About Cyclops Productions.
MANY STORIES, MANY PLATFORMS.
Cyclops Productions is a Sydney-based production company that offers a broad range of storytelling services across different media platforms.
Cyclops helps clients tell their stories in a visually stunning, strategic, and authentic way.
Our team work directly with their clients from concept development to delivery. Clients we have partnered with include brands like TedX, Hyundai, and Nike.
With their vast range of skillsets and experience across changing media platforms, the Cyclops team offers:
PUBLISHING: Cyclops Press – the publishing arm of the company – offers 26-years experience in independent publishing: including fiction and non-fiction, artbooks, hand-made books, and distribution.
EDITING: Book editing and manuscript advice.
FILMMAKING: The Cyclops team is experienced in multiple genre of filmmaking: drama, documentary (both short and long-form), music videos and commercials.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Cyclops offers services in all aspects of photography
EDUCATION: from class tutorials to workshops
OTHER SERVICES:
Oral history interviews and pod-casts
Curation and exhibition production
Obtaining grants, sponsorships and partnerships, with both private and cultural bodies.
Cyclops Productions collaborates with a trusted team of experienced creatives: designers, stylists, composers, printers, marketing and media specialists, editors, print managers, and master printers.
Meet The Team
Other Members
JULIAN SUDEK
Annette Ogilvie is a costume designer. Nettie is devoted to all things sustainable and vintage.
Former drummer and percussionist for the band Mercy Arms, Julian has since become a sought after composer and arranger.
Kelly Cappelli is a published photographer and former Creative Director whose work spans fashion, music, entertainment, and fine art. With over 100 publications worldwide, her photography has been collected by institutions including the National Photographic Archives of Australia and the Peabody Essex Museum in the U.S. Known for creating imagery that doesn’t yet exist, Kelly’s work continues to attract global attention.
In the belly of the Cyclops
Having shot thousands of kilometres of film, Ogden’s his first love remains analogue, but he was also an early adaptor to high-end digital technology and the rapidly changing digital tools available to create beautiful pictures. He is not restrained when choosing the appropriate medium for a project.
Ogden’s background as a photojournalist was early schooling in how to tell a story effectively. He built this experience with an English degree majoring in film history and theory. With 30 years in the industry, Ogden has been fortunate to develop his personal style based on elements from each genre.
“Documentaries showed me how to work with available light and how to light naturalistically. It also taught me how real people behave in a variety of situations. Drama provided an opportunity on how to develop the story succinctly using lighting appropriate to the mood, and camera moves to best reveal the emotions behind the story. MTV taught innovation, and along with commercials, showed the value of arresting and memorable imagery. Commercials also taught the most effective communication of a message in a short time, and an awareness for the creative opportunities offered in post-production.”
The 21st century audience has been completely swamped with imagery. A director or DOP can never become blasé about technique and technical developments, but “the never ending search for the next new thing should not get in the way of a story well told.”
STYLES + GENRE'S
Experienced in filming documentaries, commercials, music videos and drama (both for cinema and television, including: comedy, rom-com, action + suspense)
TVC'S
Clients include Mercedes, Peugot, Citroen, Toyota, Mitsubishi, GMH, Daewoo, Hyundai, Ford, Coca Cola, McDonalds, KFC, EPA, Telstra, Optus, Korea Telecom, Hewlett Packard, Westpac, ANZ, Asahi, CUB, Lion Nathan and Unilever.
Experienced in filming car and motorbike; food and beverage; hair and make-up; kids & animals; stop motion & motion control; underwater photography.
DRAMA
High Rollers (2018) DOP for rom-com feature film for the Chinese market. Due to be released in 2019.
House of Sticks (2011) written, directed and shot by John Ogden.
House of Sticks premiered at Academy Accredited short film competition Flickerfest in January 2012. Since then it has appeared in several festivals including a screening at Grauman’s Chinese Theater for the 2012 Hollyshorts Film Festival.
Night Train (2006) D.O.P. Short film. Director: James Rabbitts
Bad Boy Bubby (1993) Directed by Rolf de Heer. Invited DOP
Mission Impossible (1988 - 89) DOP 2nd unit special effects: miniatures, glass mattes, stunts, pyrotechnics, aerials, motion control and multi-camera drama
As Time Goes By (1987) DOP Feature length science fiction comedy with Max Gillies, Bruno Lawrence and Ray Barrett. Director: Barry Peak. Producer: Chris Keily
DOCUMENTARY
John Ogden has a wide variety of documentary experience in diverse locations including Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, The Himalayas, Greece, Turkey, London, New York, Indonesia, Hawaii and the Northern Territory.
The mythical documentary Sea of Darkness (2009) has been described as “the best documentary on surfing that has never been seen.” Directed by Michael Oblowitz, his gritty view of surfing’s dark underbelly in the 1970s took out the New York Surf film Festival and was winner of best documentary at X-Dance (as part of the Sundance Film Festival) before it disappeared from view.
MUSIC VIDEO
DOP on over 50 music videos including Prince, INXS with Michael Hutchence, Tina Arena, The Church, John Farnham, Kate Ceberano, Jenny Morris, Jimmy Barnes and Split Enz.
UNDERWATER
Certified Open Water Diver (PADI); NSW Boat Driver's Licence, Bronze Medallion (Swimming and Lifesaving); experience in underwater photography with documentaries, drama and commercials, surfing, sailing and windsurfing water camera experience in Australia, Hawaii and Indonesia.
OTHER WORK
OGDEN’S visual skills are not limited to cinematography. He is a well-known photographer and has dabbled in painting. Although his 2007 portrait of Madam Lash dipped out on the Archibalds, it did win the Refusé exhibition that year. His stills work has been published and exhibited around the world and in 2008 he was honoured with a major show at the Kluge-Ruhe gallery in Virginia, USA. John Ogden has written and published several award-winning books on photography.