Founded by long-time friends Lachlan McLeod, Louis Dai & David Elliot-Jones in 2012, Walking Fish’s award-winning documentaries have shown in festivals such as SXSW, MIFF and Edinburgh, as well as platforms such as SBS, Amazon Prime, VICE and Al Jazeera.
Founded by long-time friends Lachlan McLeod, Louis Dai & David Elliot-Jones in 2012, Walking Fish’s award-winning documentaries have shown in festivals such as SXSW, MIFF and Edinburgh, as well as platforms such as SBS, Amazon Prime, VICE and Al Jazeera.
Lachlan McleodDirector | Editor
David Elliot-JonesWriter | Producer
Naomi BallDirector | Producer | Impact Producer
Lachlan McLeod: Director | Editor
Lachlan McLeod is a director that works across documentary, social impact content and branded content. Lachlan views his role as a director as building trust and respect with subjects, while remaining true to the larger vision of a project. He believes in gut feelings, persistence and thinks that the best content is often what you can’t plan for.
Lachlan’s most recent work is feature documentary Clean, a documentary about Sandra Pankhurst and sensitive humanitarian work of trauma cleaning. The film was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 SXSW festival and selected as the Closing Night film at the 70th Melbourne International Film Festival. Earlier works includes Big in Japan (2018), a comedy feature documentary about the nature of fame through the journey of foreign celebrities in Japan, and Convenient Education (2012), an SBS broadcast and interactive documentary following the experiences of student-migrants at a time of crisis for the overseas education industry.
Lachlan has won awards for various branded series created for VICE, and contributed to many other Walking Fish projects behind the camera or as an editor.
David Elliot-Jones: Writer | Producer
An independent producer for more than 10 years, David is a supportive collaborator who doesn’t shy away from tough questions to help the creative team produce their best work. As the first touchpoint for new clients, David loves getting to know the voice and goals of brands and organisations to craft solutions that hit the mark and get results.
Some of his latest film work includes AACTA-nominated feature documentary Clean (directed by Lachlan McLeod), which premiered to acclaim at SXSW 2022, and two short documentaries by director Naomi Ball, including Who I Am, which premiered at DocEdge NZ in 2022, and VICE piece Searching for the Tassie Tiger (2021). David has also produced Big in Japan (Amazon Prime/DocPlay, 2018) and Convenient Education (SBS, 2012). He is drawn to relatable characters who are on remarkable journeys, and stories that exhibit a natural sense of humour.
David also has a skill set in distribution, drawing from his professional experiences working as a film & TV publicist and as an audience-activation strategist for films. Although David went to high school in country South Australia, he retains all the hallmarks of his English roots, including his excessive politeness and addiction to tea.
Naomi Ball: Director | Producer | Impact Producer
Naomi Ball is a director, producer and impact producer working in documentary and fiction. Influenced by her experience as a queer woman and a passion for social and environmental justice, she seeks out stories that amplify diverse voices and change minds through entertaining narratives.
Her work with Walking Fish includes directing the Screen Australia funded documentary Who I Am, which released at Doc Edge in 2022, and the documentary Searching for the Tassie Tiger (2021), which reached 3million views on VICE YouTube and was broadcast on SBS VICELAND in Australia. Currently she is working as Impact Producer on our forthcoming documentary Guardians of the River.
She has worked on social impact campaigns with some of Australia and Aotearoa’s (New Zealand) most respected charities both as a director and producer and as a communications consultant, and has directed video content for big brands including Google and Xero.
Walking Fish is an Australian production company specialising in character-led documentaries for global audiences and social impact storytelling.
We would like to acknowledge and pay our respects to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which our office sits. We extend this to the traditional custodians of the lands across Australia where we do our work. Sovereignty was never ceded.
