Team
Kerry Sunderland
Sandra Cook
Jeff Canin
Vanessa Gorman
Kerry Sunderland, Producer/Writer
As well as being Internet savvy, Kerry Sunderland is a master of punctuation. Kerry knows her colons from her asterisks and her MYSQL from her HTML, and she runs Evolve Media Consulting to help others navigate their way through the world of web.
Kerry exists simultaneously in two planes of reality. In hard copy she has written and produced magazines, training materials, educational curricula, and CD games. In the virtual world Kerry has produced websites for the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC), Arts Northern Rivers (ANR) and the Visual Arts Network (VAN), and many other acronyms. Kerry is so dedicated to her craft that when she lived in the UK in the late '90s she developed online content and marketing plans for AOL, Netscape Online, Compuserve, and Sony's Friendfactory instead of wearing Docs and a bowler hat with a sunflower on it and listening to Blur and Oasis like everybody else.
Kerry is also an instructor with the World Taiji Boxing Association (WTBA), and regularly practices this internal martial art. She brings this personal focus to her professional passion: multiplatform work for documentaries such as The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face, I Told You I was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan and The Burning Season.
Kerry suffered a serious injury after a car crash when she was a young girl. This personal experience inspired her to go on this adventure with Sandra.
Sandra Cook, Director/Producer
Sandra Cook's idea of a good time is going somewhere mysterious and inconvenient in order to shoot people. With a camera, of course! After several years adventuring in developing countries and hitch-hiking on yachts, Sandra ended up in Mexico on the user-end of an underwater camera. This experience inspired her to go back to Australia and study the craft of filmmaking in her hometown of Adelaide. Since then, Sandra has worked on the feature documentaries The Burning Season (2008, in Borneo), Show Me the Magic (Upcoming, in New Zealand), and The Future of the Forests (Upcoming, in Papua New Guinea) as well as freelancing in film & TV camera departments. When she's not on location (and sometimes, when she is) Sandra enjoys being underwater, thinking about travelling and watching movies with happy endings.
Sandra's personal encounter with road trauma inspired her to create this site so that people can evoke positive change. After trying to produce a traditional TV documentary on her family's experience, she decided to clamber over all the roadblocks she encountered and embrace a multiplatform approach instead, which is a more accessible for everyone and many more people can benefit kinda thing.
Jeff Canin, Consulting Producer
Jeff Canin is a man deeply committed to protecting the environment and all the life forms we share it with. After founding Hatchling Productions with Cathy Henkel in 1992, Jeff focussed his talents on making programs that make a difference in a positive way. In 16 years the company created over 25 productions, including 5 TV documentaries, 15 commissioned educational works, 5 self-initiated programs, 2 short films, and a partridge in a pear tree. The productions have been enormously popular with audiences around the world and have won a number of awards.
As well as producing, Jeff is also an editor and sound recordist, working on such documentaries as Losing Layla, Jabiluka, The Man who Stole My Mother's Face, I told you I was ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan, and The Burning Season.
In 2009, Jeff changed direction and established Green Turtle Films, a new company with a timeless purpose: to focus on the positive changes we want to see in the world. To that end, Jeff is currently working on a new documentary about climate change, entitled Two Degrees.
Vanessa Gorman, Consultant Writer
Documentary filmmaker Vanessa Gorman has worked in the Australian TV industry for over two decades. From Beyond 2000 (which was before 2000) to Australian Story (which is actually lots of stories), Vanessa has produced, written and directed many episodes of Australian non-fiction TV. She also wrote for publications including The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, Simply Living and Marie Claire.
Vanessa is best known for her very moving film Losing Layla. This documentary follows the process of Vanessa and her partner losing their baby, Layla, only hours after her birth. Vanessa's story of grief and recovery has been a great inspiration to many viewers.
