Next up in IF’s 2026 Rising Talent: Sound.
The list spotlights the next wave of creatives driving the Australian screen industry forward. Some are newer names. Others have recently stepped into senior roles or onto bigger productions and are making a mark. All have shown significant career momentum. We think they’re people you’ll be hearing a lot more about – and no doubt wanting to work with.
We assemble the list through a public call out, extensive industry outreach and our own editorial research, with more than 580 names put forward in total this year. The first category revealed last week was casting directors, with the remaining categories to roll out in the coming weeks.
The 2026 Rising Talent list is brought to you by our principal sponsor, AFTRS.
We would also like to thank our 2026 gold sponsors, NIDA, Docklands Studios Melbourne and Modoras.
Chloe Turner
Chloe Turner is a foley artist, recordist and editor working on Wangal Country in Sydney. Her credits span both local and international productions, including NCIS: Sydney, Heartbreak High and El Sett.
Turner has been awarded four Australian Screen Sound Guild (ASSG) Awards, most recently in 2025 for The Way, My Way (Best Sound for an Independent Feature Film) and in 2024 for Boy Swallows Universe (Best Sound for a Television Series) and The Royal Hotel (Best Sound for a Feature Film). She has also received a further two nominations.
Growing up in Brisbane, Turner graduated from QUT with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2017 before relocating to Sydney to study at AFTRS, graduating from the master’s program in 2021. She now freelances across all aspects of foley and in past work has created the sounds of a prison food fight, a house party gone wild and a low-speed wheelie bin police chase.
Since 2024, Turner has also served on the ASSG’s national committee.
Stuart Melvey
Stuart Melvey is a Sydney-based sound designer whose recent work includes Yurlu | Country, for which he won both an AACTA and Australian Screen Sound Guild (ASSG) Award for Best Sound in a Documentary as sound effects editor.
He was also nominated for an ASSG Award for Best Sound in an Independent Feature for The Birthday Trip, a film for which he performed a range of post-production roles including re-recording mixer, effects editor, dialogue editor, foley engineer and ADR recordist.
Melvey’s work has also featured across a range of short films, including Rebecca Metcalf’s The Eviction, which won Best Australian Short Film at last year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, and Rory Pearson’s Mates, which won the Rising Talent Award at Sydney Film Festival.
He holds a Master of Arts (Screen Sound) from AFTRS and a Diploma in Sound Production from TAFE NSW. Alongside traditional film work, he is an experienced practitioner in immersive mixed-media and audiovisual installation projects.
Leah McKeown
Leah McKeown is a dialogue editor and ADR supervisor based in Adelaide, with recent projects including Jimpa, Top End Bub and the upcoming release Pressure.
She was one of the editors to win Best Sound Editing at the Australian Screen Sound Guild (ASSG) Awards in 2025 for Bring Her Back. She has also received AACTA and ASSG nominations for the TV series Aftertaste, and an ASSG nomination for the feature film Monolith.
McKeown got her start in post as a sound assistant at Artisan Post Group in 2019 after completing a Bachelor of Arts at the University of South Australia and a Diploma of Music Industry from SAE Institute. Working across a range of sound editorial roles, she developed a passion for the dialogue department, which became the focus of her freelance work from early 2025.
Andrew Dean
Andrew Dean is a Sydney-based sound designer, dialogue editor and re-recording mixer. His credits include Salt Along the Tongue, his feature debut as sound designer, and Flower and Flour for ABC Kids and Canada’s TVO Kids, where he served as sound designer across all 39 episodes.
Since graduating from the AFTRS Master of Arts (Screen Sound) program in 2022, Dean has contributed to productions across the ABC and SBS, as well as a growing slate of short films. His work on Mud Crab earned a Best Sound nomination at the 2023 St Kilda Film Festival, while he received a 2025 Australian Screen Sound Guild (ASSG) Award alongside the Mighty Sound team for his work as sound effects editor on Taniwha Unleashed. He has also made contributions to Population 11, Body Blow and Kangaroo Island, and served as sound supervisor on Gorgo, which won Best Short Film at the 2025 AACTA Awards.
Alongside his screen work, he teaches sound design for film at the University of Sydney.
Tom David
Tom David is a mix technician and sound designer at Unison Sound. With a background in electronic music and production, David began as an intern at Unison in 2020 and has gone on to work on a variety of film, television and game projects, with recent credits including Heartbreak High, The Artful Dodger, He Had It Coming and Ghosts Australia.
His work has also included Mystery Road: Origin, which won Best Sound in Television at the 2022 AACTA Awards, as well as the AACTA-nominated productions Thou Shalt Not Steal and Apple Cider Vinegar. He was also part of the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ Golden Reel Award-winning team for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
David won an Australian Screen Sound Guild (ASSG) Award for Best Sound for a Live-Action Short Film for Tarneit in 2022 and has received eight further nominations.
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