Smartphone Filmmaking Class by SF3 and WIFT NSW

WIFT NSW and SF3 PRESENTS:

Smartphone filmmaking class with Angela Blake and Megan Riakos

Come and learn the techniques to utilise and shoot professional films and content on your smartphones. SF3 is now the world's biggest smartphone film festival and Co-Founder & Director, Angela Blake, will teach you all the tips and techniques to shoot on your phone. Megan Riakos, award winning director/writer/producer has been on the SF3 judging panel since its inception and has made a swathe of incredible films. Megan will be guiding you not only how to craft an award winning film yourself but also on what to do with it once its completed and how to achieve film festival success and get on the streaming networks.

SF3 is one of the most respected smartphone film festivals in the world, attracting filmmakers of all ages and levels from across the globe. All entries are shot entirely on smartphones or tablets, forging an accessible and affordable entry platform into the film industry.

Simply put, we have created a space for all people to tell their story in film, and that initial intent has led to SF3 becoming the Southern Hemisphere’s largest international film festival dedicated to smartphone filmmaking.

• DATE: Wednesday, 25 May
• TIMES: 7 PM (SYDNEY TIME)
• ADDRESS: hub studio, 18 City Rd, Chippendale
• FEE: $10

Angela Blake Biography:

Angela is a Sydney girl who grew up dancing, singing and acting from the age of four. The last few years have seen her working as an actor primarily in television. TV credits include the recurring role of Duty Nurse on Season 6 of Channel 7 and Foxtel’s, A Place To Call Home, Love Child Season 1, Top of the Lake Season 2 and Deadly Women Season’s 9 & 10.

She has worked as a performer on stages all over the world for companies including Princess Cruise Lines, M.E.I., The Entertainment Store and many others. She lived in LA from 2010-2012, graduating from The New York Film Academy’s Acting for Screen Program. She then went on to shoot countless shorts and web-series, many touring the festival circuit. She has also worked extensively in theatre and her credits include: The Silence Came, Love Game, Surprises, The Odyssey, The Crucible, The Silence Came, Popesical-The Musical and the Off-Broadway Production of Sex, Relationships and Sometimes Love in NY.

As a director, Angela’s first play was Eating Out, which she also co-wrote and produced in LA. Since then she has won the Wildcards and Audience Favourite Award for the short play Weeing on a Stick at the 2012 Short and Sweet Festival. She worked with writer, Adele Shelley to turn this into a film. In 2015 she directed her very first Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, for Sydney Classic Theatre Company and she was also Assistant Director for immersive theatre company, Mongrel Mouth’s The Age of Entitlement and co-wrote and acted in Like Me. in 2019, she directed the comedy short, Upsold, which is currently on the festival circuit and has won numerous awards.

As an actor she has also shot ads for Elgas, Keystart, Queensland Bananas and Verizon Wireless.

Angela also has her Bachelor’s Degree in Communications and Journalism and is in the development phase for her first feature film, Burnu, plus a stack of shorts she plans to shoot on her iPhone! In 2016, her 1 minute iPhone film, The Circle Game, was a finalist in the Mobile Film Festival in Paris, the Miniature Film Festival in Vancouver and the Flash Film Festival in Berlin, and it just won Best SmartPhone Film at the Buddha International Film Festival in India. Since then her smartphone short films have played in many festivals around the world including MINA, the Dublin International Smartphone Film Festival and more.

She is also studying for her Masters in Creative Writing at UTS.

Angela Co-Founded the smartphone film festival, SF3 - the SmartFone Flick Fest, with Ali Crew in 2015 and since then they have received thousands of entries, hosted countless workshops and inspired a new generation of filmmakers the world over, especially in their home of Australia. SF3’s Ambassadors include Phillip Noyce, Kriv Stenders, Kerry Armstrong, Stan Grant and more. SF3 has been included in the American Express Festivals to Travel To List (alongside festivals such as Cannes and Sundance), the World’s Best Smartphone Film Festivals List and the Australian Traveller Magazine’s Most Unique Festivals in Australia list.

Angela is a passionate advocate of inclusive filmmaking and alongside her work at Bus Stop Films, she also teaches smartphone filmmaking and acting to visitors at The Wayside Chapel in Sydney’s Kings Cross - people who are homeless, drug addicts and visitors living with mental health issues - and loves helping to make filmmaking affordable and accessible to all.

Megan Riakos Biograhy:

Megan Riakos is a dynamic filmmaker bringing a distinctive female lens to the world of genre filmmaking. Her debut feature as writer/director/producer of the thriller Crushed received strong reviews with The Australian calling it “a tense, bloody mystery thriller”, and The Hollywood Reporter labelling it “A solid debut.” Crushed completed a successful festival run before a strong limited theatrical release in Australia and acquisitions by channel 10 and Qantas. Megan’s next feature length project was as creator and producer of Australia’s first female horror anthology Dark Whispers – Volume 1 in which she wrote and directed the wraparound segment. Dark Whispers is currently screening on SBS On Demand. Megan was also brought on to write and direct an episode of Deadhouse Dark currently streaming on Shudder, for which she was nominated for an Australian Directors' Guild Award.

Her screenplays have also garnered acclaim. Her mystery period feature The Last Reprieve was awarded the Grand Prize in the Greater Philadelphia SIP Screenplay competition. Her political drama Victory and Defeat made the semi-finals in the Final Draft Big Break Competition and was shortlisted for the Nate Wilson Award at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

Megan compliments her filmmaking with her advocacy for gender equality. She is the co-founder of the Not-For-Profit organisation Women in Film & Television (WIFT) Australia and merges these two fields of creativity and advocacy via her company Hemlock & Cedar Films, which focuses on amplifying female voices.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Communication (Media Arts & Production) at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), has a Graduate Diploma in Directing at the prestigious Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and has also completed the Professional Screenwriters Program at UCLA.