Carnival Cinema AKA Hamish McCormick – Founder, Creative Director & Editor-in-Chief of Fluke Magazine & Blog.
{I could add: photographer, video guy, website manager, graphic designer, marketer, mailchimp novice, reluctant social media guy, sales rep, office boy but I won’t……………………………………………doh!}
I’m a filmmaker, photographer and documentarian. Originally a Circus/Sideshow performer, I’m now primarily a story teller and documentor of the contemporary circus, theatre and ‘fringe festival dwelling’ performing arts community in Australia. The list of amazing artists and companies that I have been fortunate enough to collaborate with is literally a Who’s Who of the contemporary Australian circus scene.
In 2017 I started this Blog, which was originally called the Carnival Cinema Online Magazine and at the end of 2019 I put all my energy into creating the ‘hold in your hands’ 120 page magazine, FLUKE which I had intially intended to bring out multiple times a year. I launched the 1st (and only to date) edition literally days before to the world turned upside in Feb 2020 which all but killed it on the spot. I could go into a long winded due-to-Covid explanation but you all lived it too, essentially to maintain both mine and my families mental and emotional health I went on an almost 3 year hiatus away from this Blog, now I’m back.
I tried various ways of raising the funding for Fluke (the print magazine) through different grants etc over the last few years but to date it hasn’t been viable so to keep the project alive I have rebooted this Blog as the online/digital home of Fluke Magazine.
Hopefully breathing life back into this digital space will enable Fluke Edition 2# to be born.
A Brief History
I trained with Rock n Roll Circus as a teenager and went to the National Circus Festival in Tasmania in 1996 as their stage manager at the tender age of 15 and have never looked back. I left school at 17 to work ‘fulltime’ with Spaghetti Circus, was in the inaugural intake of Australia’s National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) in 1999, before working as a freelance circus/sideshow performer and trainer. I have toured Australia and the world performing or teaching circus with , The Happy Sideshow, The Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Strut’n’Fret, Arena Theatre Company, The National Circus Festival and Circus Oz at many a festival.
In 2003 I started focusing on being a videographer and filmmaker and formed Carnival Cinema with Captain Frodo, whilst we were both performing with The Happy Sideshow. By 2005 I had given up performing and was fully committed to documenting the live performing arts as a videographer, editor, director and producer under the banner of Carnival Cinema and now it’s 2022.
On a personal note, I am also a dad of 2 rocking kids and partner of the amazingly talented musician, composer & teacher Suzanne Simpson and we reside back in my homeland of Mullumbimby, Northern NSW on Arakwal, Bundjalung country.
Here’s a little taste of some of my work:
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The way we do things around here is that regardless of Age, Gender, Sexuality or Ethnicity, our philosophy and our logo stands for inclusion, safety and connection.
We acknowledge the people of the Bundjalung Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which this Newsletter and the Magazine originates and pay our respects to their elders past, present and future.