Directors' Biographies
Hopscotch Features
Rachel Okine - Productions and Acquisitions Executive
Rachel Okine's move from Exhibition into the world of Film Distribution was to the acquisitions department of FilmFour in London (Channel 4's standalone film division). Returning to Australia in 2002, Rachel was a founding staff member of leading independent film distribution company, Hopscotch. She has worked across the publicity and marketing campaigns of films ranging from Bowling For Columbine, Touching the Void, Somersault, Spellbound, Downfall and Mrs Henderson Presents among many others, and advising on all international and local acquisitions. As Acquisitions Executive, Rachel has been involved in the acquisition of films such as Source Code, Take This Waltz, Two Little Boys, Gainsbourg and The Kids Are All Right.
From 2006-2011, Rachel headed up Hopscotch's production division, producing a number of interactive DVD projects, a 13-part food series for SBS called My Family Feast which went to air in 2009, and a 17 part multiplatform animation for the ABC called The Gradual Demise of Phillipa Finch, which aired in 2011. Since the acquisition of Hopscotch by Canadian-based media conglomerate Entertainment One, in addition to evaluating projects for the Australian market, she also works closely with the acquisitions teams in Canada, the UK, USA and Benelux, as well as eOne's international sales division, to coordinate a multi-territory acquisitions strategy.
Rachel is also General Manager of Hopscotch Features, a joint venture with writer John Collee and producer Andrew Mason, in which she oversees the development of high concept feature film projects, working with the cream of Australia's filmmaking talent such as Stephan Elliott, Gregor Jordan, Rachel Ward and Clayton Jacobson. In 2010 Rachel was profiled by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the 20 young film executives to watch in the Asia-Pacific region in a "Next Generation Asia" special feature.
HOPSCOTCH FEATURES
Biographies of partners John Collee and Andrew Mason
John Collee - Creative Director
John Collee studied Medicine in Edinburgh, Scotland, and subsequently worked as a doctor in the UK, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, the Solomon Islands and the former Soviet Union. From 1991-1996 he wrote a weekly column for The Observer newspaper, UK.
John's published novels include Kingsley's Touch, Paper Mask and The Rig, all published by Penguin in the UK and USA. Since marrying an Australian and becoming a full time Australian resident he has collaborated with Aussie directors Scott Hicks, Phil Noyce, George Miller and Peter Weir.
John has written acclaimed scripts including Happy Feet (2006), Master and Commander (2003) and Creation (2009). Recent overseas collaborators include Jean Jacques Annaud, Steven Spielberg, Zack Snyder and Guillermo del Toro.
John has acted as script consultant and rewriter on many lower budget projects, and advised on the Spark, Aurora and AFTRS Screenwriting and Project Greenlight programs.
Andrew Mason - Head of Production
Andrew Mason began his film industry career in the early 1970's as an editor before moving to producing and heading a successful commercial production company. He managed Atlab film laboratory for two years and was then co-founder of Australia's first visual effects company in 1983. He worked as Visual Effects Supervisor on a number of Australian films and in 1993 Mason served as visual effects supervisor and second unit director on the dark and iconic The Crow.
Mason produced Alex Proyas' kafkaesque thriller Dark City, released in the U.S. in early ‘98 by New Line. That was followed in the period 1998-2003 with Producing or Executive Producing a string of US studio pictures including the Waschowski brothers' The Matrix and it's sequels, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, as well as Red Planet, Scooby Doo, Queen of the Damned, and Kangaroo Jack.
He established City Productions to develop and produce Australian films, including Swimming Upstream (2001) and Danny Deckchair (2003). Mason spent 2004 in Romania producing Bruce Hunt's horror thriller Cave and 2005 in Canada for French director Christophe Gans' film Silent Hill.
Returning to Australia in early 2009 after an extended period in Paris, Mason produced for Ominlab the highly successful screen adaptation by writer turned Director Stuart Beattie of well-loved Australian novel Tomorrow When the War Began.
In 2010, Mason joined forces with Writer John Collee, and Hopscotch Distribution principals Troy Lum and Frank Cox to form development/production company Hopscotch Features, which will roll cameras on it's first production in early 2012.
Mason was a member of the board of the Macquarie Film Corporation, and spent a number of years as Deputy Chair on the board of the NSW Film and Television Office. He is currently a board member of the Sydney Film Festival and serves on the Council of Australian Film Television & Radio School.