The art of capturing a cinematic scene always begins with a camera. That’s why for Gus DeVylder, an AFTRS student in his third year of Bachelor of Arts Screen: Production, making the transition from still photography to filmmaking was a no-brainer.
‘I had never really shot a proper short film or anything,’ he says, ‘but I found the emotion you could create with film to be really powerful.’
Now, a film he’s made as part of his coursework, Chinatown’s Last Emperor, is winning awards – and was just submitted in the student category at the 2026 Oscars.
Just three years ago, DeVylder was fresh out of high school, photography portfolio under his belt and a few months into a design degree (at ANU), when he felt that his storytelling skills were stagnating. Sensing his need for something more, his mother recommended he take a look at AFTRS’ screen courses instead – if he knew how to operate a still camera, how difficult would it be to operate a film camera?
After doing extensive research on the AFTRS website, DeVylder applied for the BA in Screen: Production and was accepted, which meant moving from Canberra to Sydney.
Arriving on the Moore Park campus for the first time, DeVylder says he was instantly impressed with the resources and infrastructure – as well as what he describes as the ‘warm, welcoming’ feel of the place.
Though he was unable to attend an open day before enrolling, he has attended every one since and is a huge proponent of ensuring prospective students get to one if they can to get a true feel for the School, which is ‘like nowhere else’.
In the screen course, DeVylder didn’t transition into cinematography right away. The structure of the degree meant his first year was spent exploring all the different roles involved in film and television production, and collaborating with other students to produce a short film in rotating roles.
This meant he could gain a thorough understanding of editing, sound design, directing, producing, and writing before deciding what to focus on.
‘It was really cool to experiment and collaborate with people,’ he says. ‘It’s not just about exercising your technical skills, but learning the social skills necessary to operate and run sets of this scale.’
By his second year, his love for shooting had grown exponentially, and he was certain that being a cinematographer was the right fit for his skills. It was in this year of the course that he shot Chinatown’s Last Emperor, a short documentary directed by his classmate Tyler Kang.
In the film, three members of Sydney’s Chinatown community are shown navigating the changing landscape, tracing a line from its golden past to its unrecognisable present.
‘I was really excited by how real and human [this] story was,’ DeVylder says of the project.
Watch the trailer for Chinatown’s Last Emperor, made by AFTRS students:
It’s safe to say that the venture was a success: the film picked up an award for Best Australian Documentary Film at the Doc.Sydney festival, and is now streaming on SBS on Demand – in DeVylder’s words: ‘super exciting’ stuff.
‘As a cinematographer, I’ve been trying to show the enormity of things that we would think of as small,’ he says. ‘I think having such such an amazing response from that film just reinforces how I want to continue working.’
DeVylder says that everything he’s learnt at AFTRS has led up to this: from learning how write for the non-fiction genre, to shooting B-Roll and cutting interviews together in editing class.
The expansive nature of the course meant he could think ahead while shooting footage for the film, in order to make sure the director was getting what they requested, and that the editor would have everything they need for post-production. After all, he’d been in both of their places, and had an understanding of the roles that just wouldn’t be possible without trying them out himself.
Plus, no part of the student filmmaking process is siloed at AFTRS, in order to give the student cohort – who all have different interests, skills, and perspectives – a chance to be nurtured and produce content they can be proud of.
‘You can execute [the production] at a far higher level, because you know how intertwined everything is,’ DeVylder says. ‘It really informs your practice.’
DeVylder considers many of the people he has been studying with to be friends, and potential future colleagues. ‘We’re always working on stuff in our course, but we’re always working on things outside of our course, too,’ he says, emphasising that the teachers at AFTRS encourage connections to industry: ‘That’s created so many opportunities for us.’
In other words, the future is bright and full of possibility.
As for his advice to future hopefuls, DeVylder says it all starts at Open Day:
‘Check out the campus whenever you can, get a sense of what the space feels like, and feel the energy … because there’s a beautiful energy in this building – and there’s always something happening.’
And then? ‘Don’t be intimidated – just apply!’
