Queen’s Birthday Honours 2021 awarded to Mandy Walker ACS ASC and Russell Boyd ACS ASC

Australian cinematography had a lot to be proud of, as Russell Boyd became an Officer in the Order of Australia, ‘for distinguished service to the visual arts as a cinematographer of Australian feature films and television productions’. Mandy Walker ACS ASC became a Member of the Order ‘for significant service to film as a cinematographer, and to professional societies’.

Mandy Walker ACS ASC

Born in Bundoora in 1963, she was a child of the Melbourne film scene, inducted by John Flaus in one of his educational incarnations. Starting as a clapper-loader on Skipping Class, a 1983 docudrama from Chris Warner and Maureen McCarthy, a production runner on John Richardson’s feature film Dusty, and a 3rd Assistant Director on Strikebound, from Richard Lowenstein. Her first camera credit came from Philip Brophy’s Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat where she paired with Ray Argall, and then shot his first feature, Return Home.

She shot Eight Ball, Argall’s second film, then Kathyn Millard’s Parklands, then Shirley Barrett’s Love Serenade, Lawrence Johnston’s Life, The Well directed by Samantha Lang, Lantana directed by Ray Lawrence, Australian Rules directed by Paul Goldman, and then Shattered Glass, her first film in the United States. That was in 2003. Five years later, she was the cinematographer on Baz Luhrman’s Australia, then returned to the US for Beastly and Red Riding Hood. She went back to Australia for Tracks and See-Saw Films, but settled into Hollywood with Hidden Figures and Mulan glowing from the list.

Russell Boyd ACS ASC

Born in 1944, he was photographing shorts by 1969 with The American Poet’s Visit, directed by Michael Thornhill and produced by Ken Quinnell through The Sydney Cinema Journal and released through the Australian Film Institute and the Sydney Filmmakers’ Co-op.

He shot Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Dawn!, Chain Reaction, the TV series of A Town Like Alice, Gallipoli, Starstruck, The Year of Living Dangerously, Tender Mercies, Phar Lap, Mrs Soffel, Burke and Wills, Crocodile Dundee, High Tide, Prisoners of the Sun, Turtle Beach, White Men Can’t Jump, Dr Dolittle, American Outlaws, Master and Commander, Ghost Rider, The Way Back and The Defector in 2018.