Burleigh Smith is an Australian screenwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

, film director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 and actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

. His films centre on relationships between men and women and often emphasise dry wit and desperate characters. His strongest influence is Woody Allen

Woody Allen

Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...

.

Smith studied filmmaking at Curtin University of Technology

Curtin University of Technology

Curtin University is an Australian university based in Perth, Western Australia, with additional campuses in regional Western Australia and at Miri , Sydney and Singapore...

, where he completed a Graduate Diploma in 2002 and a Masters in 2009. He also studied under prominent Australian film critic David Stratton

David Stratton

David James Stratton is an English- Australian film critic and television personality.-Life and career:Born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England in 1939, Stratton was sent to Hampshire to see out the war years with his grandmother, an avid filmgoer, where he was taken to the local cinemas regularly...

 at the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

's Centre for Continuing Education. In 2011, Stratton wrote that Smith's enthusiasm for film matched his own.

Smith lives in Perth, Western Australia

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

 and lectures in filmmaking at SAE Institute

SAE Institute

The SAE Institute is a private college founded in 1976 by Sound Engineer, Record Producer and businessman Tom Misner. The first school was opened 1977 in Sydney,...

.

Short films

Smith's short films have screened at festivals around the world. They include:

1. Mere Oblivion (2007). Kenny Bunkport has nothing but trouble the night he takes his elderly grandmother out to dinner. Burleigh Smith, Elizabeth Caiacob. Winner of Best Actress at Tropfest

Tropfest

Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival.Tropfest began in 1993 as a screening for 200 people in a cafe in Sydney but has since become the largest platform for short films in the world. Tropfest Australia takes place in February each year in front of a live audience of approximately...

, the world's largest short film festival.

2. Gentle Persuasion (2008). Frank Fenner decides to practise psychology without any qualifications. Or ethics. He is soon blackmailed into helping a man exit his daughter from a cult. Burleigh Smith, Sarah Louella, Greg Higgs. Competed as one of eight finalists at Tropfest New York.

3. Love Like You've Never Been Hurt (2009). Problem gamblers orchestrate a romance between two broken hearts so that they can bet on the outcome. Burleigh Smith, Taryn Leggett. Opened the Perth International Arts Festival

Perth International Arts Festival

The Perth International Arts Festival is Australia's longest running cultural festival, held annually in Western Australia between February-March. The program features contemporary and classical music, dance, theatre, opera, visual arts, large-scale public works, Lotterywest Festival Films and the...

's Lotterywest Films.

4. Then She Was Gone (2010). Basil pursues Mia. But Mia is only interested in men who are masculine. Burleigh Smith, Sarah Louella. Screened at twenty-four festivals around the world. Winner of Best Drama at the Katoomba Short Film Festival, Best Director at the West Australian Screen Awards

West Australian Screen Awards

The West Australian Screen Awards are film awards given out in Western Australia. The WASA's are presented by the Film and Television Institute, Fremantle, and are sponsored by ScreenWest and Lotterywest....

, Best Screenplay at the Angry Film Festival and an Audience Award at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

Sydney Underground Film Festival

The Sydney Underground Film Festival is an annual film festival that takes place in Sydney, Australia, and shows independent, experimental and arthouse films from Australia and abroad...

.

5. Ragtime (2011). Earnest is set up on a series of blind dates with various hard and damaged women.

Feature films

Smith is currently in production on Ragtime, a forty-minute short film. Two other Australian directors are shooting films of similar length and the three shorts will be released as a feature in 2012. Smith's film takes place in Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

, the second is set in the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

 and the third in Melbourne.

Smith has several features in development, including Gemini. The film is a romantic comedy

Romantic Comedy

Romantic Comedy can refer to* Romantic Comedy , a 1979 play written by Bernard Slade* Romantic Comedy , a 1983 film adapted from the play and starring Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen...

 in which Smith plays Errol Stanford, a man with bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

, who meets Georgia, a girl with the same condition.

It features sixteen tracks from legendary gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz is an idiom often said to have been started by guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt in the 1930s. Because its origins are largely in France it is often called by the French name, "Jazz manouche," or alternatively, "manouche jazz," even in English language sources...

 guitarist Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

. Tracks include Exactly Like You, Georgia On My Mind

Georgia on My Mind

"Georgia on My Mind" is a song written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell . It is the official state song of the U.S. state of Georgia. Gorrell wrote the lyrics for Hoagy's sister, Georgia Carmichael. However, the lyrics of the song are ambiguous enough to refer either to the state or...

, Avalon

Avalon (Al Jolson song)

"Avalon" is a 1920 popular song written by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva and Vincent Rose. It was introduced by Jolson and interpolated in the musicals Sinbad and Bombo. Jolson's recording rose to number two on the charts in 1921. The song was possibly written by Rose, but Jolson's popularity as a...

, I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Bugle Call Rag

Bugle Call Rag

"Bugle Call Rag" is a jazz standard written by Jack Pettis, Billy Meyers and Elmer Schoebel. It was first recorded by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in 1922 as "Bugle Call Blues", although later renditions as well as the published sheet music and the song's copyright all used the title "Bugle Call Rag"...

, Body and Soul

Body and Soul (song)

"Body and Soul" was recorded as a duet by Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse in 2011. It was the final recording made by Winehouse before her death on July 23, 2011. The single was released worldwide on September 14, 2011 on iTunes, MTV and VH1....

 and The Sheik of Araby. The film will be produced by Project Greenlight

Project Greenlight

Project Greenlight was a contest and television series focusing on first-time filmmakers being given the chance to direct a feature film. It was created by Alex Keledjian, developed by Eli Holzman and produced by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Sean Bailey, and Chris Moore through their production...

 Australia executive producer, Christopher Berry.

Smith has written several unproduced features, including The Cure for Love, a liberal adaptation of the novel by Jonathan Bate

Jonathan Bate

Jonathan Bate CBE FBA FRSL is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, novelist and scholar of Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism...

; Goliath, a liberal adaptation of Tom Brown's Schooldays

Tom Brown's Schooldays

Tom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s; Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...

; and Sunshine and Terminal Grey, a romantic comedy set in a library.

In late 2011, Smith will be publishing a complete collection of his screenplays (2000-2010) through his production company, Wavebreaker.

Reception

Smith won Best Director at the 2011 West Australian Screen Awards for Then She Was Gone. In his acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to his Curtin University lecturer, Howard Worth, who had told Smith on several occasions that he would never succeed as a director.

Smith has also received a West Australian Screen Award for his 2004 documentary on W.A. truck drivers, Grinding to a Halt. He was nominated for Best Experimental Film for Party For One (2007) and Best Director for Love Like You've Never Been Hurt (2009).

Discussing Mere Oblivion at Tropfest 2007 for Empire magazine, Oscar Hillerstrom wrote "Melange of stylistic influences leads to a black and white story about a man and his grandmother. Not quite funny, with sharp, truthful barbs."

Reviewing Love Like You've Never Been Hurt in The West Australian

The West Australian

The West Australian is the only locally-edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia, and is owned by ASX-listed Seven West Media . The West is published in tabloid format, as is the state's other major newspaper, The Sunday Times, a News Limited publication...

, film critic Mark Naglazas wrote "Smith skilfully replicates a Woody Allen movie, right down to the black-and-white credits and the old-time jazz-inflected soundtrack, making for a kooky and charming contrast: the sophisticated New York romantic comedy relocated to a daggy Perth setting that climaxes (cringe) in front of the Bell Tower".

Caught Short programmer Katharine Rogers described Then She Was Gone as "Smith’s playful observation of unrequited love and the gross transformations people undertake in order to win affection. Confidently written and uniquely styled, Smith’s film is an original take on a common theme."

External links

• Wavebreaker production company website
• Tropfest
• Perth International Arts Festival
• SAE Institute, Perth
• "Then She Was Gone" screenplay at Australian Short Films