Ideaschool Student Relishing Industry Experience

Ideaschool Student Relishing Industry Experience

With sound pulsing through her veins, EIT student Julia Morris is eagerly anticipating an ‘industry intensive’ experience at the renowned Park Road Post Production studios in Wellington.

Passionate about photography and music, Julia launched into ideaschool’s Diploma in Screen Production last year. Now close to completing the study programme, she’s discovered post production is yet another passion.

At Park Road, she will have the opportunity to explore all three, guided by industry experts in visual and sound techniques. The first five days will focus on visual aspects of post production, such as colour grading and special effects, and the final five days on sound.

Part of the Weta Group, the Miramar-based company provides picture, sound and exhibition post production services to film directors and producers throughout the world.

Park Road is associated with the Hobbit trilogy, King Kong, The Adventures of Tin Tin and many other well-known movie productions.

Julia is one of just 18 students nationwide to be taking part in the industry intensive, and she will be learning from some of the world’s best post production picture and sound creatives.

The 23-year-old has creativity embedded in her DNA.

Her father, the late Ian Morris, was a musician, record producer, recording engineer and songwriter. A founding member of Th’ Dudes, which recorded Be Mine Tonight and other well-known numbers, he worked alongside musical icons Dave Dobbyn and Peter Urlich.

Julia’s mother is Kim Willoughby, a singer in New Zealand’s most successful female group When The Cat’s Away.

Julia and her sister both studied EIT’s Certificate of Contemporary Music and Maude works as an audio engineer in Auckland.

The twins were given free-reign of the ground floor in their family’s Auckland home – a studio where their father recorded hit singles and jingles and wrote movie sound tracks.

“Sound was forced on us in the most caring and natural way,” Julia says. “It is a force that I have since discovered I can’t be without and one that seems to be where I feel most comfortable.”

Once she’s gained her diploma, the former Taradale High School student intends moving to Auckland where she hopes to work in the music and screen industries. However, she isn’t ruling out anything that may come out of the Park Road experience.

“It’s something amazing to have,” she says. “I will 100 percent be learning stuff, networking and probably meeting important people in the industry.”

Whatever else happens, Julia will be returning to Hawke’s Bay for EIT’s end-of-year screening of the final-year diploma students’ short films, including her own movie production.

“It’s been good,” she says of time at EIT. “It’s like a little family, especially in ideaschool. Everyone looks after each other.”

Head of ideaschool, Chris Verburg comes from a film sound mixing background and he expects Julia will meet former Park Road Post colleagues, who he’s stayed in contact with since the 1990s.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Julia to be exposed to this level of professionalism,” he says. “She can short step what took me 10 years to achieve.”

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