At MINT PICTURES we tell stories, human stories, compelling stories. And we are unashamed sports lovers, celebrating its lure while seeking to reveal its humanity. From kids TV to award-winning docos, reality TV to sport, we love ripper yarns.
Founded as North One Australia in 2007, we’ve produced content for the major free-to-air networks – Nine, Ten, ABC, SBS and NITV – as well as Foxtel and Fox Sports.
We’ve also produced content for some of Australia’s sporting organisations, including the Australian Paralympic Committee, Cricket Australia, Tennis Australia, Football Federation Australia, Surfing Australia and Rally Australia.
And we’ve worked with commercial clients, such as Red Bull, Optus, KFC and Kellogg’s, as well as educational and charitable organisations, including the University of New South Wales, Football United and the Pratt Foundation. Many of our projects are funded with the assistance of Screen Australia and the state-based screen agencies.
In short, we’re fully focused and intent on injecting fresh flavour into the media landscape.
ADAM KAY
Managing Director/Head of Programming
Mint Pictures, Managing Director and Head of Programming, Adam Kay, started his television career in 1992 as a researcher for Clark TV working on the current affairs show ‘Hard News’ for Channel 4 in the UK. He quickly developed a taste for hard hitting journalism and worked on ‘Dispatches’ and numerous exposés for Channel 4.
After just two years in the industry he joined Chrysalis Television – at the time one of the UK’s fastest-growing independent TV companies. Initially a sports production company he worked as a producer on Arsenal TV; Lawn Bowls for the BBC and ‘NBA Basketball’ and ‘Planet Football’ for Channel 4.
Moving through the ranks quickly Adam was posted to New York to produce the NBA Basketball coverage for Channel 4 and was then made series editor for ITV. From here he diversified as he produced factual entertainment shows for North One Television including the infamous ‘Top Ten’ series for Channel 4.
A year in Australia saw him produce ‘The Winner is Sydney’ for Channel 7 and direct the Archery and segments of the marathon for Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organisation at the 2000 Olympics. In 2001 Adam returned to the UK as a director on the World Rally Championship and recced every inch of road on the WRC and produced a detailed camera schedule for his team of cameramen and production personnel.
In 2004 Adam made a permanent move from the UK to Sydney and was offered the role of a sports producer for Network Ten. He led a pool of production staff across the network’s flagship motorsport events such as Formula 1, MotoGP, Australian Rally Championship and Indy Car and on live events he produced all of the talent. After spending two years working for Network Ten he moved back to Chrysalis (now North One and a part of the All3Media empire) to run their Sydney office and became Head of Programming in March 2007.
Now Managing Director and Head of Programming at Mint Pictures (after purchasing North One Australia) he has experience in all television genres, oversaw the growth of North One in Australia and executive produced of all North One Australia’s/Mint’s content including the flagship contract with Tennis Australia; ‘Football Superstar’, ‘Cricket Superstar’ and ‘Gus Worland: Marathon Man’ for Foxtel; Bushwhacked! Brilliant Creatures and Code of Silence for the ABC and Red Bull ‘Cape Fear’ for Red Bull Media House. He won a Human Rights Award for the documentary ‘Football United’ for Foxtel and the prestigious Walkley Award for ‘Code of Silence’
Be it live or post production Adam’s skills are wide and varied and nothing leaves the Mint Pictures building without having his stamp on it. He is held in high esteem across the international television community and has produced, directed and executive produced at the Sydney Olympics 2000; Athens Olympics 2004; Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006; Doha Asian Games 2006; Beijing Olympics 2008 and in 2010 put together the production team and directed the much-acclaimed Archery coverage at the India Commonwealth Games.
DAN GOLDBERG
Executive Partner/Head of Factual
Dan is a multi-award-winning producer who began his career in newspapers and magazines. He then authored a book published by Lonely Planet Publications and launched at the Melbourne International Writers Festival. Then came the World Wide Web, online publishing and now television. Regardless of the platform, it boils down to story-telling. From a 200-word brief to a TV series, the narrative is the crux.
His TV credits include ‘Passport to Hope’ for Foxtel (Winner, 2010 UN Human Rights Award for TV); ‘Bushwhacked!’ Series 1, 2 and 3 for ABC3, which has won multiple awards, including the 2014 Asian Kids TV Show of the Year, 2015 Science Award at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival and a Gold Remi at the 2015 WorldFest in Houston, as well as the silver award at the prestigious Prix Jeunesse in 2014; ‘Code of Silence’ for ABC, which won the 2014 Walkley Award for Best Documentary; ‘Brilliant Creatures’ for ABC & BBC, which won the 2015 NSW Premier’s History Prize and was nominated for the 2015 Logie Awards and the 2014 AACTA awards for best television program; ‘Pitch Battle’ for ABC, which won a 2015 Australian Sports Commission award and a 2015 Ellie Award; ‘Breaking the Silence’ for ABC and ‘Strictly Jewish’ for SBS.
His journalism has been published in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin, The Australian, The Age, The Sunday Age, The Sun-Herald, The Brisbane Times, The Observer, The New York Forward, The Big Issue, New Matilda, Limelight Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Maariv, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Jewish Chronicle and The Australian Jewish News among others. It has also been syndicated to other publications. He spent five years as the editor of the Sydney and Melbourne editions of the Australian Jewish News, before working as a sub-editor at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Bulletin magazine.
Dan has lived and worked in the U.K., the Middle East and now Australia. In between, he’s traveled across Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He’s still the Australian correspondent for Haaretz in Tel Aviv.
JEFF SIBERRY
Head of Development
Jeff Siberry is a Canadian-born, Sydney-based filmmaker. Before signing on at Mint Pictures, he directed the critically acclaimed second series of Redesign My Brain for the ABC. Jeff began work as a director/shooter in commercial and music video production in Toronto with Revolver Films. During his early career, he gained a wide range of experience as a director, cinematographer and producer of observational documentary, factual and lifestyle programming. Some of his credits include: First Light: Tuscany and the Dawn of the Renaissance, Stories of Mothers and Daughters, and Things that Move. Since moving to Sydney in 2006, Jeff’s work has been seen on ABC, ABC3, SBS, Channels 7, 9 and 10, Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild and Discovery. Some of his credits include Taboo, Outback Wrangler, Keeping up with the Joneses, The Great Outdoors, and MasterChef. Jeff was post-producer onBushwhacked! series 2 for ABC3. He also and developed series 3, and directed two episodes.
CASSIE KELLY
Production Manager
With over eight years production experience, Cassie brings a wealth of knowledge to the company. After graduating from a Media Arts and Production degree at UTS, Cassie began her career working in independent Australian film distribution, and as a programmer and project manager of two highly regarded Australian film festivals. Cassie has worked in production on high and low budget feature films, television series and commercials including ‘Gina – House of Hancock’, a two part mini series for Channel 9; independent feature film ‘Alex and Eve’; Warner Bros feature film ‘Mad Max – Fury Rd’; two seasons for Nickelodeon children’s reality program ‘Camp Orange’; ABC legal drama ‘Rake – Season 3’; Channel 7’s period drama ‘A Place To Call Home’; ABC comedy ‘A Moody Christmas’, and in 2011 she production managed a breakthrough concept in branded content entertainment called, ‘The Great Crusade’. In her time off, Cassie has produced a slate of outstanding short drama films including ‘Frontier’, ‘The Burnt Cork’ and ‘The Boys’. Her films have won several awards at Australian and international film festivals and have been broadcast on SBS and cable channels around the world.
SUSAN SCHMIDT
Business Affairs
Susan takes care of the business and strategic aspects of Mint Pictures. She has a diverse skill base covering both general business and the film and television industry specifically. Studying Commerce and Media Production at university, she went on to work as an accountant for several years, before moving to Japan. She returned from eight years studying Film & TV Production while living in Tokyo to undertake a Masters in Media Arts & Production at UTS, and a further year of post-graduate studies in Transmedia/Multi-Platform Producing. Susan has in-depth knowledge of all aspects of the creative and business side of development, production, distribution and marketing, as well as the technical aspects of production. She has trained to a high level in every facet of the production process – scriptwriting, script editing, development, budgeting, casting, directing, financing, shooting, post-production, distribution platforms and strategies, and marketing. This allows Susan to assess projects from a creative and commercial perspective, and then deal with the intricacies of getting the project into production and reaching an audience.
LAURRIE BRANNIGAN-ONATO
Production Assistant
Laurrie started her career at the age of four, winning the North Sydney Art Prize. Since then, she has been immersed in arts and media, studying a Bachelor of Arts in Communications (Media, Arts and Production) at the University of Technology, Sydney. While at UTS, she worked as a student mentor in the faculty of film, providing tertiary education to high school students. Graduating in 2014, Laurrie worked as a freelance videographer and producer for a number of award-winning short films. She then spent a year working for the Seven Network in their promos department. Now Laurrie is the production assistant at Mint, where her responsibilities include administrative support, coordinating shoots, crews, and all the important minutiae that comes with production.
ANTHONY DE SYLVA
Editor
Anthony first picked up a camera and started filming when he was 11 – he hasn’t stopped since! After spending years being a skateboard filmmaker and working on content for various commercial brands and businesses, Anthony studied a Bachelor of Film Production at SAE Sydney. In 2009 he started working in the TV industry as edit assist and camera assist, soon graduating to shooting and producing. Since then his editing credits have included a range of documentary, sports, children’s and reality TV shows. At Mint, Anthony manages two Avid edit assist stations, two offline suites and an online suite, as well as wrangling and managing the media across all Mint projects and editing teasers and various content.