Film industry training:

• Studied cinematography and crew roles at SAE Brisbane, 2022

• Trained in film loading at Panavision, Gold Coast, Queensland, 2025

Equipment:

All equipment is in excellent working condition

• Arriflex SR, Denz modified, PL mount, Super 16

• Bolex Rex 5, C mount, Nikon F adapter, Super 16

• Arriflex 35-3, Nikon F mount, 2-perf 35mm

• Arriflex 2C, Nikon F mount, 2-perf 35mm

• Canon, Tokina, Nikkor, and Kern Switar lenses

• Sachtler and Ronford Baker fluid head and legs

What is special about film?

Many, many things! Where to start? Film has a more artistic image. It is perfect for creating visual 'poetry’.

Film easily transforms ordinary scenes and locations into something special. Film is like reality captured in a painting.

In comparison, digital video whether shot on an Arri, Sony, Canon, Panasonic, or mobile phone, looks plain, flat, and electronic.

It’s why modern movies have more explosions and more extreme scenes, in order to compensate for the boring production medium of video.

Film is better for most narrative filmmaking, and for art. It is more entertaining to watch on a big screen.

Film is better for human scenes, for skin tones, for depictions of nature in a storytelling context, and for human emotion.

What does a short film shot on celluloid cost?

As an example, a silent 1.5 to 2 minute Super 16 short film costs AUD $500.

The price includes cinematography, basic lighting, film stock, processing, scanning, editing, colour grading, and titles.

To add music costs $50, and to add synced dialogue costs $150, per 1.5 to 2 minutes.

Transfer of 8mm home movies and photographs to digital:

Jon scans Super 8 and Regular 8mm home movies and converts them to digital files, viewable on any device.

He also scans prints, negatives, and slides.

Does Jon ever film other’s short films for free?

Yes, on occasion Jon will do this.

Isn’t celluloid film pretty much finished now because of digital, CG, and AI?

Digital and AI will never replace the ongoing production of quality projects shot on film

— just the same as how digital pianos, violins, clarinets (etc) haven’t replaced live performance of music on acoustic instruments.

Collaborative projects

In 2026 Jon is set to work on collaborative projects with some well-known filmmakers. Keep watching this space for exciting updates.

How did Jon get hold of such cool film cameras?

He bought his gear just after the start of the ‘digital revolution’, when film cameras were super cheap and no one wanted them anymore.

Film cameras have now gone up in price since those days.

Jon started on Super 8 as a kid. When did he start Filmreel Pictures as a business?

Filmreel Pictures began on a sunny weekend in 2023, when Jon went down to Caloundra with one of his film cameras and filmed some scenes.

On that day he realised he only wanted to shoot film, and that he didn’t want to do videography or digital cinematography anymore.

This was more than confirmed when he got the film back and saw how good it looked.