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9th Mumbai International Film Festival

I had to do a search on the internet. Nobody told me Bombay had changed its name to Mumbai. From various sources on the internet: "The name comes from the name of one of the old Koli goddesses, Mumba Devi, a temple to whom now stands in Bhuleshwar. The name Bombay may have got attached to the British settlement as an English corruption of the Portuguese description of the harbour, Bom Bahia , meaning good bay ." So "A Stone Throw" has finally been accepted into a festival. Mumbai. It will screen in India next February. Which means I can now organise for a local screening. Cast and crew have been stopping me in the streets - as if the shoot was just a dream. At three days (and a hefty 3 months post-production) - it seems like a dream. Since making the film, I've been putting my energy into Geoffrey - trying to get in a bit of cash. I'm doing a website and e-marketing campaign for Sue Taylor's feature Last Train to Freo (the link is to Taylor Media as th

100 Aussie films for the Cannes rep.

Just got off the phone from the AFC. As you may or may not know, the Cannes' Film Festival scout, Christian Jeune, is in town (that's Sydney, Australia) and he's here to view Aussie shorts and features made in the last 12 months. He has about 100 films on his desk - including one VHS cassette of "A Stone Throw". I bet you every single director and producer has just a little spark - just a teensy tiny wish - that their film will win the coveted Palme d'Or for the best short film. 100 films ... and he may take none! A pointless post. But you gotta let the kids know how hard this is.

"A Stone Throw" does the festival circuit

The short film I recently directed ( A Stone Throw ) is officially finished and my Producer, Dale Fairbairn, has entered it into strategically-picked festivals around the world. Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand and Mumbai now have a copy. Oberhausen, Germany is next. The plan is, before we release it here, for a local screening in Western Australia, we want to give it a bit of international pizazz. But the chances of getting our short into an international festival are slim. Making a short film is strange. There's no demand for it. You don't get paid (well, you get about $1 per hour). And sending it off to the festivals costs a lot of money. AUS$200 for entry fee and freight and another $400 for the Digi Betacam print - should your film be accepted. Some of the bigger, international festivals (like Cannes, Venice and Berlin) receive up to 1,500 short films from around the world and screen about 15. They will only screen your film on 35mm - which means that you (or the Australian F

Waiting For The Best People

How long does it take to make a short film? Actors and crew call me up every day asking when the film will be ready. We shot for 3 days in April (24-26th inclusive) and it's still not finished. What happened? Well, firstly, we cut the film and then had to recut it. ScreenWest weren't the only ones unhappy with the cut (and when they're not happy, they withdraw funding). Producer Dale Fairbairn wasn't happy with it and even I thought that there was a cut hiding in the rushes ... somewhere. We had to wait until Tim Wellburn was avaiable, so that put us on hold for a month. The new recut also pushed back our post sound and so we had to wait for Richard Mahony's availability. We were meant to do a sound track lay this week, but he's not feeling the best, so now we will start on August 8th. Jonathan Mustard did a fantastic job on a soundtrack that didn't match the film. He hadn't seen a single image and so had to reconstruct the music almost from scratch! I&#

Cutting out the story

Hello. Just got back from Sydney where I was lucky enough to work with editor, Tim Wellburn (Black Robe, Mad Max 2 etc. etc.). Dale Fairbairn (my Producer) convinced him and Island Films to get involved in our 10 minute, ScreenWest funded short, "A Stone Throw." I wrote the screenplay with Phil Jeng Kane and no matter how hard we tried, the picture cut just wasn't working. We were slowly losing our story with each attempt and we needed a fresh, experienced set of eyes. There were some difficulties with coverage, but they seemed to dissolve with Tim at the helm. It took him 4-5 days. I let him choose takes, cutting style - the lot and I must say, he did a fine job. He really got into the story. The cut was fresh, new and completely understandable. I was so happy to see the film working. He'd solved all the problems we'd had with previous cuts (there were 4 of those). Most problems were brought about by limited coverage on an incredibly tight, TV-style shoot. Now w