Aaron Smith

Aaron Smith ACS is a multi-award winning cinematographer, director and producer working on documentary, drama, comedy and commercial productions. A cinematography master graduate of the Australian Film Television & Radio School, he has collaborated with a diverse range of respected, innovative and awarded producers throughout Australia and across the world. He was accredited by the Australian Cinematographers Society in 2021.

Aaron was the cinematographer on Sarah Ferguson’s AACTA and Walkley award-winning documentary series Hitting Home, and the Walkley and ACS award-winning series Revelation. He shot the Walkley and AACTA nominated investigative documentary The Queen and Zak Grieve and the primetime ABC arts documentaries Matilda & Me and Making Muriel for In Films. Aaron was cinematographer on the first series of the AACTA winning Employable Me and contributed to ABC/Netflix’s Love On The Spectrum. He was the director of photography on the Blackfella Films long-form observational documentary series Addicted Australia and the landmark ABC arts series Books That Made Us, presented by Claudia Karvan. He directed and shot the ABC’s Take 5 With Zan Rowe and The ABC Of… Presented by David Wenham. Aaron was director of photography on the feature documentary John Farnham: Finding The Voice, which broke box office records becoming the highest grossing Australian feature-length documentary of all time.

Aaron co-created, produced, directed and shot the ground-breaking series You Can’t Ask That, winner of Rose d’Or, AACTA and United Nations Association of Australia awards. With over a dozen international remakes, and close to 50 international sales, the format is ABC’s most successful format ever. He directed the entertainment series The Checkout, The Hamster Wheel, Myf Warhurts’s Nice and Hungry Beast for ABC; and the provocative documentary series Dumb, Drunk and Racist and Head First for ABC2.

Aaron was the director of photography on Stan’s narrative comedy series Plonk, shot entirely on location in the wine regions of NSW, Canberra and South Australia. He shot comedy sketches for ABC’s How Not To Behave and was the cinematographer of the narrative comedy ABC’s Fresh Blood: Be Your Own Boss. He was a cinematographer/director on ABC’s AACTA nominated lockdown comedy series At Home Alone Together. Aaron has shot a range of narrative short films selected for Flickerfest, Melbourne International Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival and Palm Spring International Shortfest. Working with a team of animators and 3D lighting technicians, he was director of photography on the groundbreaking video game LA Noire, produced by Rockstar Games and Team Bondi.

He was a finalist in the National Portrait Gallery’s National Photographic Portrait Prize and his portrait photography has circulated on an official Australia Post stamp series and the cover of The Green Guide and The Australian newspaper. He has shot commercial content for brands including The London Symphony Orchestra, The Sydney Opera House, The Commonwealth Bank, Samsung, Optus, Citibank, JP Morgan, IBM, Blackmores, Mitsubishi Electric, Vic Roads, Alzheimer’s Australia and Lipton and collaborated on productions for National Geographic, TEDx Sydney, ACMI, GetUp, Griffith University, The Queensland Government and Destination NSW.