Kate Ellen Campbell
About:
OFFLINE EDITOR · DIRECTOR · ARTIST
I’m an offline editor, director and abstract mixed-media artist based in Perth. My work moves between film, visual art and writing.
They might look like separate practices, but they tend to begin in the same place: I notice something and can’t quite leave it alone. It might be a person, a memory, an image or a feeling I haven’t found words for yet. The form usually comes later.
Editing is the work I’ve been doing professionally for the longest. I came to it because I love the point where a collection of footage begins to reveal what it could become. There are usually several possible stories hiding in the material. I like working out which one feels most honest and finding the structure that allows it to come through.
I make work by paying attention; to the pause, the layer, the image that stays.
Finding the shape inside the material.
01 · EDITING AND STORYI have worked in offline editing for more than six years, across over twenty documentary, factual and unscripted productions.
My work includes projects with Love Me Lex, The Periscope Crew, Sum Effect, Sandbox Productions and &Partners. I have edited intimate character stories, disability-led productions, social-impact films and work made for broadcast, festivals and online audiences.
Editing usually begins with a lot of material and no obvious path through it. I look for the emotional logic underneath: what the audience needs to understand, what can remain unsaid and which moments continue to resonate after the scene has ended.
I care deeply about performance, rhythm and point of view. Technical skill matters, but the real work is knowing what to hold onto, what to let go and when to allow a moment more room.
EVERYWHERE
A first feature documentary, now on SBS On Demand.
In 2024, I co-directed and edited Everywhere, a feature documentary created in collaboration with disabled filmmakers.
The film received Best Documentary and the People’s Choice Award at the 2024 Australian Independent Film Festival. It went on to receive Best Director – Documentary and Best International Documentary at the 2025 Lakecity International Film Festival, as well as Best Debut Documentary at LIFF Sweden.
My work with The Periscope Crew also received a DEB nomination for the WA WIFT Best Female Filmmakers Award at CinefestOZ in 2020.
The things I can’t quite leave alone.
02 · ART AND IMAGEMy art often begins with something small: a remembered place, a stranger glimpsed in passing, a dream, a colour or an image that keeps returning.
Photography gives me a way to notice the edges of things—public spaces, fleeting encounters and the distance between strangers. I’m drawn to images that feel both observed and unresolved, as though something has happened just before or might happen just after the frame.
In my abstract work, I use paint, paper, photographs and found materials to explore memory and feeling through colour, texture and layers. The process is intuitive but not accidental. Like editing, it involves building, removing and returning until the work finds its own rhythm.
Writing is part of this practice too. Sometimes an image becomes a painting; sometimes it becomes a poem. I try to follow the idea into whichever form allows it to remain most alive.
The work is an invitation to notice. What someone else finds there is theirs.
Work that becomes part of a room.
03 · ART IN PLACEAlthough much of my work begins with something personal, I don’t want it to remain private. I’m interested in what happens when an artwork enters a room and begins interacting with its light, architecture, furniture and the people moving through it.
I don’t create work simply to match a space. I look for a more interesting relationship—something that belongs in the room while bringing another feeling, memory or point of view into it.
Original paintings and photographic works are available. I also welcome commissions, art placements, exhibitions and creative collaborations with interior designers, property stylists and collectors.
Whether I’m working with a director, producer, artist or first-time filmmaker, I begin by listening. I want to understand what they are trying to make, what matters most to them and where the work is still uncertain.
Since 2021, I have mentored disabled filmmakers through The Periscope Crew, supporting participants across editing, story development, production, videography and screenings.
That experience has strengthened my belief that collaboration works best when people feel heard, respected and able to retain ownership of their stories. I bring care, honesty and close attention to every project, while remaining open to what the work might become.
Collaborative, detailed and comfortable with uncertainty.
04 · WORKING WITH OTHERS
Let’s make something that stays.
WORK WITH KATE
I’m available for offline editing, documentary and unscripted projects, directing opportunities, original artwork, commissions and creative collaborations.
