Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work as an artist for Walt Disney? Or how it would feel to have a film you helped direct receive six Oscar nominations, including for the highly esteemed Best Picture?
Sunshine Coast local and proud owner of Adore Flowers Mark Ingram does.
Throughout his career, 55-year-old Mr Ingram has been credited as second assistant director/assistant director in 55 film and TV projects, including Lion, Mabo, Red Dwarf, Wentworth and Offspring.
“I did Wentworth’s first season,” he said. “And I remember sitting there one day talking to someone about it, and I said, ‘I can’t really see this taking off, because once you’ve done one season of a group of girls in prison, you know’.”
He chuckles. “Eight seasons later and they’re still doing it.”
As well as being hailed as the fifth most successful Australian film of all time in terms of national box office sales, Lion (2016) was also recognised for its top-flight directorial work, with the project going on to win the esteemed Director’s Guild of America’s Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Feature Film in 2017.
“We like to call that award a crew Oscar,” he said. “Huge achievement … that was cool.”
Mr Ingram speaks fondly about his past as a second assistant director, but is equally as enthusiastic when he details his current endeavours as a florist. He is a people person, the type of guy who’s always willing to offer up advice, whether it be obtained through positive or negative experiences.
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Born in the UK as the son of a builder/architect, Mr Ingram has doodled and sketched for as long as he can remember. After school, he was offered a place at the prestigious Ravensbourne Art and Design College in London, but the world of the silver screen had other plans for him.
“I was about 18, 19 when I got the Disney gig, and I was a junior artist for Walt Disney in London,” he said.
“It was a no-brainer. I turned down college, which was a big thing, but, you know, turning down Disney would have been even bigger.”
Fast forward six months and Mr Ingram was working as a runner, ordering pizzas for none other than Paul and Linda McCartney. He soon found himself on the production and post-production teams before finding his forte as a second assistant director.
“In the film industry, we call assistant directors the glue of the production department,” he said. “So basically, you’ve got all your departments – make-up, wardrobe, camera, lighting, sound – but nobody talks to each other. Everything comes through us, and we hold it all together with the actors being our prime care.
“I loved it. At the beginning it was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s a lot to do’. But after a while you’ve programmed, ‘I’ve got to do this at a certain point in the day, that at a certain point in the day’, and it’s fantastic.”
While the creativity and excitement of working in the film industry nourished him, the transience of it sometimes took a toll.
“You can be in London one minute and Brazil the next. You can be in Cologne, South Africa. It just takes you to the weirdest and most wonderful places,” he said. “You do find yourself living out of a suitcase and that’s where your family suffers.”
These days, Mr Ingram begins his mornings at 6am to open his flower shop in Mooloolaba, established on Mother’s Day in 2015. The beautiful, aromatic workplace brings him enormous joy and he has developed a system of knowing what works since he opened his first flower shop in London 23 years ago.
Films and floristry seem worlds apart, but Mr Ingram sees some commonalities.
“One of the things I enjoy the most, and one of the things I enjoyed about the film industry, was people,” he said. “In the film industry you’re meeting different people every day, and in the flower shop I’m meeting different customers every day.”
Mr Ingram loves that flowers and plants are for everyone and the love of them brings joy to people from all walks of life.
“The really lovely thing about it is that no one really knows who you are behind the counter of your flower shop,” he said. “They just think you’re the florist and not the guy who’s worked with so many huge celebrities over the years. And he’s just making the bunch of daffodils for some lady to take to her mum in the hospital.”
Ruby Waller is a student at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
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