Studying Screen Production at the EIT Hawke’s Bay (EIT) has been the beginning of a dream run for recent diploma graduate Mitch Doyle.  Mitch has just been employed as Camera Trainee on the new South Pacific Pictures 13-hour primetime drama series, The Blue Rose, for TV3.  Coming from the red-hot pens of acclaimed Outrageous Fortune co-creators and screenwriters Rachel Lang and Hastings boy James Griffin, and starring Antonia Prebble. The series is about to start production in Auckland .

 

 

Modestly thrilled with this impressive start to his career Mitch says he stayed in Hawke’s Bay for his graduation with his classmates in March and then moved to Auckland to look for work in the film and television industry after some gentle pushing from his EIT tutors.  “Leaving the comforts of home to be on the spot when work opportunities come up has definitely paid off” Mitch laughs.

Mitch’s lucky breaks started at the end of last year when the first week of shooting the Screentime drama Siege in Napier coincided with the last week of his EIT course. Initially Mitch got work through Film HB’s Tessa Tylee who was casting extras to work alongside real actors like Mark Mitchinson and Kirk Torrance. “I got a job as an extra playing a member of the armed defenders squad. Thanks to the protective head gear I had to wear in that role my face was hidden, so I could be considered for other roles.”

Mitch says two years ago when he started his EIT study he hated being in front of the camera. “After two years acting in other students’ ads and short films I have become more comfortable with acting. But being behind the camera is where I really love to be.”

Mitch even scored a role in his favourite spot behind camera, playing a camera operator in a news crew covering the story of Jan Molenaar’s fifty-hour standoff with police in 2009. Mitch says being an extra gave him the opportunity to watch the talented crew at work and make himself useful until he got some work helping the real camera crew.

Mitch got into the EIT screen production programme after leaving school and trying his hand at a few jobs. “I didn’t do drama or anything like that at Havelock North High School. I was more into sports.” He ended up working at Havelock North Video Easy. “I’d always liked watching movies. But then finally I realised I needed to get into training to get some better work options.”

Mitch says the course at EIT appealed to him because it is very hands on. In his first year he learnt all the different practical aspects of filmmaking: using the camera; recording sound; editing, mixing sound. He made two thirty second advertisements; wrote, directed and edited his own gritty crime short film Declined ; and worked on all his classmates’ projects as well, clocking up hours of hands-on experience which will stand him in good stead for his new job.

Ex Camera Lecturer Peter Janes says Mitch did the right thing meeting and impressing well-regarded Camera Assist Bradley Willemse on the set of Siege.  “Bradley said to him if you are ever in Auckland give us a ring.  Mitch has done the right thing at the right time.  You can’t get work unless you are on the doorstep.”