Shaun Barry

Shaun Barry was a career soldier with 15 years in the Australian Army both as a Corporal Combat Engineer and then as a Lieutenant Infantry Platoon Commander. His career included deployments overseas with Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Operations. Other roles within the Army included Operations Manager,Safety Officer, Training Manager, Explosives Technician, Recruit Instructor, Marksmanship Instructor, Military Self-Defence Instructor and Chemical,Biological, Radioactive, Nuclear Defence Instructor. Shaun later became a Shotfirer in Open Cut Coal Mines, which solely involved large explosives works, he then worked as a National Operations Manager for a Registered Training Organisation, training high risk licences for civil construction, transport and mining industries. Although Shaun spent a short time as a Vice President of a business chamber and contemplating a future in federal politics, his passion has always been in film, so he entered the Entertainment Industry in 2016. After a year of film stunt training on the Gold Coast, Australia and Hollywood, as well as multiple extra roles in large feature films, Shaun was employed as the Safety Officer and Instructor at the Australian Stunt Academy. Shaun soon realised there was potential for ex-defence and emergency services personnel to utilise their skills into film and television, therefore in 2017, Shaun founded Extra Specialists, which is a talent agency, consultancy and training company for the Entertainment Industry. It currently has over 1000 members on its books. Extra Specialists' springboard production was an Australian War Film called "Danger Close - The Battle of Long Tan" (Made in 2018) in which Shaun was able to employ 50 Veterans as extras and 60 as set construction to make the set more realistic and authentic. Since then, Shaun has employed former defence and emergency services members as extras, specialists, set decorating and construction, unit drivers and safety officers in over 27 large film and television productions from Home and Away to Marvel's Shang-Chi. This also led to the employment of these same personnel as role players and Opposition Force (OPFOR) back into Defence for military exercise, by utilising the knowledge from the film industry for costumes, weapons, stunts and special effects. In 2020, Shaun set up a training company at Screen Queensland Studios in Brisbane, Australia in order to help train actors in weapons safety and specialised skills such as police and ambulance techniques as well as train Defence Veterans in acting. The small "film hub" that Shaun was creating, attracted a lot of attention from politicians and numerous television appearances, which boosted Shaun's credibility and reputation in the Entertainment Industry. Due to the uncertainty of ongoing Covid restrictions, Shaun switched gears from the hub, to focus on his main goal of producing feature films. During this time, Shaun also completed several contracts as an Explosives Ordnance Technician with a defence contract company which then led to Co-Founding a Company assisting in the safeguarding and search for Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) and Explosive Ordnance Waste (EOW) in Australia and Overseas. Shaun is currently a Technical Member of the Institute of Explosives Engineers and a Member of both the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Australian Institute of Project Managers.