INTRODUCiNG PiNK PEPPER
TARYNE (PiNKY) LAFFAR
WRiTER, DiRECTOR, CREATiVE PRODUCER & CASTiNG
Writer and Producer Taryne (PiNKY) LAFFAR descends from the Bardi and Jabbir Jabbir nations of the West Kimberley, a Filipino, and European background. In 2006, Taryne wrote and directed her first short documentary; WHO PAINTIN’ DIS WANDJINA? Then turning to producing with BINGO!, RAINFOREST WARRIORZ, ON COUNTRY KITCHEN S1, numerous Our Stories for NITV, KGB and OUR LAW (available on NETFLIX and SBS OnDemand). PiNKY has also worked in Casting on THE CIRCUIT, STONE BROS, BRAN NUE DAE, MAD BASTARDS, YAGAN, JANDAMARRA’S WAR, A FEW LESS MEN and GO, which lead to her creating important relationships all over WA.
A 2019 Ones To Watch selection, PiNKY was subsequently announced Screen Forever’s SBS First Glance prize winner, and just prior was selected for the Indigenous Producer Program through Screen Australia. With the privilege of completing their Developing The Developer program too. In 2020, PiNK PEPPER began development on OLD MATE comedy series and TV dramedy series TATA DETECTIVE, OUR LAW SERIES and feature anthology RED. In 2021-2, PiNK PEPPER and Periscope Pictures produced OUR LAW SERIES 1 for NITV/SBS and PiNK PEPPER was the Western Australian producer of LUSTRATION VR with New Canvas.
Again PiNK PEPPER has successfully collaborated with Periscope Pictures in 2022-3 creating OUR LAW SERIES 2 (TX date May 2024) which sees the programme increase to 8 episodes and go nationwide.
In mid 2023, Taryne was elated to be named the new NITV Commissioning Editor however this announcement was short lived as an unexpected opportunity arose allowing Taryne to spend her next 10 months developing her own stories as Writer/Producer. Exciting news expected soon.
PiNK PEPPER COLLABORATORS…
ALi MacGREGOR
PRODUCERS ASSiSTANT
Ali MacGregor grew up in Fremantle, Western Australia. She graduated from Curtin University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts with double majors in Literary and Cultural Studies, and Screen Arts. Her first involvement in the film and TV industry was in working as a Picture Double for Judy Davis on the ABC miniseries Mystery Road (2018) after being inadvertently scouted by the Casting Director whilst visiting in Kununurra. From there, she began to build her career in the industry, working as part of the Production team on series such as Bad Mothers (2019), Mystery Road Series 2 (2020), and most recently, The Heights Season 2 (2020). She has also worked in the Casting Department on music videos and advertisements, and as the Extras Casting Coordinator on the TV series Itch (2020). Ali was also selected to take part in the Museums Collections Projects Program 2018 at the Victorian College of the Arts, School of Film and Television Digital Archive, where she worked as a Digitisation Assistant in the curation and cataloguing of films in the Digital Archive Project. In the future, Ali would like to explore work in documentary research, or within the Art Department, whilst continuing to expand her experience in Production. She is thrilled to be coming on board as a Producer’s Assistant at Pink Pepper and is passionate about the amazing slate of productions in the works!
JEREMY THOMSON
EDiTOR
Jeremy Thomson is a Perth-born,‘Gija’ descendant, whose family hails from the Kimberley town of Halls Creek. From a young age, he has always had a strong love of film and television. In 2015, he completed a Masters Degree in Screen Studies at the WA Screen Academy, aspiring to gain more knowledge in the different aspects of filmmaking, both practically and theoretically. He specialised in the areas of directing and editing, and worked on several short film and documentary projects. He was awarded the ‘Channel Nine Award for Excellence in Editing’ for his work on the short film ‘Tryptophan’. In the following years, he acquired various assistant editor credits on television shows such as ‘On Country Kitchen’, ‘Born To Cook: Jack Stein Down Under’ & ‘Nyoongar Footy Magic’. In 2018, he directed his debut documentary feature ‘The Kimberley Man’, a personal story that focused on his grandfather Ernie Bridge, Western Australia’s first indigenous parliamentarian. The documentary highlighted the struggles that Mr. Bridge faced to give a voice to the marginalised people of the Kimberley. The Kimberley Man was broadcast in 2019 on NITV, and went on to win various awards, including the 2020 ATOM Award for ‘Best Documentary - Short Form’. He received his first editor credit working with Pink Pepper and Periscope Pictures on ‘Our Law’, a profound documentary about Australia’s only completely indigenous-run police station in Warakurna. It was from working on these projects that made Jeremy very eager to direct more content focused on indigeous Australians and the fascinating stories about their culture. One of his goals as a filmmaker is to tell stories that will promote more understanding of the great things that indigenous Australians have done over the 50,000 years plus that they have inhabited Australia, and help to seek a greater level of unity amongst all Australians.
KELLi CROSS
WRiTER & DiRECTOR
Kelli Cross is a Nyoongar/Malgana/Wadjela woman from the Fremantle area of Perth. She discovered a passion for the Arts during her school years, compelling her to leave early and pursue a career as an actress, first in Perth, then later in Brisbane at ACPA. Those plans were put on hold to raise a young family back home in Perth. But over the years since, she has never given up this desire for storytelling, only now she is stepping behind the camera and focusing on creating her own stories, while juggling the demands of motherhood. Since she started writing and directing her own short films, Kelli has completed an attachment to Rachel Perkins on her feature “Jasper Jones” as a part of the ADG’s Directors Attachment Scheme in 2015. Before that she won her first award for “Best Indigenous Film” for “One Fine Day” at the 2014 Shorts Film Festival in Adelaide and was recently nominated for other awards, such as the Australian Directors Guild Awards and the Melbourne Webfest in 2018, for directing the web-series “Aussie Rangers”, which is screening on ABC iView. Kelli has recently finished directing two episodes of “The Heights- Season 2” as part of their director mentorship program. She is also currently developing her first feature film script, “Black Sheep White Xmas”.
LAUREN ELLiOTT
PRODUCER & PUBLiCiST
Lauren Elliott is one of Western Australia's most groundbreaking comedy producers. In 2019, she released three web series - cult Indigenous comedy series, KGB on ABC iview, The Big Spaghetti on YouTube and LIFT on 10Peach. She also won a 40under40 award, which declared her one of WA’s leading entrepreneurs under the age of 40. Lauren has a wealth of experience in film & TV, marketing, public relations and events having worked in Australia, the UK and the US. She is represented by CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles which has resulted in a number of exciting opportunities in the US, including a producing partnership with Sacha Baron Cohen’s production company, Four By Two, who saw “early shades of Ali G” in her work. She was the winner of the inaugural Screenwest Emerging Producer’s Initiative in 2015 and was awarded $100,000 to put towards projects and professional development. Following her win, she spent six months learning the Hollywood ropes at Red Hour Films and Abso Lutely Productions in Los Angeles and now splits her time between Perth, Sydney and LA.
SAM FiELD
DOP, WRiTER, DiRECTOR, PRODUCER & EDiTOR
Sam Field is an experienced shooting director working in broadcast documentary, interactive and factual content production. In 2019, Sam co-directed the acclaimed Indigenous Virtual Reality experience Virtual Whadjuk, and in 2018 was the Series Director for the six-part SBS food series Born to Cook. In 2017, Sam directed co-directed the observational police documentary Behind The Blue Line for the SBS, directed a short-form factual series Shock Art for ABC Arts, the short documentary Shark Soup for Discovery Channel Australia, and directed the first series of Born to Cook, starring Jack and Rick Stein. In 2016, Sam directed Candidate Games, a half hour documentary for ABC2, as well as the interactive marine science documentary Beneath The Waves (ScreenWest / WA Museum), which won the WA Screen Award for Best Interactive Production, the ATOM Award for Best Education Website, the Australian Web Award for Innovation, and was a finalist at this year's SXSW interactive festival. Sam has also worked as a shooting director for UK factual production house WAG TV on a range of international broadcast series, producing, shooting and directing stories for their What on Earth? and How Do They Do It? series’ (Science Channel, USA). In 2013 the ‘crowd funded’ feature documentary which Sam shot and directed, Hunter: For The Record, won Best Feature Documentary at the WA Screen Awards. Sam also has experience in commercial television after working as a shooting Field Producer for Dancing With the Stars (2008 – 2010).
LOiS RANDELL
PRODUCER
Lois Randall is an award winning Screen Producer with a passion for distinctive narrative drama. She was Producer of the 8 episode series of SEACHANGE, an ITV and Every Cloud co-production which premiered on the Nine network as the highest rating TV drama for 2019. Through her production company Magpie Pictures she was Producer and EP of the Prix Jeunesse International UNESCO Prize, AACTA and LOGIE nominated 13 episode live-action children’s series GRACE BESIDE ME, that screened on NITV, ABC and Disney Channel 2018/19, and which was awarded Children’s Series Production of the Year at the 2018 SPA Awards. She was also Producer of THE GODS OF WHEAT STREET, Miniseries of the Year, 2014 SPA Awards, and a Development EP on the 2018 AACTA Award winning web series DEADLOCK, both Every Cloud Productions for ABC TV. Lois has also produced several acclaimed short films, and was line-producer on the ABC series EAST OF EVERYTHING and John Weiley’s Imax feature SOLARMAX. Lois’s professional experience includes founding CEO/Regional Arts Officer at Arts Northern Rivers, Executive Director at Australian Screen Directors’ Association (now ADG) and Manager of Metro Screen. She has a Masters of Fine Arts degree (COFA/UNSW), and BA Communications (UTS).
AARON McCANN
WRiTER, DiRECTOR, PRODUCER
Aaron McCann is an Irish born (Australian raised) filmmaker, who has worked in the Australian film industry for over a decade. He reached international success with online series: Henry & Aaron’s 7 Steps to Superstardom (2010), Horror short film: Perished (2011), and feature films: Top Knot Detective (2017) and Koko: A Red Dog Story (2019). Online his videos have (collectively) gathered more than 37 million+ views. He was a cast member on the International Emmy Award-winning ABC2 series: #7DaysLater, and contributed writing to the ABC series The Heights (2019-2020) and At Home Alone Together (2020). In 2018, he became a semifinalist in the 2019 Academy Nicholl’s Fellowship with his sci-fi/comedy screenplay: Big Red with co-writer Dominic Pearce. Aaron continues to be a multi-hyphenate, including producing and directing the award-winning web-series ‘Hug the Sun’ with Melbourne based comedy troupe, Aunty Donna, and is currently in development on a slate of projects through his production company, Banshee Hills and collaborator PiNK PEPPER. A list of his current credits can be found here: www.imdb.me/aaronmccann