Category Archives: Film

Film news with a particular orientation towards Australia.

Jenni Tosi’s keynote speech, Open Channel Generation Next

Film, Latest News, Television, ,

Thanks Jennie, and good morning all.

This event is being held on the traditional lands of the people of the Kulin nation, and I wish to acknowledge them as Traditional Owners.

I would also like to pay my respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other communities who may be here today.

Thanks to everyone for being here today. Film Victoria is delighted to support Open Channel to deliver this event and we congratulate Jennie Hughes and Catherine Nebauer for assembling such a stellar group of speakers who will share their insights today and tomorrow.

Thanks also to all of the panellists and moderators who’ve given up their time to help make this event such a success. This gesture – of giving back to our industry – is worthy of acknowledgement. We all benefit when people share their experience and knowledge, and it’s vital to strengthening our industry.

Over the next two days the aim is to illuminate for you, our next generation of content creators, the many considerations that come into play when developing and producing narrative content for television.

There’s a reason this conference is about Drama and Comedy for Television. Television is the format that presents the greatest opportunities for you as practitioners to develop and hone your craft skills.  Whilst many of you may harbour a desire, to one day reach the holy grail of making a feature film that finds box office and critical success, as a career choice this is a long and tough road – and one that has become even more challenging in recent years.

Post GFC, traditional financing sources have collapsed, distribution methods and windows have changed, piracy is eroding revenue streams, and the cost of production, particularly in Australia,  has increased – partly driven by demand for cast names to be attached and the need for big marketing dollars to help a feature film find attention in a crowded market. All have contributed to a very different landscape.

However I think most significant of all, is how much harder it now is to seduce audiences from the comfort of their homes into the cinema.  And why is this? Partly because going to the movies is no longer the cheap entertainment choice it once was. The cost of the ticket, the popcorn and coke, parking, maybe a bite to eat afterwards – it’s easily a $50-$100 exercise for two people, and imagine the cost if you’re taking a family of four!

So a feature film has to offer big value and a big experience for people, especially if you want them to tell their friends about it. And of course that’s assuming they’ve chosen to go see a movie over the raft of other leisure and entertainment choices on offer on any given night or weekend.

Getting back to creating the film in the first place, as I said it’s a long and tough road. The average script is in development for 5 – 7 years, and it spends another 2-3 years being financed and produced before it’s ready for release. That’s 10 years a filmmaker has aged, waiting for their feature to be realised and their desire to be fulfilled.

I recently read an interview with Tony Gilroy, the Director of Michael Clayton, Duplicity and the Bourne Legacy. Since 1992 he has written a mere 16 produced screenplays including Michael Clayton, Duplicity and all 4 scripts for The Bourne Franchise Films.

He was quoted as saying, “I thought, Oh I know exactly what my life will be: I’ll write for dough, I’ll write to pay the rent, and every couple of years I’ll go and make Crimes and Misdemeanours.  It’ll be a really cool and interesting life; but that just disappeared out from under me and for everybody else.  It doesn’t exist anymore. The middle has gone and you can see right where it went.”

In saying “the middle has gone” he was referring to the market for smart, medium budget films for adults. This once-strong niche aspect of the feature film market that worked so well in the English-speaking US, UK and Australian markets, and in Europe, has all but evaporated.  Dominating the landscape now are big budget, high action studio films with big marketing budgets to match.

But what I found most interesting was what he said next. To quote: “American television right now is probably the best entertainment that’s ever been on the planet. It’s f..king extraordinary.  I mean it’s really exciting and that’s where the business has gone.”

And I can only concur with this view.

Great TV viewing has become the audience preference and why not!  For one, it’s convenient – you can watch it at home on a big screen TV, a computer, an ipad, an iphone, an xbox, you can watch it on the train, on holidays, in the toilet, anywhere you please.  You can watch it small chunks or you can binge over a weekend.

But there’s more going on than just convenience.  TV drama offers the audience a return experience.  As a viewer you get to know the characters, identify with them, love them, hate them, but most importantly you can come back for more, see what they do next, episode after episode, season after season. There’s no waiting for 2 years, like for a movie sequel. For about $30 – assuming you pay for it and don’t Bit Torrent – you can get a 6 – 12 hour experience, which you can turn on and off to suit yourself. Now that’s value!

Add a strong idea, a fresh approach and some great cast and you’re really packing a punch for the audience. If it’s good they’ll tell their friends, if it’s great they’ll be back for Seasons, 2, 3, 4 and beyond. For the TV audience, the ‘hooked factor’ is a big one. It’s not hard to understand why the change in the feature film landscape has been so dramatic.

And what’s really exciting is that TV drama keeps getting better and better. The craft of storytelling and screenwriting has become more sophisticated and clever, with complex characters and plots. If you think back to 1999 when The Sopranos and The West Wing first graced our screens, it was the quality of these shows that got people watching and talking. As a result, those series ran for 6 and 7 seasons respectively. Even today these shows are on many people’s must-see, catch-up lists.

What then followed was Six Feet Under in 2001, along with some classy procedural dramas like CSI & NCIS. 2004 gave us Deadwood and Entourage. Then in 2006 and 2007 Dexter savaged us and Mad Men seduced us. Brothers and Sisters gave us sibling rivalry and Glen Close Damaged us.

2008 put us in the world of Vampires with True Blood and my favourite 21st century new odd couple, Walt & Jessie, cooking up a storm with chrystal meth in Breaking Bad. There were cops and drug pushers you could barely understand in The Wire and Laura Linney dealing with the Big C. Meanwhile, from the UK we’ve had The Lakes, The Sins, State of Play, House of Cards, Rome, Spooks and The Office. Denmark has chipped in with The Killing and The Eagle.

Audiences are spoilt for choice. With so many shows with calibre actors, great writing, high production values and lots of surprises, it’s no wonder we can’t find our way out the front door to the cinema.

Most of the shows I’ve mentioned have been driven by US subscription TV channels who understand their audience very well. They know that to keep their subscriber base growing they have to distinguish themselves, and they do this by offering dramas that are unique, that take risks and break the mould.

In Australia we’ve been the beneficiaries of this trend, with a huge selection of programs to watch. But importantly, the success of these shows has encouraged our own Free To Air and Subscription television networks to reinvest in locally produced drama.

In 2008, audiences flocked to Packed to the Rafters  and Underbelly- it was these shows which seemed to reignite Broadcaster confidence.  Underbelly, is now about to head into its sixth series,and has also spawned 3 telemovies. We’ve had four series of Rush, three series of Tangle & East West 101, the beautifully realised Cloudstreet and much-lauded The Slap.

Conspiracy 365 – 12 one-hour episodes of family TV is screening monthly across 2012, a bold and successful programming approach. Along with three series of Dance Academy, and Slide these shows have struck a chord with younger audiences; while Offspring has filled a gap for females aged15-40, with seasons 4 and 5 on their way. New off the block is Puberty Blues and House Husbands, Mr & Mrs Murder coming later this year, and a raft of telemovies including Mysteries of the Handsome Cab, Deadly Remedies, Cliffy and Underground, a story which charts the dramatic years of Julian Assange’s early life here in Melbourne and has been selected to screen at the Toronto Film Festival.

Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War has screened over two weekends to audiences above 2 million, a great outcome. And congrats to Lachy Hulme for his terrific performance by the way. Many of these dramas have strong comedic elements too. And then of course there are the pure comedies: Shows like Laid, Lowdown, Wilfred, Twentysomething and Summer Heights High.

There are many other Australian shows I haven’t mentioned that are equally worthy. And I’m really pleased that many of the shows I have named were created or produced here in Victoria, which is a testament to the talent and creativity that emanates from this state.

So hopefully you’re starting to get the picture and agree that Television is indeed an exciting medium to be working in. For me it’s clearly the dominating format and it’s hard to see this changing too much in the next 3 – 5 years. The technology on which we view it will continue to improve, when we see it and how much we’re prepared to pay for it might change, but I suspect the demand for great TV content will continue to grow.

In Australia much of this growth will be driven by the ABC who, thanks to a much needed boost in funding, are back to producing 70 hours of drama per year and aiming for more. And we’re all hoping the Federal Government will be supportive of an increase to SBS’s triennial funding in next year’s budget, which will provide further demand and increased diversity. Our Subscription TV event, held in July, confirmed that the many channels operating under and alongside Foxtel want to increase their drama output and are looking for strong ideas to service their market share.  And should the recommendations from the convergence review be adopted, particularly an increase in the producer offset to 40% for premium television drama and an increase in Australian content quotas for both Free to Air and Subscription TV, the need and desire for more content will further increase.

All this should be exciting for you, our next gen practitioners. Why? Because it means plenty of opportunity and demand for new stories to find their way to the screen, and you could be the creator, the producer, the writer or director of one of these shows.

Even more importantly – as storytellers, television is the medium that allows you to really hone your craft skills.  The number of hours television demands to feed its very hungry appetite means that whether you’re a writer, a producer or a director, if your skills are good enough, you’ll end up employed for many more hours, across a greater diversity of genres and styles, and this will help you become much better in your area of expertise. 10 years of regular work across television is much more likely to help you become a master craftsman in high demand, than producing one feature film across that same time period.

I know, the challenge for many of you is finding out what and who you need to know to get a gig in this medium. And that’s what these two days are all about. Some of the best and brightest in our industry are going to share information that will set you on the path to success.

Of course there are other things you’ll need to reach your goal, and a colleague suggested I share with you my top ten tips based on my own 30 years in the industry, much of which was spent working on television drama and comedy. So here goes:

My first big tip: Persevere. Don’t let the knock-backs throw you off course, because trust me, there’ll be a few of them!  Desperate to get a foot in the door, the first job I applied for in this industry, was quite complex– it involved putting the film cans from the ‘Sunday Night Movie’ into boxes, taping them up, and labelling them for despatch by road from Channel 9 to Win TV in Ballarat – a really difficult job for an 18 y o you’ll agree, with a lofty title of despatch clerk!. Following my interview I was told they were very impressed with my application, and I was their number 2 choice. Why not number 1? Well they’d never had a girl do that job before. Clearly it was a big risk! Maybe guys had neater writing or were better with packing tape. Go figure!

I didn’t get the job, but I didn’t dwell on it for too long. I continued to look for other jobs, even though the “we like you but you’ve got no experience’ statement was a common theme. I’m sure many of you are familiar with it too – so how can you get experience when no-one will give you a job?

Which leads me to Tip Number 2: There’s always a way around any problem.  For me it was fluking my way into the then new Media Studies course at RMIT, which I figured would at least get me using cameras and editing equipment. It was a good strategy on my part, because oddly enough it did lead to me working on corporate videos, some short films and a really low budget feature film all for free, and through which I got some very basic experience. It was this experience, plus my perseverance, that saw me knocking on the doors of Crawford Productions, then the biggest TV drama production house in the country, who were producing 4 drama series at any one time.  It didn’t matter that they offered to put me in the typing pool, and that being the only girl at high school who didn’t want to be a secretary, I’d never learnt to type. More perseverance and problem solving skills – A quick trip to Dandenong market for a 2nd hand typewriter and a ‘how to type’ book, plus 2 days banging the keys, plus another phone call to the personnel officer, with a passionate request to spend some days on the set of The Sullivans observing in my own time. Eventually Crawfords trained me as a script supervisor and gave me a paying job.  Luck and timing also played a part.

Tip Number 3: Be prepared to work for nothing and do any related job you can. Runner, props, lackey, caterer, take whatever you can get and do it well. This will get you rungs on the board, and along the way you’ll gather experience and some handy contacts for the future. Sooner or later it will lead to something, and you’ll end up with the gig you’re aiming for.

Tip Number 4: Be entrepreneurial. If you can’t find someone who’ll give you a go, create an opportunity for yourself. The technology is so easy to access. Grab your friends and family to help you, raise your funds, shoot on weekends and nights. Whatever it takes!  It’s all experience and I’ve always found being proactive is more productive than being reactive.

Tip Number 5: Play to your strengths and value collaboration. There are very few of us who can excel at writing producing and directing. And even if you are one of those rare geniuses, these are big jobs. Be the best at the one you love the most, and find some like minded bodies to share the rest of the load. It’s much more fun and likely to be a better product because you embraced the chance to collaborate.

Tip Number 6: Use any opportunity to hone your skills, whatever your craft. Whether it’s on training and corporate videos, commercials, music videos, docos, drama, short form, long form, for broadcast or online – in essence these are all forms of storytelling. Every project is a new experience with its own challenges, and each time you create something – no matter the form – you will learn from the process and improve your skills and sensibilities.

Tip Number 7: Television is all about story. You need to hook the audience in and keep them there, you need great proactive characters driving strong plots. Keep working on your idea until it’s well crafted, make it the best it can be, whether you’re the creator or collaborator. It needs the ‘wow factor’ or it won’t cut through the hundreds of other ideas out there. It has to be fresh, but it can be and usually is a highly original take on an old idea. After all they do say there are really only seven stories to be told.

Tip Number 8: Develop and use your sense of humour. It works well in stories and getting you out of tricky situations, whether on the page or in life. Humour is one of the best tools bestowed on humans beings, so use it to your advantage.

Tip Number 9: Don’t try to generate all your story ideas based on your own personal experiences. Look around you for sources of inspiration. Dramatic and funny stories are everywhere – in newspapers and books, on the tram, on the street, overheard conversations, when your friends tell you about something that happened to them. You’ll find inspiration in real life, juxtaposing the ordinary with the extraordinary, which is where your imagination comes in!

Finally Number 10: Be patient. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get that first paying job in your preferred discipline.  You’ll likely just get annoyed, frustrated, maybe even disheartened. Accept upfront that it might take between 3 – 5 years, even longer, and that so much will depend on luck and timing. A lot of it is out of your control. But things do come to those who wait, and sometimes when you least expect it.  I should also add here, that equally sometimes you need to recognise when it’s time to let go, or try a new approach or idea, particularly if it’s a passion project that’s getting no traction.

In the meantime, enjoy every day as it comes, seize every opportunity you can and remember why you love this crazy industry in the first place.

And you can start on this journey now, by enjoying and absorbing what you discover here over the next two days.  I hope you all leave this event feeling inspired, confident and determined, and I am really looking forward to seeing the stories you, our next generation of storytellers, will bring to our screens.

Thanks and have a fantastic conference.

06.09.2012

New ABC TV drama The Strange Calls

Film, Latest News, Television, , ,

The Strange Calls is a six-part TV drama series written and directed by
Queenslander Daley Pearson and produced by Tracey Robertson and co-produced by
Leigh McGrath for Hoodlum and the ABC.

Bumbling city cop Toby Banks (Toby Truslove) is demoted to night duty in the sleepy
beachside village of Coolum. Working out of a run-down caravan on the outskirts of
town, he meets Gregor (Barry Crocker), town cleaner, board game collector and
paranormal authority. They team up to investigate The Strange Calls – bizarre late-
night phone calls that expose the paranormal mysteries haunting the sleepy town. A
place where men turn into chickens, mermaids fall in love with locals and cats return
from the grave.

We shot The Strange Calls using a single ARRI ALEXA camera from Cameraquip.
Primarily just two lens were used – the light weight Optimo Zooms 15-40mm and
28-76mm. Our camera package and crew were kept as small as practical. The large
bulk of the shooting was serviced by two grips (Sean Aston and Damien Kwockson)
and two electrics (Glen Jones and Chris Walsingham). The lean camera crew was
headed up by 1st AC Matt Floyd assisted by Luke Jeffery and Dan Shelton. There
were a few times when a larger crew was required (night exteriors) but generally it
was a pretty lean streamlined team.

Second unit footage was shot by Ben Zaugg and Luke Jeffery and consisted mainly of
atmospheric time lapse establishers of mount Coolum and CU insert shots. This
footage, shot with a Canon 5D, cut seamlessly with the main unit ALEXA footage.
The schedule was tight – a four-week shoot to capture the 6 x 30min episodes. A very
steep learning curve for our young, keen and talented first time director Daley
Pearson.

It certainly helped that all the key camera crew, grips and electrics had worked
together on numerous productions before. Daley did a wonderful job keeping us all
enthused and excited about the project. This enthusiasm was infectious. It certainly
helped that the script was very funny and the cast were a delight to work with.

I would describe the visual style of The Strange Calls as traditional or classic
filmmaking. We drew heavily on the 80s era masterpieces such as The X-Files, Twin
Peaks and Northern Exposure.

There was no hand-held shooting. The camera generally remained mounted on a
dolly, slider or tripod. With simple elegant coverage being the order of the day. We
stayed well clear of the now conventional modern Australian style of quick jump-
cutting with multiple cameras and long lens. For Daley and myself, the overriding
mantra was to capture the wonderful comic performances of our cast and to tell their

stories in a simple and straight forward manner. The camera and lighting style was
very understated and naturalistic. Yet The Strange Calls retains a strong sense of
style through the careful choice of lens, camera placement and movement, colour,
depth of field and source lighting.

We used lots of wide shots and at the same time minimised the use of singles and
close ups. Scenes often played out as looser two-shots. The wider lens allowed
Coolum to feature strongly as an additional character in the story. I tried to avoid any
excessively long or wide lens. Generally staying in the 25mm – 75mm range, with the
32mm being the most commonly used focal length. CUs were always shot by moving
the camera closer and using a 50mm lens. This gave The Strange Calls a feature film
sensibility, not the usual TV practice of simply zooming in from the same camera
position. It did however restrict us to an average of 30 set ups per day. Quite a
challenge.

The bulk of The Strange Calls takes place in two sets designed and built by
production designer Matt Putland in a disused fish co-op in Sandgate. Various streets
and houses around Brisbane’s northern bayside suburbs filled in for Coolum. Coolum
itself mainly provided the seaside vistas and the ominous mystical presence of Mount
Coolum itself.

Matt built two matching caravan interiors, one in the studio and one in an exterior
caravan set. This allowed us to make the most of the natural shoot-off through the
caravan windows. The dual sets also allowed the cast to enter and exit the caravan in
shot, instead of having to cut between exterior and interior sets as in traditional TV
productions. He also built a police station interior in the co-op’s disused offices.

The sets were lit naturalistically with built in practical lamps and sunshine directed
through the strategically placed windows and sky lights. The caravan was always a
place of warmth and refuge. Very homely. The tones were kept golden and warm.
This also help give the film a sense of gentle nostalgia. I returned to my favorite
soft/FX filters from the early-90s to help smooth out the actor’s skin and again aid
our slightly understated nostalgic feel.

Night exteriors were pure ET – moonlit forests complete with ominous smoke. Glen’s
workhorse light source was a set of LED panels. Great for subtle fill light. Easy to
conceal and dim-able with adjustable colour temperature control. A great addition to
the modern lighting package. In general we made as much use as possible of the

ALEXA’s incredible sensitivity and dynamic range and tried to use as much natural
and available light as practical. Often the only artificial light was a LED panel to add
some fill light in the actor’s eyes and small HMI or tungsten sources placed in the
deep background.

I’ve found over the last few long form dramas I’ve shot with the ALEXA that it reacts
very well to the use of smoke. We used smoke quite extensively in The Strange
Calls which aided the slightly retro look of film and placed it squarely within our
visual reference point of classics such as ET and Close Encounters. Powerful grading
tools like Cutting Edge’s Baselight are superb at evening out mismatched smoke
levels (inevitable when using smoke at night).

The final grade was done by Justin McDonald at Cutting Edge. I like to achieve as
much as possible in-camera and don’t tend to change much in the colour correction.
The process is very much one of balancing up shots within the scenes and allow the
edit to run as smoothly and seamlessly as possible. I use the colour temperature
controls in-camera to warm and cool scenes and correct the excessive green or
magenta bias in the images common with most digital cameras. The grade then
becomes mainly an exercise in contrast control and detail enhancement.

I generally like to give the colourist a few days on their own to set the black levels
(contrast) and high lights before I make an appearance. This process allows me to be
a little more creative with fresh eyes and a cinematographer’s perspective. The grade
is a very important time for me creatively and I always insist on being present.

So far, of the 15 features films and TV shows I’ve shot, I’ve never missed a grade. I
also use the grade as an opportunity to fine tune compositions and reframe shots.
Justine and I also made extensive use of subtle vignettes to draw the viewer’s eye to
what we considered important at that stage of the story. I’m looking forward to the
introduction of ARRI’s new ALEXA PLUS 4:3 camera with its extra area at the top
and bottom of frame to play with, and extra detail of the ARRI RAW format. I also
hope it sees a return to more wide screen anamorphic productions.

The Strange Calls is a tightly-crafted comedy with a strong visual nod to the classics
of the 80s. A little Close Encounters and a lot of The X-Files. It was an absolute
pleasure to photograph.

By Robert Humphreys ACS – Australian Cinematographers Society

Trailer:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPmGKiGMTTo

Links:

www.cinematographer.org.au
http://thestrangecalls.abc.net.au
www.facebook.com/TheStrangeCallsTV
www.hoodlum.com.au

Tom Stoppard: ‘Anna Karenina comes to grief because she has fallen in love for the first time’

Film, Latest News, Screenwriting, , ,

Tom Stoppard says his original approach to writing the screenplay for Joe Wright’s new film adaptation of Anna Karenina was for a fast, modern movie about being in lust. Then wiser counsels – including his own – prevailed

Tom Stoppard: ‘What Tolstoy is on about is that carnal love is not a good idea… [but] Russian society was not exactly a hotbed of chastity.’

The latest film adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina began in what Tom
Stoppard calls “a normal kind of way”, though it did not exactly have a normal outcome. Sitting in his penthouse flat in west London with his back to a stunning view of the Thames, he lights the first of the six cigarettes that will measure out this conversation.

“Somebody rang my agent, Anthony Jones,” he says, before adding: “It was to ask if I was up for adapting Anna Karenina for Joe Wright. It was Joe’s choice of movie.”

This is an ideal moment to talk to one of Britain’s leading contemporary playwrights. Stoppard is in that limbo that writers experience when the work is done and dusted, before the public has really caught up and cast its vote. Indeed, this late summer season is blessed with not one, but two, Stoppard screen adaptations. His version of Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall, which we’ll come to, is winning golden opinions on BBC2.

Speaking of his Anna Karenina, which stars Keira Knightley in the title role,
Stoppard says that Wright’s commission came at a good time. He’d finished the script of Parade’s End, and had no stage play in mind. Writing a screenplay, he says, is like writing left-handed: “It doesn’t feel like a continuation of my writing life. It’s an interruption, but a welcome one, especially if I haven’t got a play on.”

Perhaps only a dramatist of Stoppard’s stature and experience could welcome the invitation to turn Tolstoy’s masterpiece into cinema. It’s a daunting prospect: the novel is more than 800 pages in the excellent Penguin Classics translation, by the husband and wife team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. And still more demanding, the story of the beautiful married woman who falls hopelessly in love with the dashing cavalry officer but eventually throws herself under a train in despair has become as familiar to audiences as Hamlet or The Odyssey.

And that’s before you’ve begun to take on board the novel’s cinematic history. By the most casual inventory, there have been at least 12 screen versions, ranging from the Greta Garbo classic (1935), to the Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richardson version of 1948, an American silent movie, entitled Love, which somehow contrived a happy ending, and even an Egyptian version Nahr al-Hob (River of Love) made in 1960.

So where did he start? “I actually watched several Anna Kareninas,” he says. “At screenplay school, I’m sure they tell you not to watch the previous attempts. But I found it irresistible. Also, I’d never seen a Garbo film. Ever. I was fascinated by that. So I saw Garbo and I saw Vivien Leigh. And there was a BBC version, that was the best for me, because it was six hours.”

He also reread the novel, of course, for the first time in 30 or 40 years. “I felt quite …” he hesitates, “I don’t know what the word is, but I felt I was under
greater surveillance by Tolstoy compared to Ford Madox Ford. It’s a wonderful novel with some great set-pieces, like Vronsky’s steeplechase. The big question, for me, on getting to know the book again, was what to do with the second story, the Levin story.”

There’s the additional problem that the Levin chapters of the novel contain many long discussions about local government, and estate management. “It’s as though,” Stoppard jokes, “Tolstoy took the big essay at the end of War and Peace and said to himself, ‘I’d better spread this through the whole story next time.'”

But Levin (modelled on Tolstoy himself) is important. The parallel, shy relationship between Levin and Kitty (superbly played by Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander) is used by Tolstoy to counterpoint Anna’s affair. “For a while,” Stoppard continues, “I thought we should ignore everything and just go hell for leather, and into, and through, and out of, this relentless love affair. I was going to make it like a very fast modern movie, which was all about being in lust.” In the end, he says, “wiser counsels prevailed, including my own”. He delivered a script of about 130 pages – in movie terms, a film of about two-and-a-half hours.

The idea of the film, at this point, was, he says, “to deal seriously with the subject of love” as it applies to several pairs of characters, Anna and Vronsky (Keira Knightley and Aaron Johnson), Anna and her husband (played by Jude Law), Levin and Kitty. The word “love” was intended to chime through the script to indicate various kinds of loving, from adulterous infatuation to marital contentment.

So far, so normal. But here’s the thing: when Wright’s film opens, the audience finds itself pitched not into imperial Russia but into a stunning visual metaphor, a dilapidated 19th-century Russian theatre. The stalls, boxes, scene docks, dressing rooms and backstage theatrical clutter become the setting for all the Moscow and St Petersburg parts of the novel, a stark, and highly stylised, contrast with the more conventional and naturalistic scenes set on Levin’s estate (actually, Salisbury Plain).

So what happened?

After the preview, and in anticipation of this interview, I had imagined, at this point, Stoppard would confide that, as a man of the theatre, he had conceived the idea of framing his adaptation with a cinematic proscenium arch. But this, it turns out, is not the case. He seems still to be coming to terms with Wright’s directorial coup.

“No, I didn’t have this idea at any point,” he insists. “The script was done and Joe went off to location scout in Russia.” But, for various reasons, this recce was unsatisfactory, and Wright continued to look for locations in England, without much luck.

“He called me up, and said, ‘Can I see you urgently?’ He came round with a big file and exhibited his idea – essentially that the Moscow and St Petersburg scenes should take place in a 19th-century theatre – on my kitchen table.”

Was this to do with budget problems? Stoppard shakes his head. “Joe needed a concept to get excited about doing the novel as a movie. I think he talked to Keira about it – Pride and Prejudice had worked out really well for them – and this was what he came up with.”

Another cigarette. A pause. “It was a bit of a shock,” he continues, “but the shock was ameliorated by Joe’s wanting no changes in the script. He shot my script,” Stoppard concludes, with satisfaction.

Indeed he did. Wright’s version is a directorial tour de force propelled by Dario Marianelli’s headlong score. Every frame is stamped with an overwrought aesthetic sensibility that transforms what might have been a naturalistic costume drama into the mannered pirouette of a theatrical ensemble swept along in a classic Russian romance.

This Anna Karenina is probably not the film Stoppard envisaged, and he concedes to “various worries” about the decision to place the drama in a single location – basically, a Shepperton sound stage. However, he adds that: “My fundamental sense is that I’m much more interested by what Joe has done – and I’m not as worried as I might have been if I had been the screenwriter of the 47th immaculate costume drama [from the BBC], another classic, well-dressed, romantic drama.”

For that kind of satisfaction, the Stoppard fan must turn to Parade’s End, a labour of love to which Stoppard has devoted several years. He confesses now that “it feels too long since my last stage play [Rock’n’Roll, which premiered at the Royal Court in 2006]. Parade’s Endis the reason, but I don’t mind. I had delusions of proprietorship with those characters.” Compared to Anna Karenina, he says, “Parade’s End felt much more like my own work,” adding that, “I invented much more”.

That’s true enough. But Stoppard’s late fascination with the secret anatomy of love, a turning away from the argumentative verbal fireworks of plays such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Jumpers, is braided into every line of Anna Karenina. He says he wanted to examine what happens to a married woman, Anna, who discovers sex for the first time, a theme possibly of greater relevance today than might generally be admitted.

In quest of this, he gives Anna some wonderfully resonant lines. After her first
experience of love-making with Vronsky, she murmurs, “You have murdered my happiness”, a subtle and complicated sentiment that shortly becomes: “So this is love … This!”

Stoppard believes that “what Tolstoy is on about is that carnal love is not a good idea”. The script also takes him back into territory – infidelity – that he explored on stage in The Real Thing. Today, he is at pains to draw a clear distinction between St Petersburg in the 1870s and London in the 1980s. “Russian society was not exactly a hotbed of chastity,” he says, relishing the oxymoron. “Anna comes to grief because she has fallen in love for the first time.”

I wonder, en passant, if the Czech part of Tom Stoppard (born Tomas Straussler in 1937) responds to Tolstoy, the Slav, but this won’t fly. He shakes his head. “I don’t think falling in love in Slovakia is much different from falling in love in Tunbridge Wells,” he replies.

Speaking of romance, more generally, he admits that, as he grows older, “it’s not of less interest. If anything, I think, it becomes more important. My own progress has been from thinking that it was unimportant, that it was the play of minds that kept a play crackling.”

He has come to see that the heart is quite as dependable an engine of drama as the head. “In Rock’n’Roll, I was basically doing the Prague spring, the politics of 1968, but I came to understand that – for the audience – the play works as a love story. Now I tend to look for ways to introduce what you call ‘romance’ into what is ostensibly the ‘real’ topic, the politics, the ideas, or whatever.”

With a closing laugh, Stoppard stubs out his last cigarette. “Actually, if the ‘real’ topic is my only topic, I may be in trouble.” Does he have any explanation for this transition from the cerebral and argumentative play of ideas (Travesties; Arcadia) to something warmer and fuzzier? A sheepish look, after which we say goodbye. “The truth of the matter,” he replies, “is that I used to be much more – as it were – shy. Now I don’t care!”

Robert McCrum – The Observer, Sunday 2 September 2012

Can Indie Film Achieve a Network Effect?

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In a recent post entitled Networks And The Enterprise, Fred Wilson explains how his firm Union Square Ventures invests in networks. He included this line.

My uber goal of writing this post is to explain that the wired and mobile internet is a global network and it powers all sorts of smaller networks to get built on top of it.

These networks connect people with each other. Each network gains value as more users join and as each user contributes value to the network which in turn becomes available to every other user. As he points out with respect to one of their investments,

Every time a new participant in the ecosystem joins the Return Path data network, their systems and tools get smarter, making the service more valuable for everyone.

That’s a classic network effect and it is very powerful.

Achieving a network effect is the holy grail within the world of technology. The
network grows in size, power and value. Kickstarter, one of the companies funded by Union Square Ventures, is approaching this holy grail.

James Cooper has just published an ebook entitled Kickstarter for Filmmakers:
Prepare and Execute Your Next Crowd Funding Campaign:

www.kickstarterforfilmmakers.com

Every filmmaker who has thought even briefly about using Kickstarter or other
crowd funding platforms to raise money for a film should spend the $1.99 and read it immediately.

Cooper provides an overview of the state of crowd funding for film and then uses the crowd funding campaign from his own short film Elijah the Prophet to provide examples of what worked. He also takes the reader through the various stages of a crowd funding campaign and highlights keys to success.

What I find most remarkable is the level of detail he provides on his own campaign. He tells us which team member brought in how many dollars through their efforts and the number of people who contributed that no one on the team knew and how much these strangers contributed. In other words, he provides complete transparency into what his team did and how they did it.

It is worth noting that Cooper has done something that is really quite unusual within the film industry.

He actually provides real numbers. There are no approximations and no spin. He simply says here is the data and here are my conclusions from that data. And by doing so, he provides real value to all independent filmmakers.

Now I ask you to imagine, what if there was really a network of independent
filmmakers who did exactly what Cooper did and then did it repeatedly over all their projects?

I mean the kind of network that Fred Wilson suggests in his blog post. One where every participant provides knowledge to the network that every other participant can access.

This is a model from the technology world that needs to borrowed by the indie film world and used to transform the way indie film is created, financed, distributed and marketed. I would also argue further that it even needs to transform the way indie film is discussed.

Primarily indie film is viewed as if it is a disparate group of individuals who battle all odds and surmount great obstacles to finally get a shot at the brass ring. Each filmmaker is seen as the lone auteur who has climbed the mountain. At festivals each spin their tale of triumph as they court audiences. It makes for great copy (and is often true) but does it help move independent film forward? I am not sure. To me, it is not sufficient. Something more needs to be done.

Independent film needs a new metaphor.

Instead of a group of disparate individuals, indie film has to be seen as a network. One which is powered by the wired and mobile Internet. A network with participants who add value for each other participant. To paraphrase Fred Wilson, each participant in the ecosystem needs to help the services get smarter and therefore make it more valuable for everyone who is part of the ecosystem.

This requires transparency and the sharing of real details–by everyone.

James Cooper has created a model of how to begin. Others need to follow his example.

Then indie film might begin to achieve a very powerful network effect.

And every independent filmmaker will benefit.

About Chris Dorr: I consult with media and consumer electronic companies on digital media strategy and business development. Clients include Samsung, MTV Networks, Tribeca Film Festival, Shaw Media, Accedo Broadband, Beyond Oblivion and A3 Media Networks. I created the Future of Film blog for Tribeca. I have worked in the movie business for Disney Studios, Universal Pictures, Scott Free and in the digital media business for Intertainer, Sony and Nokia. Contact me at chris@digitaldorr.com or follow me at @chrisdorr

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Chris Dorr on his blog www.digitaldorr.com

Twenty-Three Feature Projects To Receive Development Support

Film, Latest News,

Screen Australia today announced almost $700,000 in development support for 23 feature projects, enabling filmmakers to take their feature film script to the next level towards production readiness. Fifteen new projects have been added to Screen Australia’s development slate, while eight teams will receive continued support to develop their projects.

Two Australian filmmakers will also be supported to undertake overseas internships. Producer Ma’ara Bobby Romia will work for six months with Screentime Group in New Zealand and director Ariel Martin–Merrells will work under the mentorship of director James Foley in Los Angeles for five months.

Screen Australia’s Head of Development Martha Coleman said, “Following a now well-established tradition, the development slate announced today includes a diverse range of compelling stories from both established and emerging filmmakers. The high calibre of screenplays coming through our door backs up positive feedback we are getting from the domestic and international marketplace and I’m looking forward to seeing the best of these projects make their journey through to production over the next few years.”

The new projects to receive development support include a thriller script, Los Alamos, from writer Luke Davies (Candy) and Oscar®-winning producers Iain Canning and Emile Sherman (The King’s Speech). Berlin Syndrome is a new psychological thriller in development from writer Shaun Grant (Snowtown) with producer Polly Staniford and executive producer Angie Fielder. Shaun Grant will also be supported to develop Jasper Jones, a coming-of-age story based on the award- winning Australian novel by Craig Silvey with producers Vincent Sheehan and David Jowsey.

Writer Joan Sauers will be supported to develop the biopic Enemy Alien about mercurial classical violist, Richard Goldner, with producers Brian Rosen and Su Armstrong. The Canary Cottage is a black comedy script being developed by writer/director Heath Davis, producer Luke Graham and executive producer Jonathan Page and The Stockpicker is a romantic comedy script in development from writer Dave Warner and producer Phillip Bowman.

Writer Peter Ivan will be supported to develop his drama script, An Oddball Solution, with producers Steve Kearney and Richard Keddie, and writers Stephen Ramsey and Bob Ellis will be supported to develop their biopic script The News of the World.Emma Jensen will develop the biopic Mary Shelley about the life of the novelist who wrote Frankenstein. Matthew Dabner is on board as an executive producer.

Marauder is a true-crime story being supported for development by writer Lee Sellars and producer/director Marion Pilowsky about a rookie detective, a killer on the loose and a mother who never gave up hope.

David Williamson and Craig Monahan will be supported to develop crime drama The Removalists, a reimagining of David Williamson’s iconic play of the same name. Tait Brady and Craig Monahan are attached to the project as producers.

The Riders is a drama in development from Susie Brooks-Smith who is adapting for the screen the acclaimed novel of the same name by Tim Winton. Director Robert Connolly and producer Timothy White are attached to the project.

Writer/producer Trish Graham will receive development support for her new family/fantasy script Little Fur: The Legend Begins with executive producer Matt Carroll.

New projects to receive matched feature development funding include the drama script The Devil’s Staircase from writer Sergio Casci with director Ben C Lucas (Wasted on the Young), producer Marian Macgowan and UK producer Claire Mundell. Training Grounds is an action feature project in development from writers Oscar Redding and Jonathan auf der Heide with director Jeremy Sims, producer Ranko Markovic and executive producer Piers Morgan.

Writer/directors Patrick Sarell and Alister Lockhart will also receive financial support from the Director’s Acclaim Fund to strategically assist them towards the next stage in their career path.

Projects to receive continued feature development support are included in the project details listed below.

SINGLE-PROJECT DEVELOPMENT: FEATURE DEVELOPMENT THE ACTRESSES

Genre Comedy Producer Michael McMahon Writer Katherine Thomson Director Tony Ayres Synopsis Five actresses compete for the role of a lifetime – an ensemble comedy about women, friendship and competition.

BERLIN SYNDROME

Genre Psychological Thriller Producer Polly Staniford Executive Producer Angie Fielder Writer Shaun Grant

Synopsis A passionate holiday romance leads to an obsessive relationship when an Australian photojournalist wakes one morning in a Berlin apartment and is unable to leave.

THE CANARY COTTAGE

Genre Black Comedy Producer Luke Graham Executive Producer Jonathan Page Writer/Director Heath Davis Synopsis A broken young man learns to live and love again when he moves into his mother’s nursing home.

CARTAGENA

Genre Drama Producers Naomi Wenck, Kristina Ceyton Writer Nam Le Synopsis A teenage assassin living in the slums of Columbia finds himself ordered to do a hit on his best friend. Choosing between loyalty to his friend, and the loyalty required of him by a merciless drug lord, Juan Pablo is a normal boy caught up in a ruthless world. Based on the best-selling novel by Nam Le.

DEFIANT

Genre Thriller Producers Bill Bennett, Anupam Sharma Writer/Director Bill Bennett Synopsis Two young lovers from different castes in India are marked for honour killings. Based on true events.

ENEMY ALIEN Genre Biopic Producers Brian Rosen, Su Armstrong Writer Joan Sauers Synopsis The true story of mercurial classical violist, Richard Goldner, who escapes Nazi-occupied Austria to settle in Australia where he’s faced with a different kind of tyranny before discovering his true calling and forming Musica Viva. Based on the book by Suzanne Baker.

GIN & TONIC

Genre Comedy Drama Producers Leah Churchill-Brown, Amanda Higgs Writer Alice Bell Director Hattie Dalton Synopsis A baby is abandoned on 14-year-old Ashlee’s doorstep, shining light on her broken family and her secret teenage life.

JASPER JONES

Genre Coming of Age Producers Vincent Sheehan, David Jowsey Writer Shaun Grant Synopsis Based on the award-winning Australian novel by Craig Silvey.

LITTLE FUR: THE LEGEND BEGINS

Genre Family/Fantasy Writer/Producer Trish Graham Executive Producer Matt Carroll Synopsis Little Fur is the story of how even a small creature – an elf-troll, no larger than a 4-year-old child – is able to find the courage to overcome her fears, to understand that there is good and bad in all of us, and decides to become a hero.

LOS ALAMOS

Genre Thriller Producers Iain Canning, Emile Sherman Writer Luke Davies Synopsis Spring, 1945. Michael Connolly, a disgraced intelligence operative, enters a labyrinth of secrets and espionage when he arrives at the high-security military base of Los Alamos. Sent to investigate a seemingly open-and-shut murder case, Connolly is thrown into the heart of the Manhattan Project and must navigate a path through military protocol, political intrigue and personal agendas in order to uncover the truth in the most secretive place in the world.

MARAUDER

Genre True Crime Director/Producer Marion Pilowsky Writer Lee Sellars Synopsis A rookie detective, a killer on the loose and a mother who never gave up hope. Based on a true story.

MARY SHELLEY

Genre Biopic Executive Producer Matthew Dabner Writer Emma Jensen Synopsis A young woman with a family legacy and a passion for writing goes on a quest to find a story which results in the groundbreaking novel Frankenstein. However, Mary learns that creativity and love can come at a high price when she embarks on a passionate and tumultuous love affair with the poet Percy Shelley.

MICHAEL H

Genre Biopic Producers Sue Murray, Richard Lowenstein

Executive Producer Domenico Procacci Writer/Director Richard Lowenstein Synopsis At the height of his internationally renowned career, a sudden blow to the head robs the famously sensual rock star of two of his most cherished senses. A series of personal battles follows ending tragically with his death at the age of 37, the night before embarking on a world tour.

THE NEWS OF THE WORLD

Genre Biopic Writers Stephen Ramsey, Bob Ellis

AN ODDBALL SOLUTION

Genre Drama Producers Steve Kearney, Richard Keddie Writer Peter Ivan

REMARKABLE CREATURES

Genre Drama Producers Heather Ogilvie, Mark Gooder Writer Jan Sardi Synopsis Together, one woman’s gift and another’s determination result in one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 19th century. A revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship, based on the acclaimed novel by Tracey Chevalier.

THE REMOVALISTS

Genre Crime Drama Producers Tait Brady, Craig Monahan Writers David Williamson, Craig Monahan Director Craig Monahan Synopsis A blackly comic exposé of unequal social relationships and abuse of authority – now and then. A reimagining of the iconic Australian play by David Williamson.

THE RIDERS

Genre Drama Producer Timothy White Writer Susie Brooks-Smith Director Robert Connolly Synopsis Scully takes his young daughter, Billie, across Europe on a search for his missing wife. Based on the acclaimed novel by Tim Winton.

SILENT DISCO Genre Coming of Age

Producer Tom M Jeffrey Writer Lachlan Philpott Synopsis Teens Tamara and Squid are in love, but their fragile relationship is broken by a betrayal of trust that puts their futures at risk.

SON OF A GUN

Genre Crime Producer Timothy White Writer/Director Julius Avery Script Editor John Collee Synopsis A young man is sent to prison where he becomes the perfect apprentice to ‘public enemy number one’, beating him at his own game.

THE STOCKPICKER

Genre Romantic Comedy Producer Phillip Bowman Writer Dave Warner Synopsis Dylan Gilbert, a back room guy dreaming of becoming a glamorous stock picker realises that one of his firm’s small-time clients has an amazing success rate and by copying their picks he can achieve his dream, but when Client 68745, Holly York, falls in love her picks begin to tank! Dylan decides he must break up the love match if he is to achieve his goal.

SINGLE-PROJECT DEVELOPMENT: FEATURE MATCHED FUNDING THE DEVIL’S STAIRCASE

Genre Drama Producer Marian Macgowan UK Producer Claire Mundell Writer Sergio Casci Director Ben C Lucas Synopsis An 18-year-old girl runs away from small-town Australia to London, hoping to overcome her justifiable yet incapacitating fear of death by moving into an abandoned London townhouse with several young travellers, but she discovers before long that death seems to have followed her.

TRAINING GROUNDS

Genre Action Producer Ranko Markovic Executive Producer Piers Morgan Writers Oscar Redding, Jonathan auf der Heide Director Jeremy Sims Synopsis A group of young Western travellers are traversing the Silk Road when a land slide leaves them stranded without their vehicles. As they search for the destroyed 4x4s they discover a cave that’s being used as an Al-Qaeda training

ground. The soldiers aren’t there, but plans for a new international terrorist plot and a dirty bomb are.

TALENT ESCLATOR PROGRAMS: INDUSTRY INTERNSHIPS MA’ARA BOBBY ROMIA INTERNSHIP

Producer Ma’ara Bobby Romia Synopsis Ma’ara will work with Screentime Group in New Zealand for six months across all facets of television concept development, writing and producing, production, post-production and marketing/distribution strategies.

ARIEL MARTIN-MERRELLS INTERNSHIP

Director Ariel Martin-Merrells Synopsis Ariel will work under the mentorship of director James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross, Fear, Perfect Stranger) in Los Angeles for five months during post- production on House of Cards and collaborate in the development of two upcoming feature films projects Winter Hill Gang and Recoil.

TALENT ESCLATOR PROGRAMS: SHORTS PROGRAMS: DIRECTOR’S ACCLAIM FUND

PATRICK SARELL & ALISTER LOCKHART ACCLAIM FUND Writer/Directors Patrick Sarell, Alister Lockhart

Screen Australia Media Release – Tuesday 28 August 2012

New Projects Confirm NSW As Australia’s Film Capital

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A number of new feature films are being produced in NSW, confirming the State as number one when it comes to creative projects, according to Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner.

Mr Stoner today announced that leading Australian actor turned writer Joel Edgerton, together with Rosemary Blight, producer of the smash hit film The Sapphires and the creative team behind the Academy Award nominated Australian film Animal Kingdom, will bring their new feature film projects to NSW.

The Blight/Edgerton feature film project The Felony and producer Liz Watts and director David Michod’s new film The Rover are some of the new screen productions to receive production finance from the NSW Government through Screen NSW.

“These screen productions, which include feature films, television series and documentaries, will bring more than $20 million in direct production expenditure to NSW, create more than 1000 jobs and ensure our State continues to be the engine of creative screen production in Australia,” Mr Stoner said.

Joel Edgerton is both the screenwriter and star of Felony, which will be produced by Goalpost Pictures Australia’s Rosemary Blight and directed by Matthew Saville (Cloudstreet).

Writer/director David Michod’s follow-up film to Animal Kingdom is The Rover, which he will produce with Liz Watts (Animal Kingdom, Lore, Dead Europe) and David Linde, partner in US independent production company Good Machine.

Linde’s credits include the international films Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Biutiful and Happiness.

The Great Gatsby and Animal Kingdom’s Joel Edgerton will write and star in a new film to be shot in NSW, Felony.Around the Block is a contemporary story of love, revenge and triumph set in Redfern, a first feature from writer/director Sarah Spillane.

“Felony and Around the Block will be filmed and post produced in NSW, bringing all of their substantial production budgets to the State, while The Rover will be post produced in NSW,” Mr Stoner said.

Screen NSW – Thursday 30 August 2012

Kath and Kimderella review

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Kath & Kimderella Review: Don’t look at me

Kath & Kimderella: 3/10

The usual outcome for successful television shows upgraded to the multiplex is to
accentuate what was winning in small doses so that it becomes grotesque (exhibit A:
the Sex and the City movies), but in Kath & Kimderella, the spin-off to the hit

Australian sitcom Kath & Kim, the show’s creators have attempted to make a stand-
alone movie moderately distinct from the small-screen episodes. It’s a welcome idea
but unfortunately the execution is so deeply flawed that the film suffers mightily.

Kath & Kimderella begins with a mass of explanatory set-up, detailing the lives of
suburban mum Kath Day-Knight (Jane Turner) and her self-obsessed grown
daughter Kim Day Craig (Gina Riley), as well as their various partners, friends and
offspring, and from there it never really stops offering up florid plot developments
and bursts of exposition. The film is so busy that it often forgets to be funny.

Kath, Kim and the latter’s daggy offsider, Sharon (Magda Szubanski) are soon
shipped off to Papilloma, a bankrupt principality in Italy, where the monarch, King
Javier (Rob Sitch, winningly borrowing John Pilger’s hair and Julio Iglesias’s patter)
mistakes Kath for a wealthy noble and plans to seduce her, while his son fixates on
Kim as a princess. In a castle full of mysterious noises and secret tunnels – it’s like
something Bing Crosby and Bob Hope used to stumble through – there’s a wedding,
a rebellion and magnificent eye rolling by Richard E. Grant as a courtier.

Turner and Riley, who first brought the television show to air in 2002, wrote the film,
and it’s directed by television veteran Ted Emery. The production values are decent
(Italian exteriors, Melbourne interiors), but several set-pieces, including a dance
number choreographed to Wham and a sword fight between King Javier and Kath’s
husband, suburban butcher Kel (Glenn Robbins), never take off because they feel
physically constrained.

The humour stems from the television show: the same verbal tics, catchphrases,
garish bodies and tacky clothes. The debate about whether Riley and Turner exploit
their working class characters or celebrate them needs to be replaced by one
questioning whether they’re still interested in them. Little happens between Kath and
Kim, and there’s no flight of creativity equal to the television series having Kylie
Minogue play a grown version of Kim’s daughter, Epponnee Rae.

There is screen time for Riley and Turner’s other regular characters, the affluent,
squawking Prue and Trude, but why does a comedy need comic relief?

Craig Mathieson – SMH – August 28, 2012

Kath and Kimderella opens Sept 6

Mental: bursts out at MIFF as new twist on long career

Film, Latest News, Screenwriting

Mental, written and directed by P.J. Hogan, an produced by Jocelyn Moorhouse with Todd Fellman and Janet and Jerry Zucker, was officially launched on the world as the closing night film of the Melbourne International Film Festival. It was a confronting treat.

As MIFF did its usual multicinema exhibition at important moments, it was a bit hard to work out how the audience felt about Mental, and the party was a noisy event full of tired people so no-one was deep in conversation.

One thing is for sure with Mental. With provisos about the money, the Hogan and Moorhouse team did exactly what they wanted, ably supported by a cast alive with the memory of Muriel`s Wedding, which grew in the same daggy, cartoonish suburbia awash with songs from a low-rent classic.

Tonally, the film whips in and out between comedy, melodrama, some vicious satire, expressionist melodrama and pure myth. Even on that level, it is pretty fascinating for filmmakers. It takes the traditional Hollywoodesque rules of script editing and drowns them in a bucket, and expects the audience to go with the silliness, and remain intellectually alert at the same time.

We at Screen Hub want to celebrate the sheer audacity and distinctiveness of the film. Hogan knows what he wants it to be, and makes it happen. And that, ladies and gennelmens, is like nothing else in Australian cinema, except Muriel grown up and gone feral.

Will it play in the multiplexes to an audience that will simply get the whole mental thing, and run with the exuberence? We hope so. At the very least, the film has both the best shark attack and the best fart in all of Australian cinema history.

Meanwhile, Mark Poole went to the MIFF conversation with Hogan and Moorhouse beforehand, and filed this report…

As his latest film Mental premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival prior to it Australian release, it was terrific to turn up to hear P.J. Hogan and Jocelyn Moorhouse talk to Tom Ryan on Saturday before the premiere of their latest film Mental. The last time I’d seen the couple was years ago at The Deli in Toorak Road, right opposite the Bridal shop that was one of the spurs for Muriel’s Wedding (1994).

“I know you,” he said, extending his hand through the gloom of the MIFF Lounge at the Forum. But it has been 25 years and numerous films since I last discussed the art and craft of filmmaking with the acclaimed pair.

Mental shares many similarities to Muriel’s Wedding the film that launched PJ Hogan’s career in the United States. Directing such films as My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), Peter Pan (2003) and Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), PJ has worked out of LA since the mid 1990s, and so despite the importance of PJ and wife Jocelyn Moorhouse (who produced both Muriel’s.. and Mental) as the makers of Proof (1992), Muriel’s Wedding and now Mental, little has been heard of them since they departed our shores.

So it was a wonderful opportunity for film critic Tom Ryan to retrace their filmmaking steps, beginning with their studies at AFTRS Film School in the late 1980s, with other notable figures including Jane Campion.

Continue reading Mental: bursts out at MIFF as new twist on long career →

The New Hollywood System

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The New Hollywood System: Breaking Down the Current Definition of a
Movie Star

With $10 million the new $20 million, franchises trumping talent and international
appeal more important than ever, THR examines who’s on top, who’s pulling the
strings and who’s on deck.

Call it the $10 million kiss. That’s how much Kristen Stewart stands to lose if
Universal decides not to go ahead with a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman,
which has earned $389 million globally — and the actress’ now-infamous tryst with
director Rupert Sanders may be a large factor.

Stewart is one of the few rising stars to have reached the $10 million mark. (At press
time, Jennifer Lawrence was close to getting roughly $10 million for The Hunger
Games follow-up, Catching Fire; while Snow White’s Huntsman, Chris Hemsworth,
boosted by his roles in Marvel’s Thor and The Avengers, also will earn $10 million if
the Snow White sequel goes ahead.) But Stewart’s precariousness at the top —
despite the global punch of the Twilight franchise, which brought her $25 million as
well as healthy backend deals for the series’ final two films — shows how vulnerable
she is, like most of those on Hollywood’s new A-list.

The era is long past when a star like Tom Cruise could launch a career with Risky
Business and Top Gun, then stay in the stratosphere for decades. None of the new
stars gets the once-standard “20-against-20” deal — that is, $20 million upfront and
20 percent of the studio’s take from exhibitors, after they make that $20 million
back. Today, stars are seen as disposable, or at least interchangeable. As one top
studio executive ruminates, “What major star has emerged in the past five years?”

Aside from Channing Tatum — who weathered a bunch of flops before scoring
with The Vow, 21 Jump Street and Magic Mike — the answer just might be none.

Rather than an A-list, it might be better to think of a “hot list,” in the words of one
mega-agent: “That’s what it is — the guys you hope will last because nobody’s shown
they can do that just yet.”

Continue reading The New Hollywood System →

UK public funding boom

Film, Latest News

Are we in a golden era for public film funding? The UK is stumbling through a prolonged recession and yet the film industry has seemingly emerged largely unscathed from the ongoing cuts. Geoffrey Macnab analyses where the cash is headed.

Two years after the abrupt closure of the UK Film Council, there is more, not less, money available. With cash diverted to the London 2012 Olympics now returning, and sales of Lottery tickets increasing, the money available for film is rising.

Throughout the summer, Prime Minister David Cameron has been busily extolling the UK’s creative industries to Olympic visitors. There is cross-party support for the film industry which, according to the BFI’s statistical yearbook, contributes £3.3 billion to UK GDP and a trade surplus of over £1.5 billion.

Continue reading UK public funding boom →