Show Me The Magic (2011) the life story of legendary Australian cinematographer Don McAlpine, with funding from Screen Australia and Screen Queensland. Show Me The Magic premiered at the Brisbane International Film Festival in November 2012. In 2013, he completed the 3D Imax movie, Last of the Great Apes as a co-writer and post production consultant.
Current original projects in development include a television series in collaboration with Roger Monk, and two books - a novel, and the authorised biography of iconic cinematographer Don McAlpine. Through Bangalow Pictures, a partnership with co producer Steven Van Mil, Charlie is developing two features in collaboration with writer Reg Cribb (Last Cab to Darwin), and the adaptation, with Jesse Blackadder, of her novel Paruku. Bangalow Pictures is also in early development on a fourth feature in partnership with Tori Garrett and James Greville's Two Little Indians.
Charlie wrote and teaches Southern Cross University's screenwriting course, and is working on a Higher Degree Research project at Griffith University focussed on the adaptation of the modern novel for the screen.