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OUR STORY
ARACOURT Studio - Ara Nuri Steel and Courtney Westbrook - is a female run, award-winning independent film and television studio based in Sydney, Australia.
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Ara and Courtney are passionate storytellers with a wide variety of acquired skills. They utilise diverse, versatile and adaptive filmmaking approaches. Seeking unique projects to push the boundaries of their existing skill set and develop the partnership capabilities.
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As a film studio, they pride themselves on their hard working yet playful work environments that foster connections amongst cast and crew, giving each creation a sense of warmth from script to screen. They make a conscious choice to hire diverse crew to create equality and trust across age, gender, race, ability, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation and education.
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With emphasis on developing their unique style and handmade content, they are adept at combining stop-motion animation with live action. Thinking unconventionally, they dare to use mixed media to create rich and compelling experiences for their audience. They strive to produce works that elicit discussion about social issues amongst their viewers.
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Their established background in production design, with the added strength of their partnership as producers, makes ARACOURT uniquely qualified to lead projects from concept to screen.
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ARACOURT’s skills include; campaign strategy, direction, ideation, concept illustration, documentation, pitching , production design, set construction, scenic art and finishing, production, post-production and release. Ara and Courtney collaborate with a team of trusted professionals when particular skills are required for a project.
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ARACOURT look forward to producing new content and are enthusiastic to collaborate with production companies and clients on their next campaign.
MEET THE CREATORS
ARA
COURT
Ara Nuri Steel is an award-winning designer living and working on Gadigal land (Sydney, Australia).
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Ara is ever curious about the world, and the fantastical stories that real life provides. She places a great amount of emphasis on telling stories from diverse backgrounds, with interesting protagonists, and supporting emerging creatives with their work and aspirations. Her dream is to establish a space for creatives to collaborate, come together to create works of meaning and substance that ignite further conversation and debate.
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Having graduated from National Institute for Dramatic Arts (NIDA) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Design), Ara has certificates in stage design from Canberra Youth Theatre, and years of hands-on experience working with timber fabrication, sculpture, drawing, painting, model making, writing, budgeting, planning and 3D drafting.
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Her passions include; the environment, making, learning, gin, grazing platters, movie nights, equal rights, nature walks and swimming.
Courtney Westbrook is an award-winning director + designer living and working on Gadigal land (Sydney, Australia).
Courtney values; opportunities for growth and learning through personal development, authenticity in her approach, giving knowledge and time to others to foster connections, and curiosity through storytelling and experimentation.
She seeks to make a difference through observation, being an advocate for others and encouraging connection with inclusiveness, and passion.
In addition to her extensive production experience, Courtney has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Design) from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) and has studied in a range of complementary fields including interior architecture, graphic design, illustration, directing, screenwriting and animation.
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Her passions include; lists, 60s/70s/80s tunes, games nights, star gazing, miniatures, going to the cinema, history, learning, reading, and getting her hands dirty!