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Roger Tompkins was born into the film industry - Pinewood Studios was his childhood playground, where his father Tony was a cameraman for The Rank Organization. His grandfather worked for Hollywood renegade Sir Alexander Korda.
Roger has worked in the film business most of his working life. Progressing from gofer to 1st AD before making the move to director, Tompkins has worked with some of the great directors of the seventies and eighties: Len Fulford, Michael Seresin, Bob Brooks and Tony Scott. In 1980, on a trip to New Zealand he founded Cranbrook Films and today Cranbrook is one of the leading production and facilitation companies in Australasia. Through Cranbrook, Roger has built a reputation as a master of comedy/dialogue work, using his rapport with talent to coax their best performances out of them. He has worked with a variety of top actors, including Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, James Coburn, Sam Neill, Mel Smith and Griff Reece-Jones. Car commercials, too, have been a major feature of Roger's work, often combining his love of cars and motorbikes with a visual talent for portraying the magnificent landscapes of Australia and New Zealand. Some of the most successful campaigns to be seen in Australia and New Zealand have been directed by Roger: the ground-breaking three minute 'Steinlager' campaign with Mel Smith and Griff Reese-Jones, and the iconic New Zealand Speight's campaign which won awards all over the world. Tompkins also directed the stunning worldwide campaign 100% Pure New Zealand, which is viewed as the benchmark of tourism advertising. These campaigns, along with many others, have won awards at every major advertising festival in the world: several Cannes Lions, a Grand Prix National at Cannes, the Grand Prix at Kinsell, The One Show, New York, Advertising Festival, Clio's, Mobius. In addition, Roger has won many Antipodean awards at Axis, Award, Facts, ATV and MADC. His work has appeared - and his reel showcased - on Shots, the leading industry DVD magazine. With decades of experience under his belt, Roger nevertheless remains fresh and contemporary in his approach and at the forefront of state-of-the-art production and post-production technology and visual effects. His extensive background gives him the ability to understand the importance of strategy and marketing and to apply that knowledge to his work. Filming all over the globe, Roger shot last year in the States, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. He divides his time between home in Queenstown, New Zealand, and an apartment in Sydney, Australia. Roger always has a current reel that contains a cross section of new and favorite work, but should you need a specific reel, one can quickly be made up and dispatched to you. |