Doctor Who FX expert grew up in Newbridge watching horror movies
Kildare-born Kate Walshe, who helps creates prosthetics and visual effects for television and film, will be speaking at the Cinemagic Film and TV Festival in Dublin in May.
Newbridge native Kate works at UK-based Millennium Effects which has produced all the monsters featured in Doctor Who since its 2005 reboot.
Reporter Liam Geraghty recently spoke with her on RTE Radio's The Business programme.
Kate told Liam that the stage was set for her interest in monsters and things that go bump in the night from an early age.
"My brothers were quite a lot older than me and would watch horror movies. They’d watch Alien and Nightmare on Elm Street, and we had this weird sort of '70s setup in the house where there were no real doors on the ground floor…I could see into the sitting room, and I would just sit and watch the horror movies my brothers were watching. So, I was always sort of vaguely interested in horror from too young an age."
Kate studied film in DIT, and worked as an editor before moving to the UK for a more specialised course.
As Liam put it, this world of special effects, prosthetics and animatronic monsters is a far cry from her childhood in Newbridge.
She told him she feels lucky to be in the position she’s in.
"When I was growing up, the idea of this as a job was a very, very slim reality. I assumed everything happened in Hollywood."
Listen back to the full conversation with Kate Walshe on The Business here.
Cinemagic
The Cinemagic festival offers opportunities to get hands-on and learn from experts in the film and television industry.
Over 12s can enjoy iPad Stop Motion Animation with Flickerpix animation’s Joel Simon; Prosthetics and Creature Effects with Kildare born Kate Walshe of Millennium FX, one of the leading prosthetics companies in Europe; and Directing for Film and TV with Bruce Goodison whose credits include ITV’s Home Fires, BBC1’s Doctor Foster and the award winning feature film Leave to Remain.
Kids aged under 12 can participate in Junior Talent Lab workshops Special Effects Make-Up with MKF Institute and TV & Online Presenting with presenters and ‘YouTubers’ Maddie Moate and Greg Foote.
There is also a pre-May TV Presenting workshop with BAFTA Kids in association with IFTA hosted by CBBC hit presenters Ben Shires and Katie Thistleton. Participants from this workshop are in with a chance to present the Cinemagic promo film from various festival events in May!
For more information, see: www.cinemagic.ie