Simon Target (born January 1962) is a British/Australian film-maker. He is best known for a series of self-filmed television documentaries he made for The Australian Broadcasting Corporation which include King's School (on The King's School, Sydney), Flight for Life (about the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia), The Academy (on the Australian Defence Force Academy), and Rough Justice (about the legal profession). Uni, his study of a group of dissolute arts students at Sydney University, featured Charles Firth, Craig Reucassel and Andrew Hansen, who formed the comedy group The Chaser. Hansen later satirised Target in CNNNN, where he played the network's British correspondent who was also called Simon Target, most recently in The Chaser's satirical coverage of the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Target wrote and directed the feature film Backsliding, starring Tim Roth, with an original score by Australian composer Nigel Westlake, and the TV series Operatunity Oz - a nationwide talent search to find an ‘undiscovered’ opera singer. Target has also directed live opera for the stage in England and the USA, with artists such as Simon Keenlyside, Simon Russell Beale and conductor Andrew Parrott.
Other work includes TV series with Donna Hay, Curtis Stone, Ben O'Donoghue, Kylie Kwong, Ainsley Harriot and Rick Stein. In 2010 he wrote and directed the natural history series Penguin Island, with Rolf Harris for BBC Television.
Target was born in the United Kingdom. Educated at Westminster School, London, where he starred in a BBC television documentary about the school, he read Music and English at Trinity College, Cambridge. He then attended Britain’s National Film and Television School making his first films with fellow students Molly Dineen, Michael Caton Jones, Nick Park and Mark Herman. He lives in Sydney, Australia and is married to Polish doctor Beata Zatorska with whom he co-wrote a book about Poland Rose Petal Jam, published by Tabula Books.