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Sophie Byrne is an Australian film and TV producer, best known for the Academy Award winning animated short The Lost Thing .
Byrne worked as a Senior Producer at Passion Pictures London for ten years. There she produced many award-winning projects, including the initial pilot for the hugely successful concept band Gorillaz—created by Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl comic) and Damon Albarn (Blur)—and their seminal ‘Clint Eastwood’ music video. [1]
Returning to Melbourne, Australia in 2002 Byrne started Passion Pictures Australia, [2] optioned the acclaimed cult concept Scarygirl and has worked closely with artist Nathan Jurevicius to successfully expand the brand across all media [3] including producing the online gaming prototype, which was nominated for the 2009 AFI Screen Content Innovation Award. [4]
In 2010 Byrne produced the Academy Award-winning short film, The Lost Thing , based on Shaun Tan’s picture book. [5] After being introduced to the book, Sophie tracked Shaun down and asked him to co-direct the short film adaptation with Andrew Ruhemann, and cast Tim Minchin in the role of the narrator. [6]
A feature film adaption of the Scarygirl concept, is currently in production with the female-led Brisbane-based production studio Like A Photon Creative Co-Producing and Executive Producer John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, Madagascar) and features an all star Australian cast. [7]
In 2014 Byrne formed a new production entity, Highly Spirited. Under this company, Byrne has a high-end animated TV series based on Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia in development [8] with Flying Bark Productions, [9] and Lally Katz (Wentworth, Spirited) attached to write, and a feature film adaptation of Shaun Tan's internationally acclaimed graphic novel The Arrival . [10]
She is also in production on 10 x 12 min TV series Eddie’s Lil’ Homies inspired by the popular children’s books Eddie’s Lil’ Homies by AFL Football legend, Eddie Betts , which is produced and financed with the assistance of Australian Children’s Television Foundation, Netflix, National Indigenous Television. [11]
Sophie was recently the Supervising Animation Producer of the Australian Unit on Where Is Anne Frank , a 2D animated feature film from Oscar-nominated Ari Folman ( Waltz With Bashir ).