David Wakeley ACS

Inducted into ACS Hall of Fame – 2003

David started in the industry at age 15 with documentary company Kingcroft Productions, in Darlinghurst, Sydney, headed by John Kingsford Smith, with Jack Gardiner ACS and DOP Peter Menzies snr ACS. All were active at the time inaugurating the Australian Cinematographers Society. David joined as a student member, but didn’t become active until later years.

David felt these first four years were the perfect introduction to the industry, with duties involving camera assisting, projection, 16mm contact printing, editing, neg matching, typing the commentaries & accounts, plus sweeping the floors & doing the boss’s wife’s shopping. The latter two being the most important part of the job! A bonus & pay rise was awarded for learning to type. Not appreciated at the time, but certainly handy now.

In the early 60s David joined the Artransa camera dept. and got to work with DOPs Bren Brown, Ted Taylor, Karl Kayser, Ron Horner and Geo Lowe etc. This proved to be a perfect training ground as David learnt much from these gentlemen. From Artransa David then spent a few years at Ross Wood Prod’s followed by another few years at Eric Porter Prod’s. Learning much from Ross Wood ACS, Phil Pike ACS and Ron Windon ACS

In the ’70s David went into partnership for 12 years in a commercial production company, Camfilm, with editor John Hoskins and director John Bowen. Eventually David left Camfilm to go freelance, then finally started his own production company with wife Marianne.

David is much in demand, being very active shooting commercials, music videos and packaging visual effects and live action shoots for CGI animation integration. David dearly loves being behind the camera lens and continues to shoot beautiful images, as a result he has been the recipient of many awards over the years.

He enjoys his involvement with the NSW ACS committee, and served as NSW State President 2003-2008, plus Federal Vice President for two terms.