Toby Oliver – Director of Photography

Toby Oliver was born in Sydney in 1967, and lived for much of his school years on the NSW North Coast, then moving to Melbourne in his teens. He started his career in cinematography in 1986, shooting student films at Swinburne Film and TV School in Melbourne. After graduating in 1988 he continued working on many more short films, developing a cinematography style that can achieve an innovative and striking ‘look’ with limited resources.

In he 1993 shot his first feature film, the critically acclaimed black and white prison drama Everynight... Everynight. Directed by fellow Swinburne graduate Alkinos Tsilimidos, the powerful film went on to win an ACS Silver Award for cinematography and participate at Venice and Montreal Film Festivals among others.

Based back in Sydney since 1995, Toby continued to expand his creative scope and refine his techniques with many more varied projects, including the award winning short film Stitched (Gregor Jordan, 1996) and to date, nine more feature films including Fresh Air (Neil Mansfield, 1998) and 5 time AFI winner Looking For Alibrandi (Kate Woods, 2000).

Toby returned to his low budget roots with Alkinos Tsilimidos’ second feature, the gritty two-hander Silent Partner that was shot in seven days with a crew of five in 1999. Starring David Field and Syd Brisbane, it went on to participate in the Toronto and Montreal Film festivals in 2001. Toby then worked again with his longtime collaborator Alkinos Tsilimidos on Tom White (2003) starring Colin Friels. The film was released theatrically to extensive critical acclaim in 2004 and has participated at Melbourne, Pusan, Montreal and Hof film festivals, and received a haul of no less than 13 nominations at the 2004 AFI Awards.

Toby was recognised by his peers for his high standard of creative cinematography with the honour of ACS Accreditation in September 2004. In October 2004 Toby received nomination for the AFI Award for 'Best Achievement in Cinematography’ for Tom White, his second AFI nomination. Toby also received his second if Award Cinematography nomination, and a GOLD ACS Award, again for Tom White. At the subsequent ACS National Awards in 2005, Tom White received the coveted GOLDEN TRIPOD for best cinematography of the year in a feature film.

The Combination is Toby’s most recent project and is one of the first feature films shot with the revolutionary Red digital camera system in Australia.

He believes working at both ends of the budget spectrum can fuel the creative process with innovative aesthetic solutions whilst maintaining a clear idea of economical and effective visual storytelling. Toby looks at each new project, no matter how big or small, as an opportunity to do something different and create pictures that can connect with the audience on many levels, serving the story with emotional visuals that work. 

He lives in Sydney’s inner west with his wife, a designer, and their two children.