Australia & New Zealand
An Emmy-nominated mixer who can start on Monday, because there is nothing to arrange first.
I am a New Zealand citizen with the automatic right to work in both New Zealand and Australia. Twenty years of location sound, including Hunt for the Wilderpeople and BBC documentary across the North Island, and now a 2026 Emmy nomination for Lord of the Flies.
The practical part
Visa sorted. No paperwork needed your side. I am a New Zealand citizen, so the right to work in New Zealand is automatic, and in Australia it comes under the Trans-Tasman arrangement. Nothing to apply for, nothing that can be refused.
For both countries I cover my own flights and accommodation to the base city.
There are very good sound mixers in both countries and I am not going to pretend otherwise. If your shoot is straightforward and stays in one city, hire one of them and you will be looked after. The only thing I bring that they may not is the region behind me: twenty years across Southeast Asia as well as ANZ, which starts to matter when the story crosses a border or the location gets awkward.
Full drama package, airline-checkable. Whether to bring it or hire locally depends on the block length and the frequency situation, and is worth deciding at booking rather than the week before.
Australia and New Zealand both have excellent sound departments, you should hire locally and you will be well served.
Where I am worth the time is specifically if:
I grew up there and worked there for years before Singapore. Hunt for the Wilderpeople was shot across Auckland and Mt Ruapehu, and Oceans Apart for the BBC took me across White Island, Lake Taupo, Rotorua and Wellington.
New Zealand locations have a particular quality that catches visiting crews: the wind. Not as an occasional problem but as a constant condition, in places where there is nothing to hide behind and no way to shield an actor. That is a technique problem rather than an equipment problem, and it is learned rather than bought.
The cicadas are the other one. A New Zealand summer bush location can be as broadband and as unforgiving as any waterfall, and for exactly the same reason. I wrote about how that gets handled in Field Notes.
I am building my Australian work back up. I have filmed across Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania and Alice Springs, so the country is not new to me. What I do not have yet is the depth of local relationships a Sydney or Melbourne mixer has built over a decade. If that matters more for your job, it matters more.
Also worth a look: the full credits, and the production map for what is shooting across the region right now.
“Ande was brilliantly diligent on our adaptation of Lord of the Flies. He was meticulous with radio miking and provided a multitude of rainforest wild tracks recorded on location.”Marc Munden, Director
Send the dates and the location. No pitch required and no hard feelings either way. If I am not the right answer I will say so, and I will usually know who is.