Early Career
Steel began appearing in television commercials at the age of eleven.
He made his first appearance on a television drama series in 1992 when, as a seventeen year-old, he appeared in the award-winning crime series Phoenix on Australia's ABC-TV.
At the age of fifteen he purchased his first video camera to explore life on the other side of the lens.
Steel studied media & film studies at high school then moved to Sydney to pursue full-time work in the film industry. Steel's tenacity paid off when he scored a lighting job on the high-rating ABC program Heartbreak High. This was the break Steel needed, giving him enough technical experience to work behind-the-scenes on bigger projects such as the feature films Doing Time for Patsy Cline, Dark City and Oscar and Lucinda.
Taking a side step in the position of Production Runner enabled Steel to absorb new skills at very close range to master filmmakers. The position offered an insight into everything from pre to post production, as he worked on IMAX: The Story of a City with Bruce Beresford; First Daughter; Bootmen with Dein Perry; Babe: Pig in the City with George Miller; The Matrix with the Wachowski brothers; and finally hit the jackpot with Moulin Rouge! and director Baz Luhrmann.
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