Craig Anderson (actor)

Craig Anderson is an Australian director, producer and actor best known for his comedic turns in the Australian television series' Double the Fist, Review with Myles Barlow, Laid, and award-winning short films Life in a Datsun, Demon Datsun, and Life in a Volkswagen. He directed the horror feature film Red Christmas.

For other persons named Craig Anderson, see Craig Anderson (disambiguation).

Craig Anderson
Born (1978-11-01) 1 November 1978
Alma materUniversity of Western Sydney
Occupation(s)Director, Actor, Producer

Anderson is a physical media enthusiast and notably has an VHS collection with over 8500 tapes.

Early life

Anderson grew up in St Clair, New South Wales, a suburb of Western Sydney.[1]

Anderson has a First Class Honors in Performance and Theory from the University of Western Sydney.[2]

Career

Anderson first gained success as a filmmaker in 1999, when he collaborated with university friend Brian Moses to create the short film Life in a Datsun. The short was screened at the Tropfest and St Kilda Film Festival[3] to great acclaim. In 2000, they followed it up with Life in a Volkswagen.

The success of Anderson's short films with Moses lead to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation commissioning their late night TV series Double the Fist. The show is a satire of lifestyle television and features the characters pursuing the "most extreme lifestyle choices they can make".[4] Anderson was frustrated with representation on Australian television and wanted the show to be "lower-class people having cool fantasies and action adventures".[5] In a shock upset, the series beat Kath & Kim to win the 2004 Australian Film Institute award for best comedy series.[6] The series returned for a second season in 2008.

In 2008, Anderson also featured in three episodes of the ABC TV show Review With Myles Barlow. Anderson served as associate producer and first assistant director on the series [7]

In 2013, Anderson was the subject of a six-part Observational Documentary series Next Stop Hollywood, which followed him around Hollywood during pilot series. In 2014, he shared directing duties on Australia's first Indigenous sketch Comedy series Black Comedy. Anderson and fellow director Bec Cole won the AACTA award for Best Direction in TV Light Entertainment or Reality Series for the series. [8]

Between directing television projects, in 2016, Anderson directed his first feature film, Red Christmas. The film was inspired by Tony Kaye's exploration of abortion in Lake of Fire.[9] Gary Doust's documentary Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare depicts Anderson's journey creating the film.[10]

In 2023, Anderson started an analytical film podcast called Film Versus Film with Bruce and Herschel Isaacs from The University of Sydney. The hosts compare two wildly different films each episode, in an effort to understand cinematic trends and what defines iconic films. The first season also features a series of reflections on what media influenced them growing up in Western Sydney working-class families during the late 80s and early 90s.

Filmography

Actor

Director

References
  1. Casts, Pocket. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Versus Parasite (2019) - Film Versus Film". Pocket Casts.
  2. "Next Stop Hollywood - Characters - ABC TV". www.abc.net.au.
  3. "AWARDS". bryanmoses.
  4. "Double the Fist". The Sydney Morning Herald. 21 May 2004.
  5. Reviewer, Paul Kalina (21 August 2008). "Double the Fist". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  6. Coleman, Kerry (11 August 2008). "Back with a vengeance". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  7. "Review with Myles Barlow", imdb.com; retrieved 27 October 2017.
  8. "First AACTA Award winners revealed". IF Magazine. 27 January 2016.
  9. Windsor, Harry (15 June 2016). "Craig Anderson on directing E.T.'s Dee Wallace in debut slasher Red Christmas".
  10. https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/horror-movie-low-budget-nightmare "National Film and Sound Archive of Australia "
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