Both films. Bloody great. Emma Thompson is magnificent, as actor and writer.
And when Daddy comes home from the war I always cry.
Legion
An action-horror, wherein a group of strangers are trapped in a desert diner by a siege of zombies... except they aren't zombies, they're living humans who are possessed by angels-gone-bad, soldiers in the army of the Archangel Gabriel, whose mission is to kill the unborn child within. Only the angel Michael, one of Gabriel's generals now deserted, can save them, allowing the baby to fulfil his destiny as the saviour of mankind.
Well, it's a giggle, isn't it? Lots of religious references, naturally, along with the usual horror tropes of the rickety-house-under-siege and scampering-possessed-people-climbing-the-walls. There's a fair bit of Terminator 2 in there as well, from the voiceover bookending the film to the copycat shot used for the ending. The whole angels-with-machine-guns thing is a bit silly, and the big fight between Gabriel and Michael (I'm not sure this counts as a spoiler - what the hell else is going to happen?) is kinda ludicrous, but Paul Bettany carries it off well enough. The final turning point at the end is a bit... well, it's a bit hard to swallow, really, but that's okay.
I wouldn't have been disappointing by this had I seen it on a Friday night for seventeen bucks, even if it won't live long in the memory. That's the acid test for me - is it worth the price of admission and the time spent watching it? Also, it's not a million miles from a feature script I'm working on myself (yes, mine is a little derivative too, but I'm working on that), so it's good to know where to steer clear.
Well, it's a giggle, isn't it? Lots of religious references, naturally, along with the usual horror tropes of the rickety-house-under-siege and scampering-possessed-people-climbing-the-walls. There's a fair bit of Terminator 2 in there as well, from the voiceover bookending the film to the copycat shot used for the ending. The whole angels-with-machine-guns thing is a bit silly, and the big fight between Gabriel and Michael (I'm not sure this counts as a spoiler - what the hell else is going to happen?) is kinda ludicrous, but Paul Bettany carries it off well enough. The final turning point at the end is a bit... well, it's a bit hard to swallow, really, but that's okay.
I wouldn't have been disappointing by this had I seen it on a Friday night for seventeen bucks, even if it won't live long in the memory. That's the acid test for me - is it worth the price of admission and the time spent watching it? Also, it's not a million miles from a feature script I'm working on myself (yes, mine is a little derivative too, but I'm working on that), so it's good to know where to steer clear.
Toy Story 3
Okay, I know, it's out ages. I have a toddler and no family here. Apart from my wife (ahem). Up until True Grit a few weeks back I hadn't been to the cinema since Quantum of Solace in late 2008. In fact, to show how exciting my life isn't, I sat down with our two-year-old, all excited to watch Woody and Buzz in a new story for the first time, only to be told she'd already seen it. On a plane.
Anyway, of course it's great. I expected no less from Pixar - it bounces along, there are lovely twists and turns all the way, the voice performances are impeccable all through the cast, the dialogue is sharp and funny... and the animation has become something really special. It manages to fit with the look and feel of the first two movies, and yet... well, when it comes to THAT scene, the one that for those of you who haven't seen it (but whose toddlers probably have, on a plane), we'll refer to as the hand-holding scene, the expressions on the characters' faces are incredibly, touchingly human.
I believe the anagnoretic moment for the main characters happens with the hand-holding... but for me the tipping point was Andy's mom, her breath taken away as she looks at Andy's now-empty room. Because I had my daughter beside me, perhaps? Who knows. Anyway, that's when I cried.
Now, here comes the inflammatory comment to attract some comment traffic:Mark Kermode reckons that Toy Story is now the best trilogy in cine.... The Godfather Part III isn't great, Star Wars is let down by the Ewoks and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 'inevitably sags in the middle' (here I think he's crazy, but I see where he's going). Second-best trilogy ever?
Anyway, of course it's great. I expected no less from Pixar - it bounces along, there are lovely twists and turns all the way, the voice performances are impeccable all through the cast, the dialogue is sharp and funny... and the animation has become something really special. It manages to fit with the look and feel of the first two movies, and yet... well, when it comes to THAT scene, the one that for those of you who haven't seen it (but whose toddlers probably have, on a plane), we'll refer to as the hand-holding scene, the expressions on the characters' faces are incredibly, touchingly human.
I believe the anagnoretic moment for the main characters happens with the hand-holding... but for me the tipping point was Andy's mom, her breath taken away as she looks at Andy's now-empty room. Because I had my daughter beside me, perhaps? Who knows. Anyway, that's when I cried.
Now, here comes the inflammatory comment to attract some comment traffic:Mark Kermode reckons that Toy Story is now the best trilogy in cine.... The Godfather Part III isn't great, Star Wars is let down by the Ewoks and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 'inevitably sags in the middle' (here I think he's crazy, but I see where he's going). Second-best trilogy ever?
Thoughts on the size of the market
Caught the rather excellent interview with the Spierig Brothers in the Main Theatre earlier today. I won't go into a whole lot of detail, but one thing they said really stood out. I'm paraphrasing, I'm sure, but the idea was that making Australian films for Australian audiences makes no commercial sense because of the relatively small size of the Australian market. (I'd also add that given the current antipathy the general Aussie public has towards Australian films it makes even less sense). Michael further suggested that if we film-makers are serious about making decent money we need to look seriously at moving to LA.
This makes sense to me, and yet I know it causes problems for AFTRS and, more specifically, the tax-payer who funds us - that money is supposed to be re-paid with the creation of a viable and sustainable Australian film industry, it's not supposed to be recouped out of whatever the Hollywood returnee spends in the pub on his visit home at Christmas. It's also supposed to go towards the creation of Australian work that supports and inhabits Australian culture, since a culture is in many ways defined by the stories it tells itself and others.
These aims may not be compatible with each other, and they may not be achievable on a commercial level.
I have a little perspective to add.
Those of you who've met me will know that I'm Irish.
Ireland is a market roughly the size of greater Sydney. Like Australia we love our cinema, last time I looked we had the biggest cinema-going public by head of population in Europe. We make a good number of features every year, and we have the likes of Jim Sheridan and Neil Jordan as local heavyweights, along with John Boorman (who has lived in Ireland since the 70s) and some promising newcomers.Film funding in Ireland is always contentious, and Irish films tend not to do well. Unless they are created for a wider market, from Michael Collins which was led by Neil Jordan and driven by Irish creativity while supported by Hollywood money, and The Commitments which had a similar success story - a substantial Irish story that rang true and became part of Irish culture - to the utterly dreadful Far & Away, with their awful accents and worse script, that was roundly ridiculed in Ireland, and became a by-word for all that is wrong with "Irish film".
In terms of indigenous cultural content Ireland has focused in recent years on micro-budget productions. This is fine, your film's not going to lose more than a hundred grand or so, and if it turns out like "Once", which shot for €100,000 and ended up winning Glen Hansard an Oscar for best song, you're flying. This is not, however, going to support an industry long-term.
In terms of pure production, Ireland has a similar story to Australia, and more specifically Sydney, as far as I can tell. Much of Braveheart was shot in Ireland, and the entire opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan was shot on a beach in Co. Wexford, (both with the co-operation of the Irish Army). Even turkeys like King Arthur and Reign of Fire provided valuable work and training, and the Irish gained a reputation for quality work. We also offered attractive tax breaks for incoming productions (plus we were English-speaking and you could fly in direct from London, New York, Boston and Chicago).
Then... well, our highly trained and experienced crew became more and more expensive as the cost of living went up during the boom times. Accommodation (and this is relevant to Australia, I believe, hotel rooms are very pricey here, and very ordinary at times too) became expensive, and the government, seeing an opportunity to profit from the "booming" film industry, reduced the tax breaks. So Hollywood productions went elsewhere. The Czech Republic did very well for a while, offering cheap costs and educated technicians, and the Irish industry found itself supported by HBO's The Tudors and the odd Hollywood rom-com. Is there a parallel here with Sydney post-Matrix? You'll have to tell me.
Back to my main point. Irish films, made by Irish film-makers, of interest to the Irish, very rarely do any business anywhere else, and because the Irish market is so small, that means budgets have to stay very low indeed. Irish film-makers, if they want to make a bigger film, have to look at wider market appeal. And that's hard - American audiences are going to find it difficult to identify with a contemporary Irish story. Even the huge Irish-American population in North America don't have the same feeling of Irishness as the Irish at home, and want either films about the put-upon heroic IRA man (Prayer for the Dying, Richard Gere's horrendous "Irishman" in the Day of the Jackal remake), or Finian's Rainbow, neither of which engage with an Irish audience nor, more importantly given the remit given the funding bodies, offer any kind of enhancement or even relevance to Irish culture.
In fact, Irish film funding, especially when it came to Hollywood productions, became more a function of the tourism industry. It was felt that films were more useful in attracting American tourist dollars than anything else, and this of course led to... well, poor films. We even ended up coining a term for this kind of product: "Oirish".
So I'm wondering: Can we even hope to create an Australian film industry making commercially viable films telling relevant and engaging Australian stories?
God, I hope so. I love Sydney, I'd hate to think I'll have to move to LA.
Would love your thoughts.
This makes sense to me, and yet I know it causes problems for AFTRS and, more specifically, the tax-payer who funds us - that money is supposed to be re-paid with the creation of a viable and sustainable Australian film industry, it's not supposed to be recouped out of whatever the Hollywood returnee spends in the pub on his visit home at Christmas. It's also supposed to go towards the creation of Australian work that supports and inhabits Australian culture, since a culture is in many ways defined by the stories it tells itself and others.
These aims may not be compatible with each other, and they may not be achievable on a commercial level.
I have a little perspective to add.
Those of you who've met me will know that I'm Irish.
Ireland is a market roughly the size of greater Sydney. Like Australia we love our cinema, last time I looked we had the biggest cinema-going public by head of population in Europe. We make a good number of features every year, and we have the likes of Jim Sheridan and Neil Jordan as local heavyweights, along with John Boorman (who has lived in Ireland since the 70s) and some promising newcomers.Film funding in Ireland is always contentious, and Irish films tend not to do well. Unless they are created for a wider market, from Michael Collins which was led by Neil Jordan and driven by Irish creativity while supported by Hollywood money, and The Commitments which had a similar success story - a substantial Irish story that rang true and became part of Irish culture - to the utterly dreadful Far & Away, with their awful accents and worse script, that was roundly ridiculed in Ireland, and became a by-word for all that is wrong with "Irish film".
In terms of indigenous cultural content Ireland has focused in recent years on micro-budget productions. This is fine, your film's not going to lose more than a hundred grand or so, and if it turns out like "Once", which shot for €100,000 and ended up winning Glen Hansard an Oscar for best song, you're flying. This is not, however, going to support an industry long-term.
In terms of pure production, Ireland has a similar story to Australia, and more specifically Sydney, as far as I can tell. Much of Braveheart was shot in Ireland, and the entire opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan was shot on a beach in Co. Wexford, (both with the co-operation of the Irish Army). Even turkeys like King Arthur and Reign of Fire provided valuable work and training, and the Irish gained a reputation for quality work. We also offered attractive tax breaks for incoming productions (plus we were English-speaking and you could fly in direct from London, New York, Boston and Chicago).
Then... well, our highly trained and experienced crew became more and more expensive as the cost of living went up during the boom times. Accommodation (and this is relevant to Australia, I believe, hotel rooms are very pricey here, and very ordinary at times too) became expensive, and the government, seeing an opportunity to profit from the "booming" film industry, reduced the tax breaks. So Hollywood productions went elsewhere. The Czech Republic did very well for a while, offering cheap costs and educated technicians, and the Irish industry found itself supported by HBO's The Tudors and the odd Hollywood rom-com. Is there a parallel here with Sydney post-Matrix? You'll have to tell me.
Back to my main point. Irish films, made by Irish film-makers, of interest to the Irish, very rarely do any business anywhere else, and because the Irish market is so small, that means budgets have to stay very low indeed. Irish film-makers, if they want to make a bigger film, have to look at wider market appeal. And that's hard - American audiences are going to find it difficult to identify with a contemporary Irish story. Even the huge Irish-American population in North America don't have the same feeling of Irishness as the Irish at home, and want either films about the put-upon heroic IRA man (Prayer for the Dying, Richard Gere's horrendous "Irishman" in the Day of the Jackal remake), or Finian's Rainbow, neither of which engage with an Irish audience nor, more importantly given the remit given the funding bodies, offer any kind of enhancement or even relevance to Irish culture.
In fact, Irish film funding, especially when it came to Hollywood productions, became more a function of the tourism industry. It was felt that films were more useful in attracting American tourist dollars than anything else, and this of course led to... well, poor films. We even ended up coining a term for this kind of product: "Oirish".
So I'm wondering: Can we even hope to create an Australian film industry making commercially viable films telling relevant and engaging Australian stories?
God, I hope so. I love Sydney, I'd hate to think I'll have to move to LA.
Would love your thoughts.
Genre
Check this out. http://www.youtube.com/embed/qlicWUDf5MM
And this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGOQ7SsJrw&feature=related
This too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6_awUgbUJs&NR=1 (perhaps the best of them).
And this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGOQ7SsJrw&feature=related
This too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6_awUgbUJs&NR=1 (perhaps the best of them).
The audience
I have my in-laws staying with me at the moment. They're great. I love 'em. The little one adores them too. And it's brilliant for my wife to see her folks.
I want to talk about my father-in-law. Great guy. Not that educated. He's a house-painter, lived his whole life in rural France. Didn't travel til his daughter-in-law moved to Ireland. Got on a plane for the first time ever in his early fifties. Very stuck in his ways - still can't understand that other nationalities don't necessarily enjoy sitting down to three-hour lunches every day, and why you can't get an aperitif at most restaurants here.
Anyway, he loves movies. Adores them. Has a huge collection of VHS cassettes in the basement back home. His DVD collection is pretty massive too. Now he has the internet he's taken to illegal downloading, and if he's caught they might throw the book at him just for the sheer volume of stuff he has. (He doesn't think about the consequences to the film industry, he just loves movies).
He doesn't much like French films, unless it's something like Besson's Taxi, or perhaps one of those lower-budget action flicks some French directors seem to make before going to Hollywood to make some awful Jason Statham vehicle (he likes those too). He will flat refuse to watch a subtitled movie. It has to be dubbed. Black and white? Forget it.
See, he likes action movies. He has every Charles Bronson vehicle ever made. He thinks The Transporter is one of the great films of all time. He also thinks that Under Siege is just as good as, if not better than, Die Hard (if that made your head jar you're not the only one - and it probably won't be the last time that happens as you read on). He didn't like Inception because he didn't understand it (he watched it on a plane and missed the first twenty minutes - head-jar number 2, right?). He doesn't fancy The Matrix because "too many robots" (et voila, number three). He liked Red (he saw it on the plane) and flat denies ever having seen Alien vs Predator (despite the fact that I watched it with him. Okay, I watched the first 50 minutes with him and then, realising I was never going to get that time back, I went off to do something else and left it to him).
And here's the thing. He'll like other movies if he finds himself manipulated or plain forced into watching them. He loved La Mome (La Vie en Rose in English markets). But he would never watch it out of choice.
That's one of the big challenges we face, I believe - not just making a great film, but persuading the audience to watch that film. At the moment, particularly in Hollywood, we are audience-led. What happened to us leading the audience? We're supposed to know more about film than they do. The massive successes of Inception and Avatar seem to indicate that audiences are willing to be taken on a journey into the unknown, and in the case of Inception they're willing to be made to work to understand that journey.
Yet Hollywood, in the main, still seems to think that audiences will only respond to an existing brand, preferably a comic book (even if it's not necessarily a good one), an old TV show, or - worse - a toy. That's not to say that all of those films are terrible, although most of them are, but it does mean that there are great original scripts out there that just aren't getting made. Presumably. Maybe there aren't.
Here's the thing, I think this paucity of original thinking in Hollywood gives us an opportunity here in Australia - if we can produce those intelligent, original, entertaining films (I'm thinking of Daybreakers and Tomorrow When the War Began as recent examples of good-if-not-perfect original films*) and then persuade distributors to let us lead the audience to them, we may find that we get rewarded for taking risks where Hollywood does not.
*Okay, the latter was a book adaptation, but still, you get my point, I hope.
And I'm determined that my father-in-law shall not leave here without having seen The Matrix. Even the dubbed version.
I want to talk about my father-in-law. Great guy. Not that educated. He's a house-painter, lived his whole life in rural France. Didn't travel til his daughter-in-law moved to Ireland. Got on a plane for the first time ever in his early fifties. Very stuck in his ways - still can't understand that other nationalities don't necessarily enjoy sitting down to three-hour lunches every day, and why you can't get an aperitif at most restaurants here.
Anyway, he loves movies. Adores them. Has a huge collection of VHS cassettes in the basement back home. His DVD collection is pretty massive too. Now he has the internet he's taken to illegal downloading, and if he's caught they might throw the book at him just for the sheer volume of stuff he has. (He doesn't think about the consequences to the film industry, he just loves movies).
He doesn't much like French films, unless it's something like Besson's Taxi, or perhaps one of those lower-budget action flicks some French directors seem to make before going to Hollywood to make some awful Jason Statham vehicle (he likes those too). He will flat refuse to watch a subtitled movie. It has to be dubbed. Black and white? Forget it.
See, he likes action movies. He has every Charles Bronson vehicle ever made. He thinks The Transporter is one of the great films of all time. He also thinks that Under Siege is just as good as, if not better than, Die Hard (if that made your head jar you're not the only one - and it probably won't be the last time that happens as you read on). He didn't like Inception because he didn't understand it (he watched it on a plane and missed the first twenty minutes - head-jar number 2, right?). He doesn't fancy The Matrix because "too many robots" (et voila, number three). He liked Red (he saw it on the plane) and flat denies ever having seen Alien vs Predator (despite the fact that I watched it with him. Okay, I watched the first 50 minutes with him and then, realising I was never going to get that time back, I went off to do something else and left it to him).
And here's the thing. He'll like other movies if he finds himself manipulated or plain forced into watching them. He loved La Mome (La Vie en Rose in English markets). But he would never watch it out of choice.
That's one of the big challenges we face, I believe - not just making a great film, but persuading the audience to watch that film. At the moment, particularly in Hollywood, we are audience-led. What happened to us leading the audience? We're supposed to know more about film than they do. The massive successes of Inception and Avatar seem to indicate that audiences are willing to be taken on a journey into the unknown, and in the case of Inception they're willing to be made to work to understand that journey.
Yet Hollywood, in the main, still seems to think that audiences will only respond to an existing brand, preferably a comic book (even if it's not necessarily a good one), an old TV show, or - worse - a toy. That's not to say that all of those films are terrible, although most of them are, but it does mean that there are great original scripts out there that just aren't getting made. Presumably. Maybe there aren't.
Here's the thing, I think this paucity of original thinking in Hollywood gives us an opportunity here in Australia - if we can produce those intelligent, original, entertaining films (I'm thinking of Daybreakers and Tomorrow When the War Began as recent examples of good-if-not-perfect original films*) and then persuade distributors to let us lead the audience to them, we may find that we get rewarded for taking risks where Hollywood does not.
*Okay, the latter was a book adaptation, but still, you get my point, I hope.
And I'm determined that my father-in-law shall not leave here without having seen The Matrix. Even the dubbed version.
True Grit
Joel & Ethan Coen, Haylee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper.
When I saw the trailer for this I nearly fell off the chair. This is the kind of material I think suits the Coens the best. To my mind No Country For Old Men is a masterpiece, and True Grit looked like it might be just as good.
Is it? Well, it's close. It's wonderful, and I adore it, but it lacks the breath-taking magnificence of the third act of No Country.
Still, it's unmissable to anyone who likes a Western. I saw it alone in the middle of a hot summer's afternoon. Thank God, too, Jeff Bridges' Rooster Cogburn delivers his dialogue in a voice wracked by alcohol, tobacco and God-knows what else, and while I just about managed to take it in without too much trouble, my French wife would have been mystified, and there's nothing like having an increasingly angry companion who hates the movie you're watching to spoil your own enjoyment. A cinema visit is, after all, an experience where the film itself is tempered or enhanced by the audience with whom one shares it. Blah blah blah.
True Grit also gave me the impetus to buy Cormac MacCarthy's Blood Meridian on audio-book. Now there's a revisionist Western, full of vicious, racist, murderous scumbags, and a villain right out of The Bumper Book of Mythological Utter Bastards. I love it.
NOTEWORTHY: Barry Pepper and Domhnall Gleeson's turns as outlaws. Haylee Steinfeld's incomprehensible Oscar nomination for best supporting actress when she's clearly the lead. Night-for-night shooting with entire landscapes (or so it seems at times) lit by veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins.
When I saw the trailer for this I nearly fell off the chair. This is the kind of material I think suits the Coens the best. To my mind No Country For Old Men is a masterpiece, and True Grit looked like it might be just as good.
Is it? Well, it's close. It's wonderful, and I adore it, but it lacks the breath-taking magnificence of the third act of No Country.
Still, it's unmissable to anyone who likes a Western. I saw it alone in the middle of a hot summer's afternoon. Thank God, too, Jeff Bridges' Rooster Cogburn delivers his dialogue in a voice wracked by alcohol, tobacco and God-knows what else, and while I just about managed to take it in without too much trouble, my French wife would have been mystified, and there's nothing like having an increasingly angry companion who hates the movie you're watching to spoil your own enjoyment. A cinema visit is, after all, an experience where the film itself is tempered or enhanced by the audience with whom one shares it. Blah blah blah.
True Grit also gave me the impetus to buy Cormac MacCarthy's Blood Meridian on audio-book. Now there's a revisionist Western, full of vicious, racist, murderous scumbags, and a villain right out of The Bumper Book of Mythological Utter Bastards. I love it.
NOTEWORTHY: Barry Pepper and Domhnall Gleeson's turns as outlaws. Haylee Steinfeld's incomprehensible Oscar nomination for best supporting actress when she's clearly the lead. Night-for-night shooting with entire landscapes (or so it seems at times) lit by veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins.
Rango
The experience was fun, 10am on a rainy Saturday morning, late in the film's run so the theatre was only half full, all families. Lots of kids. Talkative kids. Which is fine, of course, kids are like that (although mine mostly had the sense to whisper, and isn't a loud child anyway). The family behind me had a rather talkative five-year-old girl, who didn't bother me in the least. No, it was her mum who (a) didn't make any attempt to teach the child about the importance of being quiet in the cinema, (b) responded to the child's questions in the same volume of voice as they were asked, and (c) left her phone on and let it ring out. To misquote Ghandi: "Western civilisation? That would be nice." More on cinema etiquette here, by the way.
None of this spoiled my enjoyment (or at least, I wasn't willing to let it) of what was a very moving occasion--the film was fine, very enjoyable, but it was the sight of my daughter's enrapturement with the dark room and the big screen, the very beginning of what I hope will be a long and fulfilling love affair between her and the cinema. I was very proud of her, too, she's barely two and she sat through the whole film, only getting restless in the first half of the (rather long) final act. Most of her peers would have been climbing the walls after the first ten minutes. I was filled with joy at her engagement with the experience, and saddened too at the thought that perhaps she will outlive cinema as a form of entertainment. Who knows what'll have happened to the cinema-going experience by the time she reaches the age of twenty-one, in 2030?
I was also reminded too of a recent discussion elsewhere on this site about art versus commerce in film-making, and the point made, by Mike Jones, I believe, that story-telling is nothing without an audience. I was also reminded of some of the great cinema-going experiences of my own life: Jaws in the Savoy in Dublin in 1976, as a six-year-old, burying my head in my aunt Marie's lap in terror (six years later she was dead, taken young by breast cancer). Om Shanti Om in a huge theatre in Ernakulam, Kerala, with the afternoon matinee crowd, singing along to the twenty-minute dance sequence early in the second act. War of the Worlds in 2005, at a multi-plex on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten, with an audience of locals, creoles mostly, who commented loudly on every beat: "Oh my God, it's coming over the hill there!" This wasn't my favourite experience until I watched Kung Fu Hustle in the same cinema, with much the same audience, and the booming, rolling laughter of the West Indians carried me along on a sea of fun. The experience of watching a film is different depending on the context in which it's watched.
I get hope from this--cinema is a community experience, and perhaps this shall be its salvation. Much depends on the continuing quality of the entertainment - Hollywood studios recently admitted that the fall in cinema attendances over recent months in the US had much to do with the paucity of quality movies, especially when taken in the context of ticket prices. Presumably, for "quality movies", one can read "movies which engage an audience".
I'll never forget Vallie's first trip to the cinema. Pity she won't remember it herself, of course.
And here's my reel
Brixton Bob
303 are moving
A viral I directed for 303Sydney.
Mace "Metallica"
A 20-second low-budget TVC, produced in 2003 for Mace Supermarkets (through Campaign Advertising). I wrote the script, produced most of it and did the art direction too. And then I directed it.
I much prefer the original animatics that got me the gig (see below), but the agency and the client were very happy, and the ad seemed to be effective (those bottles of Pepsi and 7Up were snapped up and some lucky metallers went to see Metallica for free*) so it all worked out.
*I had to pay.
MEAT TV
A 15-second demo TV sting.
303 are moving
A viral I directed for 303Sydney.
Mace "Metallica"
A 20-second low-budget TVC, produced in 2003 for Mace Supermarkets (through Campaign Advertising). I wrote the script, produced most of it and did the art direction too. And then I directed it.
I much prefer the original animatics that got me the gig (see below), but the agency and the client were very happy, and the ad seemed to be effective (those bottles of Pepsi and 7Up were snapped up and some lucky metallers went to see Metallica for free*) so it all worked out.
*I had to pay.
MEAT TV
A 15-second demo TV sting.
In development
I have some scripts that I'm developing. I'd love to hook up with a producer on any or all of these. Fancy it? devinjohndoyle@gmail.com
The Wake of the Maid of Nazareth
Short feature.
The crew of an ocean-going trawler hatch and execute a plan to murder their skipper. They take him to the ice to dispose of the body... and the ice starts to close around them.
After
TV/web series.
One of the sole survivors of an apocalypse of nasty night-crawling beasts, Angelique must navigate death, destruction and men in her search for survival.
The Wayside
TV series/feature.
1980s rural Australia. 16 years old, gorgeous, but with a mental age of 8, Vernon does not know how to resist the advances of Maggie, the school's hot new teacher from the city. When she is murdered, he knows enough to realise that he's the prime suspect. He runs, barely survives the bush, and makes it to the tropical north, where he starts a new life. When he sees the police chief from his old home poking around in his new town, he knows it's time to face up to the past.
The Wake of the Maid of Nazareth
Short feature.
The crew of an ocean-going trawler hatch and execute a plan to murder their skipper. They take him to the ice to dispose of the body... and the ice starts to close around them.
After
TV/web series.
One of the sole survivors of an apocalypse of nasty night-crawling beasts, Angelique must navigate death, destruction and men in her search for survival.
The Wayside
TV series/feature.
1980s rural Australia. 16 years old, gorgeous, but with a mental age of 8, Vernon does not know how to resist the advances of Maggie, the school's hot new teacher from the city. When she is murdered, he knows enough to realise that he's the prime suspect. He runs, barely survives the bush, and makes it to the tropical north, where he starts a new life. When he sees the police chief from his old home poking around in his new town, he knows it's time to face up to the past.
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