We've been working these past several months at the Teachers Federation on a new series of television and cinema ads that highlight the positive role teachers play in society. As we did last year, we had acclaimed Australian director, Ray Lawrence at the helm and the ads were written by author and commentator, Jane Caro. This year's ads are particularly pertinent as one deals with TAFE (the national industrial and technical arts school in Australia) which now faces severe budget cuts and privatisation and the issue of refugees and asylum seekers.
The cool nerdy thing for me was that we got to work with Wayne Pygram who is a cult sci-fi actor (Farscape and Star Wars). He plays a gruff but caring TAFE teacher in two of the ads. I was the 'client' on site for the production, though, really, these things take on a momentum of their own so I was mostly there to be pleasant and nod at appropriate moments.