Malcolm Ludgate ACS
Inducted into ACS Hall of Fame – 2022
Malcolm Ludgate ACS was introduced to the world of cinematography while working as a professional mixed gas diver on the Northwest Shelf oil platforms. Being familiar with a wide range of sophisticated equipment including diving bells, submersibles and ROV camera systems he began to shoot specialized inspection sequences for the oil and gas industry. With his newly found interest in cinematography Mal knocked on the door of the South Australian Film Corporation and was lucky enough to be offered a job scraping paint off the sound stage floor for the feature film “Dawn”. Mal was soon working as a grip on the feature “Blue Fin”, with the larger than life Graeme Mardell, but in those days securing continuity of employment on feature films was difficult. Mal decided to try his luck in television which he hoped would provide regular work.
This “regular work” would lead over the years to a comprehensive list of film and television credits including: “Home of the Blizzard”, “The Last Husky”, “The Secret Life of Seahorses”, “Cuttlefish, the Brainy Bunch” “Goanna Kings”, “Search for Kennedy’s PT-109” to name a few. Malcolm has filmed several action adventure series with the Navy, has made documentaries on everything from Southern Right Whales, to Sea Snakes and shot over 25 films about the Great White Shark. He was the Director of Photography on three outstanding internationally acclaimed 70mm IMAX films, “Antarctica” the highly successful “Australia: Land Beyond Time” and the acclaimed “Hidden Universe”.
Malcolm has collected more than 80 local and international awards for his work, including two Australian Film Industry (AFI) awards for Best Cinematography in a documentary, along with a Silver Dolphin trophy: 9th Cannes Corporate Media & TV awards, First place Gold Documentary: 30-60 min, US International Film & Video Festival Los Angeles for “Tarantula, Australia’s King of Spiders and a Gold Award at the World Media Festival in Germany for “Sea of Snakes”. Malcolm has also received two Wildscreen Panda awards, along with a coveted United Nations Media Peace Prize for – “Brazilian Rain Forest”, and Media Human Rights Prize – Japan International Education Programme for “A New Home”.
Apart from his outstanding and prolific body of work, his commitment and his contribution to the ACS is outstanding and he works to ensure that each and every ACS event from judging to Awards and everything in between, and we mean everything, is serviced to the utmost, of course these duties are shared with his wife, Mylene also a well-known and much loved identity within the ACS.
The ACS Hall of Fame welcomes SA Branch stalwart, Malcolm Ludgate ACS.
