Ben Nott was crowned Australian cinematographer of the year for his work on director Stuart Beattie’s local hit Tomorrow When The War Began at the annual national awards of the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS).
Among the 15 other cinematographers also presented with Golden Tripods at the presentation at Sydney’s Manly Pacific Hotel were Mark Wareham for Cloudstreet in the television drama section, Nick Matthews for The Palace in the section for fictional drama shorts and Brad Dillon for episode 13 of the dramatized documentary series Fatal Attractions.
The other winners were Iain Mackenzie and Aron Leong (commercials), Mark Lamble (wildlife/nature), Campbell Munro (non-fiction television), Peter Barta, Daniel Soekov and Tarryn Southcombe (news and current affairs), Callan Green (music clips), Andrew Deubel (promos), Daniel Graetz (experimental) and Boris Vymenets (student).
Television personality Ray Martin was master of ceremonies at the awards, held at Sydney's Manly Pacific Hotel, and actor Rebecca Gibney was a special guest.
One Golden Tripod is given out in each category and all these winners were then considered for the Milli Award, the honour this year granted to Nott, who did not attend. The only way to be considered for an ACS national award is to first win gold at a state or territory level; Nott won in Queensland.
Several ACS members were inducted into the ACS hall of fame being David Eggby, David Muir and Barry Woodhouse.
As already announced, Emmanuel Lubezki won the international award for his efforts on Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and Jimmy Ennett was selected as the emerging cinematographer deserving of an award – he will now do an internship on the set of The Railway Man.
Heidi Tobin, Craig Pickersgill, Martha Ansara and David Lewis were all acknowledged with awards for special contribution to the society.