SCREEN ACADEMY INSTRUCTORS (A-Z)
Emma Thorpe Currently in her final year completing a Bachelor of Screen Arts at the University of Notre Dame Fremantle Double Majoring in Film and Theatre, Emma has had the ability to foster her love and appreciation for the arts in all capacities. The opportunity to explore and study her craft in an amazing environment with like minded individuals made the switch to Casting an extremely rewarding experience as she runs the Commercial arm of Filmbites Talent Agency. As an Ex-student of Filmbites and most recently training with Annie Murtagh Monks in her Advanced Studio Emma has been teaching at Filmbites for the past 3 years, she aims to create an environment where kids are encouraged to foster their love of acting whilst learning new and important skills.
Hermione Gehle started acting as a child and after graduating from the Actors College of Theatre and Television in 1999, continued to work as an actor in Sydney and America on stage, television and film for the following ten years. Hermione has taught acting skills to children since 1994 and then teens and young adults in Sydney from 2001. Upon returning to WA, Hermione graduated from a Bachelor of Arts degree in Performing Arts in 2011 before embarking on a Masters by Research degree in Performing Arts, Directing Stream at WAAPA in 2012, completing with the highest grade achievable in March 2015. Hermione assistant directed several productions and directed four of her own productions at WAAPA, including a short film with the Screen Academy. Her first contribution to Perth’s Fringe Festival in 2015 was nominated for the Artrage Theatre Award. For the following two and a half years Hermione taught acting skills for stage and screen, directed and wrote original devised pieces with The Actor’s Hub students, winning Most Innovative Performance and Adjudicators Award for Most Powerful Devised Script at the 2015 Independent Theatre awards. This year Hermione is thrilled to come on board with the Filmbites crew and be part of such a nurturing creative team.
Jennah Bannear (Screen Acting) is a Performing Arts Graduate from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. She majored in Performance Making and attained skills such as movement and voice fundamentals, clowning, puppetry, script writing, directing, producing, marketing and critical analysis.
This formal training compliments 26 years of performance experience ranging from musical theatre, stand up comedy and traditional stage acting through to screen acting. For Jennah, Filmbites has been a great place to both share with and learn from enthusiastic young act
Jessica (Screen Acting & Screen Presenting) has been teaching at Filmbites for almost 10 years, starting as a student back in Filmbites early days and then progressing her training at the Film and Television Institute with a Screen Acting Diploma. Jess draws on her own onset experience and the numerous films she’s made at Filmbites to ensure the students get a professional and enriching learning experience.
Jess loves seeing students developing confidence in their own abilities and empowering them to make creative choices whether in improvisation or working with script.
Jade-Renae Reid-Brown has been an acting coach for Filmbites Short Stuff and Beginners classes since 2018. She earned a Diploma of screenplay writing at the Film and Television Institute WA in 2005, studied advanced stage acting at the Stargate actor’s academy for three years, then taught at the same academy for another 2 years. Jade went on to study a Bachelor of Film Degree at the Screen and Audio Engineering Institute, (SAE Qantm) in 2016, followed by an internship at Herding Cats’ studios in 2017. Jade has performed as an actor, writer, director, and producer on a range of feature film, short film, and theatre projects.
In a past life Lyam Overington (2D Animation, 3D Animation and Gaming) was a Filmbites animation student. He went on to study 2D and 3D animation and game design at both TAFE and university and earned a Bachelor in Creative Industries from ECU. He now teaches Filmbites’ 2D Animation, 3D Animation and Game Design term and holiday classes.
Lyam is famous at Filmbites for his gentle manner and never-ending patience with his enthusiastic students.
Sophie Strahan started acting around the same time she started talking. She began classes at just eight years old and was lucky enough to continue her training formally at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts where she completed the Diploma of Acting and the Diploma of Screen Performance. This training has given her experience working with different theorists, different kinds of writing and different types of directors. She began teaching in 2020 at the WAAPA Junior Academy and has experience working with children of various ages and abilities. She wrote and directed her first play as a part of the Short and Sweet festival in 2022 and has recently wrapped shooting her first self-produced original short film. She loves watching others get excited about the magic of acting and what it can do.
Tabbetha has a strong passion for Film as well as for working with children. After graduating from SAE with a Bachelor of Film in 2021, she helped create the Swan Perth International Women In Film Festival to support women in film locally. Tabbetha has worked on various productions across a range of mediums including music videos and TV series. Her work has won awards at Catchlight Film Festival and WA Made Film Festival. Before beginning her work in Film, Tabbetha studied early childhood development and worked with children for many years.
In 2022 Tabbetha became an Instructor at Filmbites for Screen Acting and Filmmaking and now has taken the role of Community Projects Officer.
Tim Green (Film-making, Green Screen VFX & Beginner Acting) has been making movies for longer than he could remember. He got his first video camera at eight and never really stopped. He started training at Filmbites in 2008, graduated from Murdoch University with a Bachelor of Media in Screen Production in 2015, and completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Media Production in 2016. He has directed numerous short films, including Bodhi which was selected to screen at Cinefest Oz, and worked in the photography, production sound and editorial departments on a variety of projects.
COMMUNITY INSTRUCTORS
As well as the above instructors, these lovely screen industry professionals join us when they are available to run courses and workshops for local government councils, community groups and schools…
Cody Cameron-Brown (Film-making).
Deanna Cooney (Screen Acting & Screen Presenting) began training in performance in 1999. She has been a professional, working actor for 18 years, primarily focused on voice work (most recently Deanna was the voice of season 2 of Struggle Street for SBS). Deanna has worked in all performance mediums across her career. Storytelling is embedded in her acting work, and she also applies her knowledge of acting and the industry as a casting headshot photographer.
Stephanie Davis (Makeup SFX) practically kills actors for a living. Having trained in London in film and television make-up and special effects make-up, Stephanie returned home to Perth in 2011 and works as a make-up artist on many local films. She is also a successful producer, having been awarded ScreenWest funding, and applies her film knowledge not only on her film sets but also when teaching SFX to her students during her gory yet super enjoyable Filmbites workshops.
Clara Kotai is a secondary Drama and English teacher, a graduate of WAAPA’s Advanced Diploma of Performing Arts – Directing and also holds a BA in Media. Clara regularly acts and directs with local theatre companies in the South-West and is looking forward to working with more young people in WA’s south-west!