Great Story. Check.

Solid Production Values. Check.

Performances………whoops.

Time and time again I see this problem with low budget filmmaking.

And it’s a problem, that as an actor and a filmmaker, really annoys the shit out of me when it comes to indie film.

It is quite often that when watching a student short, or a low budget short or any type of film project made by an amateur filmmaker, that they forget one integral piece of the puzzle when it comes to telling their story.

And that my friends, is the actors.

Now I’m not saying this happens all the time, and I’m not going to spend the next little while ranting but I’d just like to point  out a few reasons (with some very good examples) as to why casting is so important when making a film.  ESPECIALLY if you don’t have the money to really have all the bells and whistles of a multi-million dollar, government backed film.  And guess what??  It’s bloody easy!

For starters, films are made by memorable performances.  When people walked away from Avatar they were blown away by the visuals, but disappointed by the story and performances (well…except for Chris, but he’s a Jim Cameron fan-boy).  A similar case can be made for the always criticised Michael Bay.  Sure he shoots action better than most, but you always walk away from his movies unfulfilled cause all you can think about is how cringe worthy the actors were (apologies Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, but you really are just awful).

New directors are often scared by actors.

I can totally understand why too as there is a minority of actors that gives us all a bad name.  You know the ones I mean.  They constantly name drop who they’ve worked with, what shows they’ve been on, that time that they were in that TV commercial for VB and were fourth in from the back next to the bar.  Oh yeah and how they like to prepare on set by being “in character” the entire time the cameras arn’t rolling which means yelling abuse at crew, running off set and also throwing themselves into wardrobe vans because “their character” has ADD (true story).

Then when push comes to shove these so called professionals get on set and are about as interesting to watch as a piece of dried toast.

I think we’re all smart enough to be able to know a good performance from a bad one so I urge you,  next time you are casting your short or looking for actors, take that little bit longer to look past the one that was on home and away or was in a toothpaste commercial or perhaps was in a “feature film” that you’ve never heard of but IMDB said it’s real so you just assumed you missed it.

Australia is CHOCK A BLOCK full of talented actors who are great to work with and all about the work rather than the fame.  And guess what??  They are also quite lovely people whom you can talk to and work with rather than against to get the best for your film.

So where do you start to look???

There are plenty of wonderful institutions for actors in Melbourne including Melbourne Actors Lab, Tafta and The Rehearsal Room.  You can even look online by signing up for an account with Showcast and potentially going through agents.

Our personal favourite, and number one recommendation though are our friends and sometimes collaborators at 16^th Street Actors Studio.

The work that goes on in that place is truly sublime and the teachers are some of the best in the business including people like Pamela Rabe, Kerry Armstrong, Noni Hazlehurst (just to name a few).  They have a view on acting that works along a similar path as it does in the states which is that actors, regardless of who they are, never stop training.  And it’s about finding the truth in the performance.  Not playing for laughs or squeezing out a tear cause the script asks you too, but investing time in finding the truth of each character.  It’s the very thing that makes some performances so damn affecting.

They have even managed to bring out some of THE WORLDS BEST acting coaches in recent years like Ivana Chubbuck (Halle Berry, Charlize Theron) and Larry Moss (Leonardo DiCaprio, Hilary Swank) to take master classes here in Melbourne.  Their tireless efforts to get the best out of actors is nothing short of inspiring.

So long story short (kinda) I urge you, next time you are looking to cast your short or your low budget feature or your TV pilot, take that little bit longer and a bit more care in casting your project.  Don’t just settle for credits, or because people are willing to work for nothing or “just have the right look” for what you want.

Take the time to find the real actors.  The ones that will give you truth and will give you their all and will fight for their character.  Because that my friends, will be the difference between your film being Great or just kinda ok.

Think of films that have blown you away in recent times, and why you loved them.  I can almost guarantee you that what you will remember is the performances – especially, if like me, you like walking away from a movie having been affected in some way shape or form.

Here is a bunch for me that really shook me to the core, made me laugh, made me cry or just plain fascinated me in the last little while:

• Tilda Swinton – We Need To Talk About Kevin
• Kristen Wiig – Bridesmaids
• Christian Bale – The Fighter
• Ryan Gosling / Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine
• Daniel Henshall / Lucas Pittaway – Snowtown
• Ryan Gosling – Drive

July

It was a slow movie month in Australia. I’m assuming due to the fact that the juggernaut that is the Harry Potter franchise was set to release its final instalment and it certainly did not disappoint!

It was also a relatively slow month for LateNite with everyone being a little bit exhausted after the Hannah screening in San Francisco. Slow may not be entirely the right word, with Jacqui being very busily plugging the first instalment of Spinning Dreams.

The 40min doco became available for viewing online through Fairfax Digital, and even made it to the front page of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald websites, giving it a huge national audience. Why not do yourself a favour and check it out - and see what all this fuss is about!

August

Too many GREAT movies were released in August so I feel like it’s only fair to narrow it down to three (I told you there were lots of good ones) of my personal favourites. Enjoy.

and for the second one…

and finally…

Now the reason I have listed three trailers above is because this month was pure cinematic madness with the annual Melbourne International Film Festival. I was a little light on films this year only catching 30-40 (usually it’s around the 60+ mark) but I must say I saw some dynamite films. Both Beginners and The Guard which I’ve listed above were two of my favourites of the festival. Check them out if you get the chance.

So not only was it MIFF time in Melbourne, but we were keeping tabs on Hannah which had begun its longer festival circuit with screenings in Dublin and North Carolina. Also announced were our friends at Dark Heart Productions having their pilot The Weatherman (featuring our very own Nick Colla) being accepted into the New York Television Festival. You can view the (incredibly funny) pilot right here:

Also we were very excited to hear that the feature film Hail by award winning director Amiel Courtin Wilson, which Chris and the team at The Butchery and The Refinery had worked on, had been selected for the very prestigious Venice Film Festival in Italy.

Chris also lent a helping hand on Directors Jared and Daniel Daperis’ short film Phone Call which won the Raw Nerve competition run by Open Channel. Chris helped out in pre, giving the boys some handy tech advice before, as always, lending a helping hand on the shoot.

To wrap up the month we slowly but surely began moving into our new home. The first thing to go in was the combined library of film books. It’s a bit impressive, I’m not gonna lie.

September

Again another great month for movies but I’ll restrain myself to one trailer this time. One of the best trailers of the year in fact.

September saw the team back on the road shooting all sorts of weird and wonderful projects. The music video that we launched just before Christmas for Melbourne band July Days kept Nick, Chris and Hugh busy while Jacqui felt like flying a little higher whilst in East Timor.

Chris was also back on board with the Daperis Brothers short Phone Call, taking on post producing duties. He also brought on board our good friends Eugene Richards and Craig Jansson who were so gracious in helping us on Hannah and the Hasbian. Those two guys are invaluable friends and colleagues, both masters of their chosen crafts.

Upon his return from New York, Al was keeping busy in Canberra shooting some doco footage for a highly anticipated documentary which will take him around Australia next year with Australian actor Samuel Johnson. More on that in the New Year!

Hannah continued to screen around the globe as we rolled into October where the 48 hour film festival awaited.

October

Talk about a rollercoaster of a month.

The month of October was crazy. Literally freakin’ nuts. To give you an idea here are a bunch of things that happened within the first 2 weeks of October.

• Our very good friend Mike Lutman had a screening of his documentary Plasticized at the Melbourne Environmental Film Festival.
• Jacqui launched her new Ad for the Australian Orangutan Project in association with PlayUp Music.
• This month was hit with an incredibly sad news, not just for the technology industry, but for the entertainment industry and the world as a whole. Steve Jobs was a visionary and sheer genius who pushed every boundary, and challenged every rule. His impact on the world will last for generations. Not only did he co-found Apple then keep it afloat when most thought it would sink, but he also rescued Pixar, and helped it become another of the most cutting-edge and inspirational companies in the world. He’s inspired millions – and will continue to do so for many years to come – us included.
• We announced our partnership with Pocket Bonfire Productions in the launching of the Three One Six Oh film, music and arts festival to be held in 2012 in the Dandenong Ranges.

Apart from these major things, our favourite weekend of the year had also arrived, unfortunately though the 48 Hr Film Festival fell on Nick’s birthday. This didn’t seem to worry anyone too much though as the crew teamed up with LateNite newcomer Michael Shanks to attempt one of the harder 48 hr films in recent memory.

With numerous locations, over 20 actors, having to wrangle RED footage, horses, dance numbers, Muppets and more special effects then you can poke a stick at. It was certainly not going to be easy.

48 hours and several melt downs later and LateNite submitted their entry for the 48 Hour Film Project for 2011 with the working title The Script Machine.

November

Another film that I caught at MIFF which was released a few months later in November. To be honest I wasn’t expecting a lot and what I got was a really funny, sweet little film. You need those every once in a while.

November was an interesting month as Nick took some time off to perform on stage in Stork Theatre Company’s production of Helen by Euripides.

Chris meanwhile got the exciting news that he would be representing LateNite up at SPAA after being accepted into the Emerging Producers Scheme. He joined about 30 other emerging producers from around Australia at the weeklong conference in Sydney and walked away with an enormous spring in his step, excited about the possibilities of the future of film in Australia and also for LateNite. You can read about his experience at SPAA on our blog.

In terms of projects, Jacqui made the big announcement that the second instalment of her Spinning Dreams documentary series, set in Cambodia, would be having its World Premiere in December across 7 cities in 4 countries including Australia, Singapore, Vietnam AND Cambodia.

Hannah continued on its merry way with festival screenings in Chicago, Italy, Spain and also Switzerland.

Chris managed to find some time in his busy schedule to help on one of the TAC Make A Film, Make A Difference shorts for 2011. The winning entry Room for One More was directed by Tom Campbell and will be in cinemas come early 2012.

We had a brand spanking new release from our very good friend and sometimes collaborator Dave Cleeve (and his very talented team at Scene Collective) with his music video for Melbourne based band Kingswood. Chris & Eddie were once again on board to help make the clip happen alongside the incredibly talented of Director of Photography, James Ballard.

All of this craziness aside, there was one night which we looked forward to for the month of November and that was the screenings for the 48 Hour Film Project entries for 2011. Nick unfortunately had to miss the screenings due to being on stage however Chris, as usual, went to every single session.

He was blown away by the jump in standard from the year before and reported back that the entries this year were up there with some of the best 48 hr entries he had seen from the past few years.

It was announced that we had made it into the top 12 and come awards night we were all very nervous. Especially due to solid entries from our great friends and 48 hr competitors The Cameralla and No Man’s Field (formerly BetaMax).

What came was a huge surprise to all of us. And I don’t mean that in an arrogant “please, as if we weren’t gonna win” pretend bullshit kind of way. The whole LateNite team were literally gobsmacked. We knew our film was a really hard sell – I mean to be honest, it’s like being on an acid trip for 7 entire minutes. There were zombies and musical numbers and muppets and horses with lasers for eyes… See what I mean when I say acid trip??? So even the idea of coming close to winning ANYTHING was quite a distance from our minds.

We were fortunate enough to take home the awards for Best Script, Best Sound Design, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Director and the big one, Best Film. I said in my speech over the phone (I was running to the awards night after my play finished so Chris and Lee were good enough to call me) that I was very humbled by how well our film was received and the warmth that people showed towards such a bizarre piece of filmmaking. And I truly meant it.

I feel like our approach to filmmaking is very bold in the respect that even if we’re not sure if we can pull something off, we’ll give it a go anyway.

That’s one thing that I can say that I am truly proud of us for. The fact that even though sometimes it may seem like what we are attempting is insane and completely impossible, we are still prepared to give it a go. Sure there is always a possibility of failure… but if you don’t even attempt the impossible, how do you know if it was impossible in the first place?

December

Most people get pretty crazy busy over the month of December. Even though most people finish up at work, there are Christmas parties and last minute present shopping and holidays to plan and Christmas lunches and New Years plans to finalise, etc, etc, etc.

For us, as well as continuing on our merry way with projects a plenty, December is always a time for us to reflect on the year past. The projects we’ve been involved with, the people we’ve met, the experiences we’ve had and more importantly the people and projects that have inspired us and made us excited about 2012.

If you’re a filmmaker and this is all you know and love, and film is the only thing you want to do with your life, but you spend days and days and days sitting around wondering how it’s gonna happen, then have a look into these people who went above and beyond in 2010/2011, then stop whining, pick up your camera and start shooting. These people are living proof that you have no excuse.

Lena Dunham – Tiny Furniture

Gareth Edwards – Monsters

Edward Burns – Nice Guy Johnny

Realm Pictures – The Underwater Realm

Enzo Tedeschi & Julian Harvey – The Tunnel

Dario Russo & David Ashby – Danger5

If you’ve heard of these people then great. If you have no idea who they are and why they are so inspiring when it comes to indie filmmaking then you better get yo ass on Google and check them out.

So we finish off the year on a high. Jacqui screened Spinning Dreams Cambodia in early December, Nick & Mike played starring roles in the second MAFMAD winner for 2011 entitled Adventure (directed by the very talented Steph Parsons and Tess Fisher and which has also been produced by our multi-talented friend Pete Wells from Inspiration Studios), Hannah continues its path around the world with another screening in Spain, our friends at The Cameralla come runner up in Webfest with their entry Betty and Frank Will Have Sex, some more friends at Wizard Sandwiches wrap up for the year on their exciting web series The Tomasino Brothers (shot by our dear friend Cail Young, also from Inspiration), Mike’s viral YouTube clip goes mental on Christmas Eve and becomes the most viewed video on YouTube for that day with thousands upon thousands of hits, and the slate fills up for what will be an EPIC and EXCITING 2012.

And (if you’ve made it this far) here my friends is a sneak peak of what is to come in 2012…….

• Jacqui is sailing from Africa to Brazil as part of her TOPtoTOP documentary.
• Michael is busily writing his first Sci Fi feature to shoot late 2012 with the working title The Uncanny Valley.
• Nick has a full slate with music videos for Melbourne folk band Huckleberry and Me and Hip Hop guru Grey Ghost on the cards.
• An exciting new feature film written by Amanda Logan with the working title Splinter to be shot mid 2012. Nick will be taking on directing duties.
• An exciting new web series which is a collaboration with some of Australia’s brightest emerging filmmakers on board. Being produced in association with Inspiration Studios.
• Some exciting news on the SAKOOZ front too… but that might be giving too much away!

So there, my friends, is just a taste of things to come.

Excuse my French but 2012 is going to be one putain de exciting year. So please all have a safe and happy New Year from all of us here at LateNite Films. We thank you so much for all your love and support over the last few years, we honestly couldn’t have achieved what we have without you all.

And here tis. The very latest LateNite Films reel for your viewing pleasure.

See you in 2012 all you wonderfully brilliant people.

And what a bloody busy year it has been at LateNite HQ! As the year comes to a close, we here at LateNite feel like it’s important to reflect on an incredibly tough but ultimately rewarding 2011. To complement our stories of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll (hardly) I have decided to throw in some of the great films that were released over the last 12 months. All of which have my personal seal of approval – which is all you need really!

January

The beginning of the year was a fight indeed with the LateNite team having to start the year by “fighting” for some funds to get them over to Miami to watch their multi award winning film, Fallout compete in the Miami International Film Festival for a spot at Cannes. Nick took charge of the art-show campaign with the very talented Thom Holt looking after the band night. Meanwhile, Chris was left to continue post production for our first feature film Hannah and the Hasbian.

The ever hard working Hocking actually took away all the Hannah footage that we shot over 3 days in December and began transcoding the RED footage whilst he was away on holidays! If that’s not commitment I don’t know what is.

The craziness of the new year swept all the way through January with press releases for Miami, Jacqui and Paula having a mad “tweet off” at the Virgin Mobile – Rolling Stone Awards and (possibly the biggest announcement of all) our very good friend Liam McIntyre working his little ass off to land the lead in the hugely popular Starz drama series Spartacus. The beautiful man currently has his face plastered all over Times Square.

The prep was in full swing too for our Feb March to Miami party with bands being booked, art being collected, venues being locked down and booze being sourced for a typical LateNite blow out – we really do go too far sometimes…

February

We did all but cut our own arm off to get this warehouse screening/party off the ground and boy did it go off like a frog in a sock. A big thank you must go out to all the bands that played, the talented artists that donated their amazing art work to be sold and of course all the people whose hard work made these two events what they were. It was very humbling to know that there are people out there who were willing to take a punt on us and who truly believe in what we’re doing. The venue was jam packed both nights, the bar was fully stocked with all kinds of wonderful drinks (although the home brew didn’t quite make it after a minor explosive accident), the slightly-too-big-for-the-venue PA was pumping with some incredible local bands, DJs and comedians – it truly was a EPIC and amazing weekend, with plenty of sore heads on Sunday morning!

Enough money was made to get Chris, myself and Thom to Miami for the screening so we were absolutely stoked and had so much fun putting it all together. Definitely one for the memory bank.

But of course not everything was fun and games with our very own Jacqui Hocking also working hard to orchestrate her own screening with the Australian Premiere of her very successful doco Spinning Dreams. A massive thank you to everyone at Open Channel for allowing us to use Shed4 for the screening. With over 200 attendees, and thousands of dollars raised for Timor Aid, we couldn’t be happier.

Jacqui had a very busy month as not only did she have her screening to organise, she went to East Timor to film footage for the World Vision 48 Hour Famine campaign, filmed at the Sustainable Living Festival, started working with the incredibly talented team at Inspire9, attended the Australian International Documentary Conference, was a guest at the Audi German Film Festival, helped out on the warehouse party AND had an exhibition set up at Federation Square during the weekend of the Tropfest screening in Melbourne. As with everything that Jacqui does, all went off incredibly successfully and the world had its first glimpse of the Spinning Dreams series.

But of course it’s not only our shenanigans that we like to keep track of and plug. We love a good community and there is no better company that we love working with than Inspiration Studios who used the month of February to launch their very own unique web series Sensible Digital Cinema.

March

The trailer above is for an incredibly powerful film that the LateNite boys managed to catch at the Miami International Film Festival. Not only did they get to see this amazing film (it won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award) but they were lucky enough to sit in on a Q & A with the Director Susanne Bier.

There were movies a plenty during our time at the festival so for a more thorough look at what we saw and what we thought you can check out our previous blog posts here.

Anyway it was an incredible month away for us but one which was too EPIC to put into a short month long blog summary so instead I’m gonna give you some dot points:

• Our filmed screening as part of the International Competition for the 48 Hr Film Fest. Unfortunately our screening (as well as the Sydney teams) was riddled with technical issues so needless to say we weren’t the happiest filmmakers in the cinema.
• The boys spent their days at the movies and their nights networking. Met some inspirational filmmakers from all around the world including a Mexican indie filmmaker who made his film on 10,000 with only himself and his actor in the back of a truck. Amazing Stuff.
• The winning film from the 48 Hr was SHIT HOT and starred the ever amazing Martin Freeman (trailer below). The filmmakers were a great bunch of blokes to boot which made us happy.
• Nick & Thom discovered a Cuban way of drinking Corona’s. Roll the top of the bottle in salt and drop in a touch of tabasco – Massive Win.
• Seeing Chris’ little face at Disneyland – he’ll always be a kid at heart!
• And of course, there was the day trip to incredible 6 Flags with our good friends Damien Csehi and Jared Daperis!

The winner of the International 48 Hr Film Festival:

After such an epic month we thought we might get some downtime over April until…

April

…we found out our feature Hannah and the Hasbian had been accepted into a massive Film Fest in San Francisco called Frameline for it’s big World Premiere.

Unfortunately for us the copy submitted in was an incredibly rough cut of the movie so now it was up to Post Master Hocking to get the film rollicking along so that it was ready for its June screening. Chris and Jacqui locked themselves away with Director Gordon Napier to really push out the film and make it the best it could be with the little money and time we had available to us.

We were lucky enough to have the support of The Butchery, the sleepless and unstoppable Eugene Richards at The Refinery, the incredible and beautiful Nidhi Chanani, Justin Viney, all our bands and of course the always amazing Craig Jansson at The Magic Sound Company – who personally went above and beyond what I ever thought was humanely possible.

April wasn’t all fun and games though as we were all very sad to hear of the passing of John Bowring ACS, the founder of LEMAC. John did a hell of a lot for the Australian film industry and his passing was a sad day for film in Australia.

May

What better way to kick off our May summary than with a solid Australian film from 2011. Snowtown was as brutal as it was tense, obviously not a film for the light hearted, it was really made for me by the solid, often frightening performances of its lead actors Daniel Henshall and Lucas Pittaway.

Anyway it was another crazy busy month with lots of exciting announcements and more projects in the pipeline. Our first few announcements were that we were moving into our shiny new office at the much lauded 16th St Acting Studio, a place which has been our home ever since. And also that a film that we supported and were quite heavily involved with called There’s A Hippopotamus on the Roof Eating Cake by Jamie Snyder and Joel Sharpe was to screen at the very prestigious St Kilda Film Festival during May. Very exciting stuff.

Jacqui was busy preparing for the next month, whilst at the same time filming events such as the Mindful Conference.

We continued to push through with post on Hannah, spending more and more time with Craig and Eugene – trying to get the sound and grade locked down before the end of May. It was go go go for most of the month but we pulled through with shining colours. Despite Craig’s unfortunate altercation with a roof, Hannah was in the mail and off to San Francisco…

June

Another month another couple of international festivals to be had.

Not only did Nick, Director Gordon Napier and the Hannah cast head over to San Francisco for the World Premiere of our feature film Hannah and the Hasbian. But our good friends over at Pocket Bonfire Productions, Joel Sharpe and Jamie Snyder, made the long trip to Edinburgh to see their film There’s a A Hippopotamous on the Roof Eating Cake in the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

For us though the month was all about Hannah.

The Frameline Film Festival was an incredibly successful trip with the film playing to a near sold out audience at the famous Roxy Theatre in San Francisco. We got great reviews and some very interested distributers to boot so we were all smiles.

By all accounts the Hannah team had the time of their lives and with the excitement and buzz behind the film, were all ready to send it off around the world.

Although, while Chris & Nick were busy with Hannah & The Hasbian – Jacqui was off to Cambodia with the amazing Michael Lutman for the second instalment of Spinning Dreams.

So that was the first 6 months – you’ll have to wait till after Christmas to hear about the second 6 before we launch into a New Year. But what the hey, we may as well give you a little treat while you wait over the next few days.

So here my friends is LateNite Films Music Video for Melbourne based band July Days…

The reason is this.

On reflection this year (arguably 2-3 years even) has been all about the Gosling Factor.  His choice of script, director and in turn film has been impeccable with him being involved with some of my favourite films from the past few years.  To add to that not only have they been great films in their own right, but a diversity of films from the star studded dramedy Crazy Stupid Love, to the disturbing but artistically beautiful Drive, to finally the taut political thriller The Ides of March.

All three of these films from the last 12 months have blown my mind and for very different reasons.

Crazy, Stupid, Love caught my attention from the word go with perhaps one of the best cut trailers for a romantic comedy.  It had the perfect balance of drama and comedy, showing off the films loveable characters with a perfect blend of music (which included tracks from Goldfrapp and Muse) to compliment it.  Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me:

The film did much the same as the trailer, taking those moments of comedy gold and infusing them with what can only be described as heart.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it was a film that was quite cliché however you tend to be able to look past the convenient plot devices due to the fact that all the performances in the film are so pitch perfect.  Especially Gosling who steps out of his dramatic comfort zone to play a character type that isn’t really something that he has done before.  In fact all the actors step out of their comfort zone with Steve Carrell playing essentially the straight man to Goslings funny man.  If you haven’t already checked it out do yourself a favour, it’s a beautiful little film with great characters, lots of laughs and a killer soundtrack.

The next film I mentioned in the line up above is Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive.

Now Winding Refn is notorious for making quite dark, violent films.  I first came across his work a number of years back at the Melbourne International Film Festival which played all three of Refn’s famous Danish gangland trilogy Pusher.  These films really grabbed me by the nuts as they were raw and visceral but not unnecessarily violent, with Refn having a real talent for knowing when was and wasn’t appropriate to show extreme acts of violence on screen.  I also love these movies due to the fact that he made the first Pusher film when he was only 24.  Anyway the thing I loved so much about Drive is that it literally keeps you on the edge of your seat for the entire film.  Refn paces the film in such a way that the time waiting for something to happen is almost excruciating.   It’s this sort of slow burn and Gosling’s under played performance of “The Driver” that make this film such a compelling watch.  The cool, calm collectiveness of Gosling’s character make his extreme acts of violence even more shocking when they occur.  However with that said I felt at the end of the film that I had watched something quite brutal but also quite beautiful.  Everything he does in that film is for his love interest (Carey Mulligan) and her little boy.  It’s awful what he does but kind of beautiful at the same time.  Hard to explain so I suggest you get it out and make up your own mind as it seems to be one of those films that people either love or hate with a passion.

The last in the trilogy of wins for the Gosling Factor is the George Clooney helmed Ides of March which is based on the play Farragut North by Beau Willimon.

The thing I liked about this movie is that I went in with a low expectation, as I’d heard that it was a little bit disappointing.  I was pleasantly surprised to sit through what I thought was a very well written, acted and crafted political thriller.  Gosling is once again on top form, overshadowing some a great ensemble cast of actors which includes Pail Giamatti, Phillip Seymor Hoffman and of course Clooney himself.  If there was one criticism that I had it was that the movie seemed to take forever to get going.  Once it got going it rocketed along at a cracking pace however it took just a wee bit too long to get to that point.  Would much rather have spaced out the ending to make for a pacier beginning and a slightly slower ending of the film.  All in all though a really solid effort from all involved and once again another solid Gosling movie.

So there you go.  That’s my spiel about Gosling.  As a man who (little known to most people) started out in the Mickey Mouse club with Britney Spears, it’s really wonderful to see Gosling flourishing.  He is really starting to come into his own as an actor and has (and hopefully continues to) made really solid career choices along the way.

You’re amazing big guy  – keep making solid choice and I’ll keep watching your movies.

Colla out.

What an absolutely exciting and intense few days it’s been!

For those that don’t know, I was fortunate enough to be excepted into the Emerging Producers Scheme, allowing me to attend the SPAA Conference in Sydney, which has literally just wrapped.

The Scheme is designed to subsidise and assist newer members of the industry to attend and participate in the Conference by offering a carefully selected group of producers the opportunity to attend the festival at a reduced rate of $770, as well as giving participants the “tools” they need to best “work” the conference.

We were extremely lucky to be provided with two INCREDIBLE mentors – Melanie Coombs and John L Simpson.

Melanie has produced award winning shorts, animation, documentaries and features since 1999. Harvie Krumpet won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Short Animation and Mary and Max opened the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Melanie was awarded  the SPAA Feature Film Producer of Year in 2009 – so we really couldn’t have had someone with more experience and enthusiasm to show us the ropes!

John is an award winning creative producer with over twenty five years’ experience working in the performing arts arena. His film productions have been screened all across the globe, from Rotterdam and Warsaw to Copenhagen, Montreal, Palm Springs, London and Algarve. He was one of the producers of Razzle Dazzle and was co-creator of the powerful Australian film, Men’s Group – a winner of the Digispaa Spaartan Award, and also winner of Best Film, Best Actor and Best Script at the 2008 Inside Film Awards. Through his distribution company, TITAN VIEW, John distributed The Jammed, which is still the highest grossing independent Australian film on screen average ever, during it’s opening two weeks. The Jammed went on to win Best Film, Best Script and Best Score at the Inside Films Awards 2007 and the following year was selected by the United Nations to be screened at international conferences on human trafficking in Vienna, Geneva and New York. Needless to say – John is an absolute expert of the industry, who has probably forgotten more about the business than I will ever know – so it was an incredible opportunity to have him guiding us through the conference floor.

There were thirty one emerging producers in total – from the ACT, NSW, South Australia, Victoria, WA and one International Guest from China:

• Yve Laffey (ACT)
• Brianna O’Donohue (ACT)
• Justene Taylor-Cannon (ACT)
• Daniel Aponte Prypchan (NSW)
• Che Baker (NSW)
• Jimmy Carr (NSW)
• Aaran Creece (NSW)
• Bec Cubitt (NSW)
• Rami Fischler (NSW)
• Julian Galea (NSW)
• Michelle Hardy (NSW)
• Angelique Papadelias (NSW)
• Chloe Rickard (NSW)
• Susan Schmidt (NSW)
• Courtney Wise (NSW)
• Megan Huitema (SA)
• Daniel Joyce (SA)
• Brendon Skinner (SA)
• Tim Standing (SA)
• Kirsty Stark (SA)
• Simon Williams (SA)
• Juliette Buxton (VIC)
• Beverley Callow (VIC)
• Wes Greene (VIC)
• Jess Leslie (VIC)
• Lee Mathews (VIC)
• Clare McGrath (VIC)
• Nic McRobbie (WA)
• Kelrick Martin (WA)

So what does being an emerging producer actually involve? Well, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

To apply for the scheme you basically just needed to fill out an online form – assuming you conformed to the basic terms and conditions (you must be a SPAA Associate Member, it must be your first time to the conference, you must have at least one production credit, you must demonstrate an interest in pursuing a career as a producer, and you can’t have worked extensively as a producer in long-form or television). Apart from providing a CV and basic contact details, the only real thing they ask you is: “why would you like to attend the SPAA Conference (related to your professional development including details of your proven interest as a producer)”. Then once you submitted the form – you just played the waiting game.

Luckily for me and the thirty people above – we were all selected. The next thing to do was book flights and accommodation. My only suggestion is to book early – as hotels book out quickly, and it’s really hard to find cheap accommodation (at least it was in Sydney – as this years conference was at The Hilton). I ended up staying at the Travellodge on Phillip Street, which was actually quite good. It’s wasn’t stupidly expensive, it was walking distance to the venue, the rooms were simple but nice – it’s quite, the shower is good and the best is comfortable. Flights were fairly expensive – but that’s to be expected. I ended up flying with Qantas, as they offered the cheapest flights – although that has meant I had to fly quite early on Sunday morning, and at 3ish on a Thursday to return home, which is not ideal. However, as a broke emerging producer – cheap is more important than sleep!

I want to give a big shout-out and thanks to the incredible Katie Fagan from SPAA – who really looked after us and made sure that all our questions were answered before and during the conference. She’s the membership manager at SPAA, so if you ever have any questions about membership, she’s your girl.

The fun all started on Sunday afternoon. To start things off – all the emerging producers met at The Hilton for an introductory session with John and Melanie, as well as pitch mentors Joan Lofts and Diana Manson (thanks to the ABC). As predicted, each member of the group needed to “stand up” and explain who they were, what they do, and what they want to get out of the conference – and I must say, even at this stage, I was realising just how lucky I was to be surrounded by such an amazing group of young and inspired, talented filmmakers. After everyone introduced themselves, Melanie and John offered up 20 tips for a successful SPAA. I won’t list all of them here, but the general gist was:

• Producing is NOT cool. You will be humiliated at some stage in your career – but at the same time, don’t pitch unless asked to do so (although you will be humiliated at some stage – it’s still best to be avoided!).
• Producing is NOT a competition. You need to play nice with your peers so that everyone can succeed.
• Be a good person. Don’t lie, don’t exaggerate, don’t slag anyone off, and just be nice.
• Be fun and have fun.

And with advice (along with a whole collection of funny stories) – it was off to the first official SPAA event – Welcome drinks at The Loft. There’s not really much I can say about this – apart from it was a really great start to the conference. Basically, all thirty emerging producers were thrown in a bar jam-packed with other much more experienced producers, and left to our own devices – to network, and make new contacts, but with the safety net of having thirty of “our own kind” to always go back to if conversations dry up. For me personally – I spent most of the night getting to know the emerging producers in the group, but also ran into a good friend who I worked with on my first ever properly paid gig, and haven’t seen for years, which was a very nice surprise – who also introduced me to some good people to know. It wasn’t a late night – which was good, as this was going to be a big few days anyway (and I also needed to tweak some things on our new website).

And then… it was day one. First up, everyone from the conference (I would imagine there was about 2000 people), met in the Grand Ballroom at The Hilton, for the Plenary Speech from Geoff Brown (Executive Director of SPAA) and Brian Rosen (President of SPAA). Having never heard either of these people speak before, I have to say that I was quite impressed. Geoff Brown just oozes with intelligent and wit, however Brian’s talk was especially powerful, and right on the money (at least in my opinion) in terms of some of the issues that the industry faces, and possibly ways we could work around them. Next up was the Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture – which was basically a history lecture, much as you would experience in University – taken by industry veteran, and previous Australian of the Year, Nigel Dick. During a long and distinguished career Nigel has worked at the highest levels of the Australian television industry as a former chairman of HSV 7, Southern Cross Communications and chief executive of GTV 9, TCN 9 and the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand. Now, at the age of 83, he is writing a PhD thesis in the history department of Melbourne University. It just goes to show – once a hard worker, always a hard worker! The general gist of his talk was that history is basically repeating itself, and a lot of the mistakes from the past, can be used a lessons for the future. You can read the complete lecture on Screen Hub – which I highly recommend.

After the lecture, and a few other house keeping talks, it was time for morning tea. Let me know just take the opportunity to say that the food throughout the whole conference was absolutely incredible. Lunches and morning tea at the Hilton, dinners at the various events and nibbles throughout the conference were all first class. The waiting staff at the Hilton were also fantastic, and always on the ball. Having worked on many high-profile conferences over the years in both Australia and overseas (as a lighting operator) – I can honestly say that this once of the best conferences I’ve been to in terms of food and hospitality.

After a coffee, cookie and party pie – it was time to head to the first Breakout Session.

But first, to give you a rough idea of how the conference is organised, there are basically a few different elements:

• There are several Breakout Sessions throughout the day, split into different rooms for 360 (i.e. New Media), Television, Feature Films, and Kids.
• There are Roundtables throughout the day, which give delegates an interactive opportunity to meet informally with speakers, industry decisions makers and financiers in a relaxed environment amongst a small group (a maximum of nine people) of their peers. Bookings are made on a first come, first serve basis and is a great way to just have a chat with experts in the industry.
• There are a few Heavyweights Half Hour sessions – which are basically just industry leaders giving a much more focussed session explaining who they are, what they do, the commitment level of their company, how they partner with Australia, and what they are looking for.
• SPAAmart is a market place full of projects chosen by the quality of submission. Project teams meet with local and international investors (co-producers, financiers, sales agents and distributors) appropriate to their financing needs in pre-arranged mettings with the aim of establishing relationships, building upon past relationships and deal-making for the benefit of their project.
• Scriptworks Feature Scriptclinic is one-to-one sessions that allow you to discuss your feature film project with a team of experienced script editors, writers, directors, agency readers and general project trouble shooters.
• There are also a number of Pitching Opportunities, such as a closed-door pitch with Disney, the Holding Redlich Pitching Competition, 360 Market (an opportunity to meet executives who are active in the digital space) and Ready Steady Pitch (which allows you to pitch your project to a network executive in 5 minutes with feedback given afterwards).

My first Breakout Session was Rockstars of the Internet. Basically it was a “meet the filmmakers” sessions with three inspiring filmmakers who have made their mark on the Internet.

For anyone who knows anything about YouTube, Natalie Tran really needs no introduction.

As of March 2011, Tran has 273 videos available on her YouTube channel and is the most-subscribed user of all time in Australia, the 26th most subscribed of all time on YouTube, and the 7th-most subscribed director worldwide. She also manages the 58th most viewed channel on YouTube of all time. Tran has more than 920,000 subscribers and more than 350 million views. Needless to say – her videos are extremely popular, and she’s making quite a nice living off doing something that she just honestly really loves. She basically does everything in her videos herself – she acts in them, films them, edits them as posts them. The production quality isn’t great – but audiences just love her humour and her clever skits.

After giving us a summary of what she does, and what she’s all about she did give some words of wisdom:

• Having a loyal audience is incredibly important, because it means if you start a new venture, you don’t have to start from scratch – the audience will follow you.
• You can accumulate views over time. Don’t worry too much if you don’t start with a bang, as consistency is much more important.
• Respect your audience! Don’t treat them like idiots, don’t try to trick them.
• You must build a relationship with your audience – but it needs to be a legitimate and honest relationship. Just having a Facebook page and Twitter feed is not enough. You need to start a conversation with your fans – but don’t start that conversation for no reason. Noise is bad.
• Familiarity is the most important thing for people like Natalie. What she does is basically the same as FM radio. Despite the fact that there are several drive time radio shows that all basically have the same format – they each have their own style, which attracts different audience members. In the online world – this is exactly the same. You need to be unique, and create a platform that people want to connect with.

Natalie was a great speaker, with a really great sense of humour. She’s a dork – but she loves what she does, and has made a really great place for herself. Given that her videos don’t cost a cent to make – the fact that she’s pulling in way over $100,000 a year in advertising revenue really says something.

Dario Russo was one of the creators of the incredibly funny, and massively successful Italian Spiderman, a film parody of Italian action–adventure films of the 60s and 70s.

The project began as a trailer for a non-existent film, produced as a student film at Flinders University by Dario for his final year Screen Production project. The “trailer” was shot, over the course of one day, on 16 mm film using an older style camera to achieve an authentic look for the films of that era.

Publicized as an actual lost Italian action film from the late 1960s, the film was later uploaded onto YouTube on 8 November 2007 where it has gained a massive cult following with over 3.2 million hits as of August 2010. With some of mainstream media taking interest in the film, this led to the South Australian Film Corporation giving the filmmakers funding for ten more short films. The first installment of the “feature film” premiered across the Internet on 22 May 2008, and further installments followed on a weekly basis. The series was well-received, but ended on a cliffhanger. And then, like so many projects – it all fell to shit, for reasons Dario couldn’t go into – but reading between the lines, basically he had a massive falling out with other members of his team.

But despite the fact that they basically had to abandon Italian Spiderman, and were never able to make any money off the film, SBS were still very interested in investing in the filmmakers – and so three years after the Italian Spiderman debacle, a new company Dinosaur, and new project, Danger 5 evolved. Set in a bizarre 1960′s inspired version of World War II, this action comedy series follows a team of five spies on a mission to kill Hitler. The concept will start as a 5 part web-series, and then continue on as a 6 part television show on SBS.

Dario is a character – and I have to say his talk was probably the most entertaining and funniest of the conference. He’s words of wisdom? Just keep at it. Despite the stuff-up that his first project brought with it – he just kept bashing along, and now Danger 5 looks to be another cult classic.

Joe Brumm has 14 years experience as a director and animator and a passion for making things move around the screen. A strong background in traditional animation informs all his work and his love of translating complex ideas into pictures is the driving force behind his directorial roles. He has done stints on many successful children’s series, including the multiple Bafta winning Charlie And Lola, Little Kingdom, Little Princess, I Am Not An Animal and Tinga Tinga Tales. His independent shorts have screened at numerous international animation festivals, including Annecy, the New York Animation Festival, and Animadrid, and his more offbeat creations have a spread around the Internet like a virus.

His latest venture is called Dan The Man – which is taking the Internet by storm, already, despite the fact that he hasn’t actually launched the web-series yet. Joe has always had a great love for computer games – so when he had a great idea for a web-series based on computer game characters, he just knew he had to make it. After approaching various people, and getting rejected, he decided to do it himself, with all his good friends from his hometown of Brisbane. When he released the first episode on YouTube, within one month the video got a million hits – so he knew he was on to something. But it wasn’t an instant success. You can’t just upload something and instantly receive a million hits. What he did was post his video around on other sites – such as animation sites, and spread the word that way. Once the animation and gaming community found out about the short – word spread fast – very fast!

Now that he had some street cred, after discussions with a Brisbane-based game developer – finally he had the backing to turn his idea into a full-blown series.

Founded in 2001, Halfbrick has been on the forefront of the Australian game development industry for many years. Recently, after many years of developing licensed titles for platforms such as GBA, DS and PSP, Halfbrick has begun expanding its portfolio with a range of independently released games for downloadable platforms. With the success of Fruit Ninja on iPhone and iPad, Halfbrick has catapulted to become one of the most well known indie developers in the world, proving that a little dev down under has the world class skills needed to make a big splash on the global market.

Joe and Halfbrick decided that Dan The Man needed to be made, and so the game developer funded the project, and they have just finished production of seven episodes, which will be released in January next year. However, the twist is, that the last episode of the web series will be a cliff-hanger, and you won’t be able to find out what happens without downloading a iPhone app, which will allow you to “play out” the ending. Given the success of Fruit Ninja – it’s safe to assume that Dan The Man is going to kick some serious butt as well. The iPhone game will be released in February after the end of the web-series.

What advice does Joe have?  You need to have a hook – something that instantly grabs the audiences attention. For Joe it was having a show that looks and SOUNDS like the old 8-bit games that a lot of people grew up with. Audiences have an INCREDIBLY short attention span on the Internet – so you really need to grab their attention straight away. The first few seconds of your video are VITAL to really grab your viewers attention.

The final speaker of the day was Richard North from YouTube. Everyone knows what YouTube is, how popular it is, and most people understand the partnership arrangement. However, here are some tips he shared that may be of some interest:

• Understand your audience and where they hang out.
• Beware of online habits.
• Connect with your community – make them feel empowered.
• Understand all the different ways to monetise. Don’t just rely on YouTube – there are plenty of other services out there that may compliment YouTube’s offerings.
• Don’t be naive! Work hard!
• The first 15sec of your video is absolutely vital to get right. Get straight into your content – don’t have a boring introductory video or anything.
• Make your content discoverable. Use sensible naming and tagging.
• Work hard to give users what they want.

By this time, I was getting hungry – so luckily it was time to eat! Over lunch was the Holding Redlich Pitching competition held by Rhys Muldoon. The three finalists were:

Claire Evans and her project Crime Plays – an locative game.

Claire Marshall and her project, Book Jumpers – a children/teen adventure TV series.

Marisa Martin and her project, The Della Morte Sisters – a young adult TV series.

Then after a delicious lunch it was back to another breakout session.

The next session I went to was It’s All Foreign to Me: Casting Across Borders. Although an extremely interesting, entertaining and intense session – rather than recreating the wheel, I recommend that you check out the summary on Screen Hub for all the details, as they have done a much better summary of the event than what I could have. The generally summary though is that producers are VERY unhappy with the MEAA, and the fact that no one from the MEAA wanted to come along to SPAA just threw more fuel on the fire.

After morning tea, all the emerging producers had a up-close-and-personal presentation from the Screen Australia marketing team. Here are some highlights of some of the things that were discussed:

• There will be a co-production deal with India in 2012 and a deal with Korea to happen in the not-so-distant future.
• Check out the new Screen Australia campaign – Celebrate Australian Stories.
• Screen Australia has released a whole collection of extremely useful Marketing Guides.
• “Australia is the New China” according to Charlotte Mickie.
• What’s Selling:
• Romantic Comedies
• Cast Driven Projects
• Genre Films with a Twist
• Exceptional Drama
• Docos with Universal Appeal
• Sales commissions are generally 15-25% in Australia
• Marketing Material should be idiot proof.
• Things to think about in regards to your project:
• Audience?
• Purpose?
• Budget?
• Local Plans?
• International Strategy?
• Animal Kingdom and Mary & Max made the most money in France.

After that it was up to the Grand Ballroom again for two Plenary talks – The Future is Digital & The Future is Now, and Politics, Policy & Profit: The 3 P’s of Convergence. Austin Bryan talked about the changing consumer habits and the explosion of digital devices and platforms, and how they have affected the way we all consume content. You can download the complete speech here.

Next up Stephen Carter spoke about our industry from the perspective of someone who runs one of the world’s largest telecommunications systems and solutions providers.

With all the formal talks out of the way – the night brought with it the SPAA Conference Dinner & Independent Producers Awards at Doltone House on Jones Bay Wharf – which we travelled to and fro via bus from The Hilton. It was a really great night with fantastic food – a few funny speeches, and lots of great people to chat to. You can find a list of all the winners of the Independent Producers Awards here. We were extremely happy to see Enzo Tedeschi up there collecting his award for the work done on The Tunnel Movie – as we are massive fans of everything they’ve done. After a really great night, it was time to go to bed and get some well deserved rest!

Day Two opened with a really fantastic Plenary talk with Gareth Neame in the Grand Ballroom. Gareth is Managing Director of NBCUniversal’s TV production in the UK, expanding on his previous role as Managing Director of Carnival Films, the independent production company Neame sold to NBCUniversal in 2008. He now oversees all UK television production initiatives in Drama, Comedy and Entertainment. He is tasked with increasing NBCUniversal’s presence in the UK, building on the significant success of Carnival. Again, you can read all about the conversation on Screen Hub. One thing worth mentioning though, is that the BBC normally spends 12 days per episode for something like Spooks at around 3/4 million per episode – which seems like a lot compared to the shoot schedules in Australia!

After morning tea in the Digital Pictures Lounge Ballroom Lobby (on a side note the talented fokes at DP did all the amazing SPAA artwork and animations – great work!), it was off to another 360 breakout session – first up Your Underground Audience.

Moderated by Lori Flekser, the managing director fo the Motion Pictures Distributors Association of Australia (MPDA) – this session focussed primarily on piracy. The speakers were Neil Gane, from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), Mark Lazarus, Producer of The Loved Ones, and Anton Andreacchio, from Convergen - which offer a pipeline of services to try and prevent online piracy, as well as provide extensive tracking services. This was a really interesting session – as it very much seemed to be the audience (i.e. producers) against the panel (or at least against the views of AFACT). Again, Screen Hub have done a great job of covering this session, so check there write-up out, as well as this article on The Slap. One thing though that I found really funny, was Lori’s closing remarks – “It’s better to download than buy Plastic”. Another useful fact was that in Australia 49% of all cinemas are now Digital.

During lunch, all the emerging producers split up into their various states, and members of their state funding bodies sat at their tables. For us, we had one lady from Film Victoria – who gave us some information and advice on the various functions and services they can provide. To be perfectly honest – I was a little disappointed. I would have loved to have more than one person from the funding body at the table, as there were six emerging producers from our state. Also, there are very little services and support for EMERGING producers when interacting with Film Victoria. All feature film funding requires an ESTABLISHED director or producer attached to the project – which is very annoying, for us, as we would much prefer to tackle the project ourselves, with the ASSISTANCE of Film Victoria. However, despite my person complaints about the way Film Victoria operates (especially compared to other State funding bodies) – lunch was great, and the woman on our table was very nice and supportive.

After lunch, it was over to my most anticipated session – Sharing The Distribution Love. For those that have been following our Twitter feed for a while, you would have noticed that we are massive fans of The Tunnel Movie, so I was personally really excited to see what Enzo and Julian had to say about distribution. Moderated by Seph McKenna (the head of Australia Production at Roadshow Films), also on the panel was Bart Walker one of the founders of Cinetic Media in the US, and Daniel Dubiecki, one of the producers of Juno, and Thank You For Smoking. As usual, Screen Hub have done some great coverage of this session – so it’s well worth checking out. However, here are some notes:

• The six major US studios are only making tent-pole films
• There are lots of opportunities for mid-level films, as studios aren’t making them
• Iron Sky is a great example of using crowd sourcing to fund your movie. We have already signed up for the Sneak Peak feature – and we highly recommend you do the same. There’s some great content in there!
• Juno did 300 college screenings prior to it’s official release to create buzz, as well as releasing a collection of funny animations based on the script – but released them as fan-artwork (not even the filmmakers knew that they were created as a publicity stunt!)
• The challenge with independent films is always MARKETING
• The Tunnel Movie used the yet-to-be-released MoFix to power their iPad App. The exact figures haven’t been released yet – but it’s estimated to cost around $5-6 grand to build your own iPad App for your film using their service (as opposed to $20-30K for a custom built iPad App)
• It’s sometimes better to aim for a small audience in LOTS of different places, as opposed to just focussing on one screening point
• The 135K brand is something that The Tunnel guys plan to use again for another film
• Check out The Audience Republic - it has some really great resources for filmmakers looking to move into the digital world

After that fantastic session I went to a round table discussion with Wynston Alberts from Google/YouTube. I basically just asked a whole lot of specific questions that about the Partnership program – so you can find out more about the YouTube Partnership program here. One of the big questions from the other people on the table was about the new 100 funded channels program that is happening in the US – so it’s worth reading this as well. And after a few casual drinks at the very expensive bar – it was another day wrapped!

Almost as quick as it all began – it was already the last day of the conference. First up in the Grand Ballroom, was the Plenary – Working Like a Dog to be King of the Castle. We were fortunate enough to have two of the biggest names in Australian producing at the conference, Emile Sherman (producer of The Kings Speech), and Nelson Woss (producer of Red Dog).

Moderated by Sandy George from Screendaily.com, this was an absolutely fantastic talk discussing how both films came to be, the troubles they faced, the lessons learnt and what’s planned for the future. You can read a great article about the talk on Inside Film. Here are some random points I picked up:

• Despite the fact that it was always planned as a commercial studio film – Red Dog has had a really great festival run
• Make a pre-sellable film – that way you can return money to investors on pre-sales
• Film Nation was the sales agent for The Kings Speech
• Red Dog took 8 years to make, and was a follow up to Ned Kelly
• None of the originally planned Cast in Red Dog ended up in the final film
• Nelson was on a “mission from dog”
• It costs between $20-40 million for P+A in the US for release
• Red Dog had no target audience – because 7 to 70 year olds all loved it!
• One of the big investors on The Kings Speech (a bank) feel through a week before shooting
• Emile is a big fan of the “French system” – where every dollar from your box office goes towards your next film.
• The Red Dog crew had to have random drug tests throughout the whole shoot, given that they were shooting on a mining operation
• Emile aims to make 1-2 feature films a year with his company See-Saw-Films.

Koko was up on stage as well – and I have to say, he was a very well behaved dog!

Next up was a breakout session titled – Don’t be a Bull in the China Shop – which focussed on the new co-production treaty between Australia and China. As usual, Screen Hub did a great job of covering it – so I highly recommend you go and have a read of their views. Personally, I don’t plan to do a co-production with China anytime in the immediate future – however this was an incredibly interesting discussion, especially I was in China only last year. Here are some notes that I took away:

• Check out the China Law Blog
• Unlike the West, contracts are only the STARTING POINT for negotiations, and are not considered binding.
• China made 600 films this year, up 526 from last year
• There are 8819 screen in China – 7411 are Digital, 4751 are 3D and there are 50 IMAX screens
• China allows 20 films per year to be imported into their country (co-productions are not included)
• There is a 13:87 revenue share (vs 40:60)
• Co-Production Rules:
• 1/3 Cast Must be Chinese
• 50% of the crew must be Chinese
• There are strict censors and regulators on both the Script & Finished Film
• Karate Kid:
• $358 million box office world wide
• $7 million box office in China
• $40 million dollar budget
• Challenges with Co-Productions:
• Application process is extremely slow, and not transparent
• Script approvals are highly subjective
• China/Australia Co-Productions:
• 33 Post Cards
• The Dragon Pearl
• Co-Production Tip: Commit to the budget and story – but develop the actual script in China to avoid major re-writes and approvals nightmares in the pre-production stages. You can ONLY obtain a filming permit once you’re in pre-production.
• In China, Co-productions ARE Joint Ventures as far as the Chinese Government is concerned.
• There are no collection agencies or managers in China
• There is a lack of clarity in accounting
• You need to satisfy multiple levels of approval:
• Chinese Government
• Australian Government
• Chinese Market
• Australian Market
• International Market

The general outcome from the discussion was that doing an co-production with China is not easy, and there are a lot of cultural differences – HOWEVER, the benefits can be fantastic.

During another wonderful lunch – we were shown a film as part of the Showtime Movie Channels Talent Assist Scheme, called Peek-a-boo, a short film written and directed by Damien Power produced by Joe Weatherstone. It was an extremely powerful, and if you get a chance to watch it at festivals, I highly recommend it.

And almost as quickly as it began, it was time for the last breakout session of the conference – The Yellow Brick Road. Moderated by the inspiring and passionate Jennifer Wilson from The Project Factory - this was the perfect end to the conference.

Sam Smith from Red Lever spoke about his company, and the kinds of projects he does, like The Green Way Up. Quite controversially he stated that the “creative agency is a dying breed”.

Ricky Sutton, the head of video at Fairfax Digital spoke about their online media offerings, such as smh.tv. They offer a 50/50 revenue share with all content providers, on a non-exclusive deal. There are two pre-roll ads, and an ad break every 8 minutes – so the longer your content, the better. These guys are really thinking outside the box – and when they first started, they trawled through Bit Torrent to find what content audiences are looking for, bought licenses to that content, offered it on their own site, then advertised their offerings on Bit Torrent! Now that’s clever thinking from an older style media company! There have been 23 years worth of video watched on the site since it’s launch four months ago – which is quite impressive!

David MacDonald from YouTube spoke about their offerings. It’s worth checking out their new Lean Back service – which looks great on a TV screen. Although he couldn’t release exact figures, it’s estimated that a million views = about $1000 in revenue.

Nick Love from Shine 360 spoke about his company as an “integrated brand business” and explained that a lot of brands are now going direct to his company, as opposed to through a traditional agency.

I think it’s safe to say that digital media is going to play a massive role in the future of our industry, so it was great to get an update on what all the different “players” are doing.

And with the last session of the conference complete, it was off to the Zeta Bar for some final networking, goodbye’s and a conference wrap. All the emerging producers had a group hug – which was a great way to end the conference.

Overall, my experience at the conference was amazing. I had such a great time – and it was such an honour to be able to “hang out” with so many amazing emerging and established producers. Not only did I learn a huge amount – but I have also walked away with a new collection of like-minded friends, who just really want to make films – which is very exciting.

Once again, a MASSIVE thank you to Melanie, John and Katie for all their hard work and support.

If you ever need mentoring or consultant producing services – please get in touch with Optimism! Melanie is an absolutely wonderful human being – with such much incredible knowledge of our industry, and how to make films happen. She’s experienced – but most importantly – she’s really honest and open. She doesn’t bullshit you – she gives you advice that’s relevant, and actually helpful to achieving your goals. Have a look at her credit list, then have a chat to her on the phone, and I guarantee you’ll be sold.

The SPAA experience was wonderful. I can’t wait to do it all again next year – as an EMERGED producer!

Onwards & Upwards!

Best Regards, Chris!

For those that don’t know us – for the past three years we have entered into the 48 Hour Film Project competition in Melbourne. We absolutely love it – because it forces you to “bash out” a film over a weekend, with no excuses. You can’t delay things, you can’t reschedule, you just need to make it happen – which is what we’re really all about.

The incredible Mr. Thom Holt originally introduced us to the competition, wanting to team up to create what would become, Handle With Care. Thom’s team actually won the International Competition the year before, so although we didn’t quite match their track record, we were still fortunate enough to win Best Script and Best Character at the Melbourne awards. It was an amazingly fun weekend. Thom, Nick and the cast wrote up a script on the Friday night, then we shot it on Saturday and edited on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Although the pressure was intense (we were exporting in the car on the way to the Federation Square drop-off point!) – it was such an enjoyable experience, and we certainly learnt a lot from the whole process. We had a small crew, shot on a HVX, and just made the most of what we had. I’m incredibly proud of our little film – but we all knew we could create something even more magical if we put more prep work in.

The next year, we decided to step it up a notch, and enlisted a much bigger cast and crew of people we’ve worked with lots of times before. When we received the genre of thriller/suspense, Nick and Thom made a judgement call to shoot at my parents property in the Dandenong Ranges at night, because we could make it look dark and scary, and they would come up with a script on the one hour car ride there. Luckily for us, they came up with some really good ideas, and when they arrived at Olinda, they pitched their ideas to the cast, and let them start thinking about dialogue and blocking. Like the previous year, it was very much run and gun, and “make it up as you go along” – but this time we had a much bigger crew, and more gear to throw at problems. We shot all night Friday night, all day Saturday, and then started post production on Saturday night. This time we shot on a Canon 1D MK4 with beautiful Compact prime lenses. All the hard work certainly paid off, as we won Best Directing, Best Sound Design, Best Musical Score and Best Overall Film, which allowed us to head over to Miami for the International competition.

Going to Miami was an absolute highlight – as not only did we get to watch our film up there on the big screen, but we got to really experience what a big International Film Festival has to offer. Although we didn’t come close to winning the International Competition – we discovered just how good the competition was.

And so, this year, we decided to throw everything we had at the comp! We called up everyone we normally work with, and told them that we were going to shoot something bold and almost impossible. We rounded up car rigs, underwater cameras, dolly’s, jib’s, smoke machines – everything we could get our hands on (even a Muppet). Instead of shooting on a Digital SLR, we decided to shoot on a RED ONE MX. Although you can’t write a script before the weekend of craziness – we did as much prep work as we possibly could. We went location scouting, and tried to find as many different options as possible, so that regardless of what genre we were given, or what the character was – we would have options. We even organised a old car, that we were planning to blow up (which unfortunately we never were able to – as we just didn’t have the time to do it safely).

The shoot was epic to say the least. Multiple locations, lots of actors, a huge amount of complex setups, special effects make-up, underwater rigs, car mounts – even a horse (which as you can guess, decided it didn’t really want to be filmed, and got quite upset when we pointed a camera at his direction).

Post Production was equally insane – as we had massive 4K files to process, and a handful of visual effects shots that needed to be completed.

However – we made it, and although the film is absolutely insane – the judges must have been on our wavelength, as we picked up an unprecedented amount of awards - Best Script, Best Director, Best Sound Design, Best Editing and Best Overall Film. To be completely honest – we never expected this to happen. We knew we were doing something big, something to push all boundaries – but we never though the concept was good enough to push us across the line. You can throw as many tricks at a film – but without a good story, it’s nothing. Luckily for us – it seems the judges though our script wasn’t too shabby after all.

Although there have been some amazing films over the last two years in the competition – this year was a certain standout. The top twelve films were all fantastic. Although there were one or two I didn’t like – I can’t argue that they didn’t have been fixed to the big screen. Each and every film DEMANDED your attention. Personally, “Gore Street” and “Like Me” (the two films that opened the awards night) were my favourites, and it’s such an honor to be up against such tough competition.

And now.. we need to start planning to head to New Mexico for the International Competition, which is very exciting!

However, that’s not all that’s happening. As you would have noticed, we have just re-vamped our website. This is our first major overhaul since we set up the site many years ago – and we still have a lot to do on it, but by putting the blog and main site on the one easy to navigate place, we think you’ll find it a lot better.

And… in a few hours I need to head across to the opening night of the SPAA Conference. I was lucky enough to obtain a “Emerging Producers” grant to attend the festival, which is very exciting.

So, as usual – it’s all happening at LateNite HQ! Now that we have restructured the layout of the website, we will be in a much better position to post more detailed blogs and news – so definitely stay tuned for updates.

Onwards & Upwards!

Best Regards, Chris!

Back in October last year, I was invited to speak to the 3rd and 4th year students at Swinburne University about Post Production Workflows (if you haven’t already, you can read about everything I discussed last time here). A couple of weeks ago I was invited back again to cover the same sort of thing with a whole new bunch of 3rd year students.

Not surprisingly, a fair bit has changed in the months between the lectures, so I thought it might be useful to document some of the new things I discussed on this blog. I’m obviously not going to go into as much detail as I did in the lecture, and in a lot of cases I will just provide links to other articles, rather than going through things step-by-step, but if you do have any questions, or if anything is unclear, just let me know!

One question that lots of students had was, when you’re shooting with cameras such as the RED or ARRI Alexa that shoot such big files (and generally speaking people end up shooting a lot more footage with digital formats than if they were shooting with film – just because they can) – what’s the best way to store all this media when you’re a poor student filmmaker?

Backing up and later ARCHIVING your media is incredibly important – as I’m sure everyone can appreciate. I know at least a handful of filmmakers who have COMPLETELY lost their films, simply because they didn’t have their files adequately backed up. One poor girl had two copies of the media stored in two completely separate locations – but purely due to bad luck (a house fire at her Mum’s house and a electrical storm at her Dad’s house), even that wasn’t enough. Gone are the days of having a tape backup of everything (so at least you can re-capture all your media if a drive dies) – now days almost everything is stored digitally on really cheap hard drives.

Recently, Sony in the UK had a massive fire due to the recent riots, and their whole warehouse got burnt down, with thousands of DVD all going up in smoke (have a read of Chris Jones blog if you haven’t already). If you had your master stored at this facility – you’d be pretty worried right about now!

Given these sorts of horror stories, we always recommend that you have THREE copies of your media, in TWO different locations (although, three would be better!), on at least TWO different formats. For example, in the professional world we normally have one or two LTO copies of all the camera originals for archiving purposes, and then also have it on three hard drives for easy access.

However, if you’re a poor film student, then archiving to LTO might not be a viable option.

An blank LTO5 tape will cost you around AUD$115.00, which has a native data capacity of 1.5 TB. If you’re shooting a short film to RED, then you may be able to get all your R3D files onto the one LTO – which isn’t that much compared to a hard drive. So if you can hunt down a production house that has an LTO deck you can use for a few hours, then that might be a really viable option. LTO’s a great, because as they are tape based, you can store them on a shelf and not worry about having to check them every few months (like you have to do with a hard drive – which are designed to be “spun up” every now and again).

If you were to buy an LTO deck for use on a MacPro it will cost you around:

ExpressSAS Card = $594.00
HP Ultrium 3000 SAS External Tape Drive LTO5 = $2,594.90
BRU PE Producers Edition for Mac OS X = $649.00
TOTAL: AUD$3837.00

Although not cheap – long term, it makes a lot of sense to archive to LTO as opposed to hard drives, so if you produce a lot of media, then it’s really worth the investment.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you download and have a good read through Silverado’s white paper on Archiving for Indies, as it covers this whole topic of LTO arching in great detail.

But assuming you don’t have any friends that have an LTO deck you can use – what’s the next best thing that’s affordable for students?

My suggestion would be to store all your CAMERA & AUDIO ORIGINALS (i.e. the R3D files or ProRes 4444 files) on THREE separate drives, stored at THREE separate locations. In terms of a student film, I would give one drive to the editor, one to the director, and one to the producer (assuming they’re not all the same people). You might even be able to store a drive at your University, just for good measure – or maybe you just leave a drive at your grandparents house in a top cupboard for the duration of the post production process.

To keep things as cheap as possible, my suggestion would be to just use bare drives (i.e. drives without an enclosure). You can pick up a Seagate 500 GB drive for as little as $42.00, or a 1 TB drive for $59.00 – which is pretty incredibly cheap if you think back to how much drives costed only a few years ago. You can buy these drives from any computer reseller, however if you’re near the city – then somewhere like Computer & Parts Land (CPL) in West Melbourne is a great option – as they’re cheap, open long hours and they normally have heaps of drives in stock. There are also plenty of online resellers that sell these kinds of drives really cheaply.

So how do you actually connect these drives to your computer? Luckily, there are heaps of different hard drive docking stations out there, so you have plenty of options – some that are really cheap, others that are built incredibly well, and cost a bit more money. For example, the product pictured above cost $29.00 from online reseller MacFixIt. There are plenty of options out there, including enclosures that have two bays (such as this one – $65 from CPL) – so it’s worth just doing a bit of Googling to see which enclosure is right for you.

On this topic though – one very important thing to keep in mind BEFORE you purchase an enclosure is what kind of connection are you going to use? Given that you will be moving around very large chunks of data – the fastest connection you can get the better. If you’re lucky enough to have a new Apple laptop – then maybe a Thunderbolt drive is your best option. Thunderbolt I/O technology gives you two channels on the same connector with 10 Gbps of throughput in both directions meaning you can move data to and from peripherals up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0 and up to 12 times faster than with FireWire 800. The only downside is that as the technology is new, only a few products exist on the market currently, and their expensive. The next best option is eSATA. If you have a MacPro, then you’ll either need to purchase a eSATA card ($65 from MacFixIt), or you can get a cable that actually connects to the motherboard of the Mac ($25 from MacFixIt) – or if you’re on a 17″ MacBook Pro, you can buy a ExpressCard with eSATA connections ($29 from CPL or MacFixIt). If you can’t afford to upgrade to eSATA – then you’re best bet is FireWire 800. FireWire 400 and USB are generally a bit too slow for throwing around lots of data – but if that’s all you’ve got then that’s all you’ve got. Basically – just go with the fastest option you can afford, and remember you’re only as fast as the weakest link (for example if you’re copying from a USB card reader to a Thunderbolt drive – the bottleneck will be the USB card reader).

So now you should have all your camera originals stored on three separate drives in three separate locations. But that’s really just the start. You now have to make media files which you’ll actually use for the offline process. If you’re shooting on RED, you might use REDCINE-X to transcode all the R3D files to ProRes or DNxHD – or if you’re shooting Alexa, you may just be working with the native ProRes files directly off the camera. I would recommend having two copies of all the offline material – one kept with the director and one with the editor (again, assuming they’re not the same person) – that way if you accidentally drop your drive the day before you need to export EDLs or OMFs – you can just jump straight back onto the backup drive. In a perfect world, it would be great to work off a RAID-protected (meaning, a Redundant Array of Independent or Inexpensive Disks) drive, as opposed to a standard drive for added protection. You can pick up two bay enclosures from as little as $149.00 from MacFixIt that allow you to run what’s called a RAID 1 – which basically mirrors the content from one drive to another. If you’re working with a huge amount of footage, then maybe a four-bay enclosure that supports RAID 5 (which means that if one of the four drives fails, then you can still re-build the information using the three other drives) would be a better option. If you want to learn more about how RAID protection works, there are plenty of resources out there on the Internet, such as this video.

Backing up the offline media to hard drives is really the only viable option. However, backing up project files from Final Cut Pro or Avid is a completely different story, as the files sizes are so small. As an added precaution, I would always keep multiple backups of your actual edit – just in case. How you do this is really up to you – maybe you can just store all your backups on a fairly large USB Stick (4 GB for $14.95 at MacFixIt - although sometimes you can buy even cheaper and bigger flash storage from places like Office Works), or you can backup your files to “the cloud” using services such as Dropbox, or any of the other cheap/free online storage services out there (of which there are many). Most universities offer some kind of storage on their servers as well – so that’s another good option for student filmmakers.

As usual – which workflow and backup procedure you use will come down to your budget. At the very least though, you should have three backups of your raw media ($59 x 3 = $177), and two copies of your offline material ($59 x 2 = $118) plus at least a couple of SATA docking stations ($65) – so you can really get everything working for under $400, which is a pretty good deal. Obviously storing your camera originals to LTO would be a much SAFER option – but when you’re a student, you have to work with what you can afford.

Below are some useful links to various sites around the Internet that are worth checking out on the topic of backing things up. I’m sure there’s plenty of other great sites out there, so if you have any favourites please share them in the comments!

Useful Articles:

• Anything worth backing up…
• My Personal Backup Routine
• How disaster proof are you?
• Archiving Dilemma
• Inexpensive Archiving for Tapeless Media
• How secure is your data? Do film makers create more data than most others…?
• Are you ready for a crash?
• DIGITAL DISASTER!
• Backup Overview
• Backup Tips – Prevent data loss with a good backup strategy

The other area that students wanted to learn more about what workflows for different digital formats.

Unlike previous years, a lot of students this year are shooting on the ARRI Alexa (mainly because Swinburne now owns one). The Alexa is great, as the camera generates direct-to-edit ProRes media with embedded timecode and reel IDs, allowing you to basically instantly have access to the footage on Final Cut Pro or Avid (using AMA). These are self-contained files without a folder hierarchy to mess you up, like with P2 or XDCAM – you simply drag the ProRes files into the Final Cut Pro browser and away you go! In theory anyway. There are really only two things you need to keep in mind with the Alexa. If you shoot ProRes 4444, the file sizes are quite massive, and depending on your hard drive, what connection you’re using (i.e. Firewire 400, Firewire 800 or eSATA), and also how complex your edit is – you might find you get stuttered playback, or require a lot of renders. The solution – simply transcode all your footage to another variety of ProRes (i.e. ProRes LT or Proxy) and away you go! If you use Final Cut Pro or Compressor, the timecode and tape name will come across, so you’re good to go!

The other little gotcha is that you may be files are recorded using the ALEXA Log C profile (for more information on what Log C actually is check out this post). This yields a low-contrast, “flat” image designed to preserve dynamic range and offer optimum grading latitude. It’s a wonderful alternative to true camera raw recording, but adds a few considerations for post. A lot of editors won’t want to work with the low-contrast image, and although you could just apply a 3-way colour corrector to everything in the timeline in FCP – this is probably not the most fluid way of working (especially if you’re on a lower spec Mac). However – this is what we do in Avid – we just apply a colour corrector to the whole sequence, so that everything in the sequence has a “look” applied. But a much better (although more time consuming) option, is to “bake” the look in, so you don’t have to worry about long render times, as you add more effects to your edit. The easiest way to do this is documented here. Keep in mind though, that Nick Shaw’s plugin is no longer free – so you can either purchase it (it’s only USD$30), purchase the much more expensive Glue Tools ($799 – which is what we use at The Butchery, as it can handle ARRI RAW as well) or just use the 3-way Colour Corrector or a third party tool such as Colorista.

The RED One and EPIC have come along way in regards to post production workflows over the last few years. Although I personally never found the workflow too difficult, now-days you can basically just use the one application to transcode all your media for different NLEs. With the recent release of RCX-Pro, things are now even simpler, as the interface of REDCINE-X has basically just been “tweaked” to be much more user friendly and easy to manage. Basically, for Final Cut Pro, we recommend just converting everything to ProRes for the purposes of the offline edit. Later down the line, when you’re ready to grade – you can always go back to the original R3D files. Below is a really easy to follow video on how to convert all your RED rushes to ProRes using REDCINE-X:

And of course, Canon DLSR’s have taken over film schools like the plague!

The Canon is great for low-budget filmmakers and students, because the gear is cheap enough that you can actually own it, the cameras are small so that you can put them in all kinds of wonderful places that a RED or Alexa could never reach, the image quality is incredible (considering the price and the compression used), plus you can make use of all the incredible stills lenses out there. But of course, there are gotchas – the camera records to H264, it doesn’t record timecode, amongst many other things (i.e. when recording for long periods, especially in warmer climates, increased video noise may occur due to CMOS overheating – but let’s just focus on post for now). If you’re just planning to edit and FINISH in Final Cut Pro, then you don’t need to worry too much – just transcode all your footage to ProRes and way you go. However, if you plan to do an offline/online workflow – then you are going to need reel names and timecode. Although there are a few different ways you can do this, the method we recommend is as follows:

1. Duplicate all your camera originals as a safety (although you should already have three backups anyway!)
2. Use something like Name Mangler (US$10 on the App Store) to batch rename all your rushes to something a bit easier to keep track of (i.e. MVI_0021 becomes AD1R1S01 – A camera, day one, reel one, shot 1). This become really important if you’re shooting with multiple cameras over many days (i.e. documentaries), as you don’t really want duplicate file names, as it will just complicate things later down the line.
3. Once everything is named correctly, you can apply timecode to the clips. We use a program called QTChange (US$24.95) to add new timecode and a reel name to each clip. Although there are a few different ways to tackle timecode (i.e. you could just use Time of Day – based off the date information from the camera) – but we just normally set the hour mark, to the shoot day (i.e. day one begins at 01:00:00:00, day two begins at 02:00:00:00, etc.).
4. Now that you have nicely named, timecoded masters, you can now create ProRes files! There are many different tools out there that allow you to do this, but just make sure you use a tool (i.e. Apple’s Compressor) that RETAINS all the timecode and reel information. However, if you do accidentally use a tool that doesn’t bring the timecode and reel information across, you can always use QTChange again.

It’s also worth checking out 3rd party tools like Magic Bullet Grinder - although with Grinder, although it’s great for jobs where you are just finishing everything in Final Cut Pro, as it doesn’t add reel-names automatically to clips – so if you think you’ll need to export EDLs, then you would have to manually enter all the reel names within FCP, which can be a bit of a nightmare – or use QTChange. As with everything – make sure you do some workflow tests before you commit to a piece of software, as Grinder is constantly being updated and revised.

Hope this helps! As always, if you have any further questions, or if any of the above is incorrect or unclear – just let me know!

Onwards & Upwards!

Chris!

The tool I recommended was Excel Time Code Extension by Matthias Bürcher. It hasn’t been updated since 1997, however it still works great, even on the later versions of Excel. Although there is some great documentation floating around on the Internet (this blog is probably the best resource – especially the comments), when I first downloaded it all I really wanted was a Installation Guide and an Example.

Here’s a crash course for Mac users out there – although the workflow is very similar for PC users. I tested this on MacOS 10.6.8 and Excel 2008.

1. Download the XLA script from here (I hope you don’t mind Matthias, but I’ve also mirrored it here - just in case your site ever goes down).

2. Unzip the download, and then drag the XLA file into Excel.

3. You will be presented with a Macro Warning – just click Open.

4. You will now be left with a blank Excel workbook. To activate the plugin, press Command+Option+T (Windows users can just press Control + T I’m told, although I haven’t tested it personally yet). In the bottom status bar you should see a message like the below to confirm that everything is working properly:

5. You can now start getting to work! Select the fields you want to use as timecode fields, then click Format > Style from the top menu bar.

6. Then select Time Code from the Style Name and click OK.

7. You can now enter timecode into the fields you selected previously. Enter it as a full number, without any spaces (for example 01013000). Excel will automatically format it nicely (i.e. 01:01:30:00).

8. With that complete, you can now start doing some calculations. For the purposes of this demonstration, let’s just add A1 and A2 together. There’s probably a much quicker way to do this, but the most reliable method I’ve found is to convert the timecode values to frames, do the calculations as frames, then convert the frames back to timecode at the end. So, in B1 let’s display the value of A1 as frames (at 25fps). To do this type:

=TCtoframes(A1,25)

9. And do the same for B2:

=TCtoframes(A2,25)

10. Now add B1 and B2 together:

=B1+B2

11. Now let’s use the cell A4 to show our final calculation. The first thing you need to do is change it to a timecode style (as per step five and six above), then you can enter the following calculation:

=framestoTC(B3,25)

12. And assuming everything was typed in correctly – you should now have your finished calculation!

There is a list of all the different functions you can use here, although there’s a more detailed explanation on the French page (which you can use Google Translator or similar to translate).

However, most functions don’t really need much explanation, so here’s a summary of what’s available:

• TCtoframes(TC,fps)
• framestoTC(frames,fps)
• TCplus(TC1,TC2,fps)
• TCminus(TC1,TC2,fps)
• TCmult(TC1,facteur,fps)
• TCdiv(TC1,facteur,fps)
• TCsum(TCref,fps)
• TCtrans(TC,fromfps,tofps)
• TCtofeet(TC,gauge,fps)
• feettoTC(feet,gauge,fps)
• TCtometer(TC,gauge,fps)
• metertoTC(meter,gauge,fps)
• timetoTC(intime)
• TCtotime(inTC)
• texttoTC(intext)
• TCtotext(inTC,fps)
• isTC(TC,fps)

What would be a more fitting way for a former child actor to officially start his festival than with a documentary about child actors trying to break through in the states.  The Hollywood Complex follows a dozen or so child actors and their families who are staying at a complex called Oakwood during the 3-4 month pilot season in the states.  To be honest I went to see this because I thought it would be a bit of a laugh, children and their pushy stage parents trying to find fame and fortune in Hollywood.  I was right to some degree with these vibrant young children spouting off some dialogue that only a child could, however between these moments of sheer hilarity were moments that made my skin crawl.  From one set of parents showing their 7 year old YouTube clips of sick and dying children to prepare her for her audition as a sick child on Grey’s Anatomy, to the mother who became a Scientologist to help improve her daughters chances of becoming famous (she got cast in something almost immediately after her mother joined), there were some really stomach churning moments.

I think the reason I really enjoyed this doco was because it showed Hollywood for what it is and didn’t shy away from the harsh realities of being an actor.  It was obvious that the filmmakers set out with an agenda as the film has really nothing positive to say about the Hollywood system and the people that inhabit it.  I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule and that we probably see some of the worst cases in this documentary; however it is a film that does deal with the dangers of setting out to achieve something for purely fame and fortune, and the pressure that it can put on people, especially children.

With last year’s tragic The Wedding Party opening last years festival, I think that it’s fair to say that my bar had been significantly lowered in terms of what I was expecting.  Luckily I was pleasantly surprised with Belgian/French film The Fairy, a film that was also written and directed by its three lead actors.  The film is a slapstick romance which revolves around a man working the night shift at a hotel who is visited by a woman claiming to be a Fairy.  With strong links to the likes of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati’s work, the film itself feels like a series of sketches that have been worked around a really rough storyline.  Unfortunately with this being the case, the longer the movie went, the more the audience became restless – possibly getting antsy to get to the Town Hall for their free booze and canapés.  That said, I still thoroughly enjoyed The Fairy with it’s surreal “Boosh-like” moments which included a strange under-the-sea dance and also the very clever use of rear projection in a chase sequence.

One thing I loved about this film was the fact that the filmmakers all had a hand in the writing/directing and acting side of things.  It was very clear that they played to their strengths as actors and physical comedians which was evident all throughout the film.

The Fairy is by no means a perfect film.  It does drag on a little too long and has a few jokes that fall flat on their face. However this light hearted love story with its genuine laugh out loud moments made for a considerable boost in quality for the Opening Night films that I have seen during my 5 years of attending MIFF.  I’ll take this over The Wedding Party or 2:37 any day!