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Opinion
Cameron in Queensland
I have been aware of the Gold Coast studios for many years and I have been budgeting for films here for many years.
Blue-Tongue times
Blue-Tongue, a loose-jointed Australian moviemaking collective, is now flooding American festivals, the awards circuit and those who look for Hollywood’s next big thing with its rough-and-tumble fare, and can now add an Oscar nomination to its résumé.
3D blindness
All of this is rolling forward without any thought to the potential health hazards of continuous, long-term exposure to 3D. None of the television manufacturers have done any health & safety testing around this.
Nice to meet you, Ms. Streep
It is total name drop city.
Oscar nominee Luke Doolan on the Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon.
Bob Ellis: Rough Cut
Bob Ellis on In The Loop and Invictus.Anyone who’s hung round political backrooms (like me) will recognise the terrifying truth of In The Loop, Read more »
Tomorrow captures Australian beauty
“The added colour depth offered by 35mm film helped to accurately capture the beauty of the Australian landscape … an important story point.”
Ben Nott on his Daybreakers digital shoot vs. Tomorrow, When the War Began in 35mm.
Smaller screen, bigger ideas
Television is an avenue we really wanted to explore.
The Spierig brothers may revisit Daybreakers in a new medium.
Billing against piracy
If you illegally download a movie that I am in from the internet, or buy a pirated DVD of Underbelly Two you are stealing from me and everyone who put their investment, talent and effort into that production.
It’s a steal
Australian internet users are facing enormous and ongoing restrictions to their legitimate access to popular content, in terms of both timeliness and price [...] If content providers want to thrive, they will have to start responding to user demands for reasonable, timely and fairly priced content.
The SMH wonders why Gossip Girl costs A$34.99 on iTunes US vs. A$74.75 here.
Unique appeal
What [...] you won’t see in another film: a snake used to replace a broken engine belt, Geoffrey Rush shitting on the side of a road, a condom tree and a hot Aboriginal girl singing ” Stand By Your Man”.
Influential US site Ain’t It Cool news reviews Bran Nue Dae.
KidsCo, open for business
Harvey Shore spoke with Paul Robinson, the London-based founder and managing director of global children’s’ pay-TV channel KidsCo, who is gearing up for his second trip to Australia for the ASTRA Conference.
Last trip, in November 2009, he raised eyebrows by joining those who accused ABC-TV of bullying producers and competitive channels in its rush to lock up both free-TV and pay-TV rights to programs for its new children’s channel ABC3. Read more »
Film: not quite dead yet
In a digital world, analogue is considered to be on the path of extinction, but film capture is not ready to go quietly into the night. Miguel Gonzalez found that DOPs and big companies still have something for film.
There are no statistics about the film/digital split in Australia, but with fewer Hollywood projects shooting here, film companies have suffered.
Fuji felt the lack of big budget international productions; in 2009 they only had one major Hollywood project, the thriller Don’t Be Afraid in the Dark, which was shot on film in Melbourne using, atypically, both Kodak and Fuji stock. Read more »
Sleuth 101: re-inventing the game show genre
The creators of Spicks and Specks are back with a new offering that combines murder mystery, comedy and game show. Encore joined them in Melbourne to discuss their new format, Sleuth 101.
Comedians are known for their analytical skills, which help them make the poignant and witty observations people pay them to hear. But that doesn’t necessarily make them the first people you’d call to solve a murder mystery, unless you’re on the ABC’s new Friday night show, Sleuth 101.
The concept was created by series producer Anthony Watt and executive producer Bruce Kane for Mayhem TV. Read more »
Mad Men: product displacement
Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner visited Australia, and he told Miguel Gonzalez that working with brands and gaining creative independence in the tv industry can be absolute madness.
Has there ever been a more perfect setting for product placement, than a period series set at a fictional Madison Avenue advertising agency – Sterling Cooper – in the early 1960s? After all, brands and ads are the characters’ bread and butter, and the retro feel can generate a certain enjoyment of what in any other show could be considered shameless or unnecessary product placement. When the series protagonist Don Draper talks about Lucky Strike, he’s not selling cigarettes to his 21st century audience; he’s doing his job. It doesn’t get more necessary than that. Read more »
AIDC 2010 preview: small world, big challenges
The Australian International Documentary Conference reaches for global production efforts and foresees new distribution schemes. Cesar Albarran Torres spoke with three international figures who will help make this a ’smaller world’ for docos.
Under the premise that ours “is a small world after all” the AIDC, that annual get-together of professionals of the factual content industry, is set to take place at the Hilton Adelaide next week, where documentary filmmakers, broadcasters and key decision-makers will gather in order to find ways of getting things done in the globalised and ever-changing scenario of the genre. Read more »
John Hillcoat at the end of The Road
For Australian director John Hillcoat, adapting Cormac McCarthy’s 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road to the screen came with expectations from all corners. He told Paul Hayes that this is the end of the world as you don’t know it.
Filming a beloved novel is a tricky situation at the best of times. It is one of popular culture’s more perplexing ironies that cinema audiences are far more upset at the idea of a filmmaker changing the plot or character details of a well-known book than they do about changing events from real history. Read more »
Daybreakers: true [Aussie] blood
Australian horror gets a fresh transfusion with the release of Daybreakers, a big budget film designed with a global audience firmly in mind. Paul Hayes writes.
Futuristic vampire films are not the most popular genre among Australian filmmakers, but twins Michael and Peter Spierig are not your typical directors either.
The Spierigs found international success with their first film, the self-funded ‘credit card’ zombie flick, Undead. Read more »
Studios: a space for creation
Change is afoot in studio-land. Not only are new studio complexes popping up around the country, but clients are now expecting more services than ever from a space and its curators. Laine Lister writes.
Until now, many producers have been content to hire a sound stage fitted with the bare necessities to shoot a project. Read more »
Griff the Invisible: birth of a superhero
Superheroes were the flavour of the decade that just ended, so it was about time Australia had its own. Griff the Invisible will prove that we can – and should – produce high concept projects.
At last year’s SPAA Conference, Packed to the Rafters creator Bevan Lee said local audiences were unable to believe high concept, fantasy or science fiction stories could happen in Australia, Read more »
Exhibition: alternative content invades Australian screens
It’s not often that Andre Rieu, Iron Maiden and New York’s Metropolitan Opera descend on regional Australia to perform a strong of live shows, but our cinemas are helping to lure them. Laine Lister writes.