Sophie is a multi-dimensional artist with an academic background in anthropology, drama and theatre studies, animation and multi-media.
Sophie is creatively fearless. Her work spans from critically acclaimed Shakespearian actress, to illustrator, folk-blues singer songwriter and award-winning animation and documentary director.
This diversity has made her a valued collaborator and she’s constantly motivated to find fresh ways to engage audiences.
In 2008 Sophie teamed up with documentary legend Bob Connolly and Producer Helen Panckhurst to form the production company Music Films. Together they made the observational feature documentary Mrs Carey’s Concert. Sophie was co-director, sound recordist and principle editor on this project. The film broke Australian box office records, running for 17 weeks and grossing over a million. It went on to garner many awards, international festival screenings and broadcasts.
Music Films followed that success with the semi- animated documentary Recorder Queen, which premiered at HOT DOCS in Canada 2021 and was voted one of the top 5 Audience favourites. Blending animation, documentary and reconstructed footage ,this daringly innovative, genre – bending film journeys into the inner life of recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey. The film was a close collaboration between Sophie and Genevieve.
Sophie’s past short animation work has also toured the world. The Southern Ladies Animation Group’s animated documentary It’s like that screened at over 60 festivals world wide including Sundance and IDFA. It won numerous awards and had a theatrical run in Australian cinemas. The film documents the voice recordings of refugee children in detention with stop motion knitted bird characters. Amnesty International use it to this day in their education programs.
Sophie was Assistant Animator on Adam Elliot’s Oscar winning Harvie Krumpet, and one of the team that helped create Adam’s follow up stop-motion animation feature Mary & Max. She’s also worked closely with British documentary stalwart Roger Graef, recording sound for Roger’s documentary Brett: A life without Arms , produced by by Films of Record for BBC 1.
In 2015 & 2018, Sophie facilitated a ground breaking collaboration between NASA and the Global Orchestra. Chief Conductor David Robertson with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House, led the NASA Rocket Scientists Orchestra and 80 other musical groups across Australia in a simultaneous, live streamed performance of Holst’s “The Planets” in a “Concert for the planet” for Earth Hour.
Sophie also wrote and directed the engagement and educational videos for this project.
As a musician herself, primarily a singer-songwriter and guitarist, Sophie has released and toured three albums of her own work, nationally and internationally. For three years she formed and ran the Aussie Croc Pot showcase for Australian talent at the International Folk Alliance Conference in North America and continues to perform solo and with her band Sophie Raymond & the Reddy set.