December 22nd, 2008 by Glendyn

As I mentioned below, we did our final sound mix at the South Australian Film Corp sound studio. It was good to return to the building we did our pre-production out of 6 months ago. This time I could lift my head and have a look around at where we were, I wasn’t burdened with the stress of the impending shoot.

As weird as it has been spending alot of time away from home and family, I really enjoyed returning. I don’t know much about the history of the SAFC, but a walk around the corridors with their halls hung with rows of film posters that have been in some way influenced by the SAFC or in particular been created in part in the building, it felt great, even a little humbling. Perhaps I’m overly sentimental and too much of a fan boy, but I love the fact that some of the films that have influenced me over the years were created within the same walls where I was now attempting to make my own film.

One of the posters that kept jumping out at me, no matter how many times I walked past, was Storm Boy.

I remember clearly seeing Storm Boy at the Tamworth Regent Theater when I was about 7 or 8 years old. It connected with me the same way that it connected with everybody who saw it, it was such a simple story about a lonely boy and his friendship with a pelican (Mr Percival). I remember being totally aware of it’s use of visual storytelling rather than dialogue. The film had a lot of space and Storm Boy as a character had this universal appeal of being every child. We all knew how he felt.

It’s funny how these sort of stories bury themselves deeply within your psyche. I know for sure that Storm Boy has had a deep influence on me as a filmmaker. When it became available on DVD years ago I re watched and even though it was a little more rudimentary than I remembered there were some beautifully poetic sequences and amongst some clumsy plotting towards the end, was a film that felt cinematic and still universal in it’s portrayal of childhood. Very much in the same vein of The Red Balloon a film which is a great influence as well. Interestingly like The Red Balloon, Storm Boy was directed by a french guy Henri Safran. Perhaps it’s a European sensibility and an outsiders eye to the landscape and story that brought that special quality to it.

It’s no secret that one of the things I liked about Tom Russell (who plays Chook in the film) when I saw him the first time was that he reminded me of Greg Rowe who played Storm Boy. So much so in fact that when I cast him we decided to cut his already long hair into a very similar style to that of Greg in Storm Boy. It’s a very heartfelt and sincere reference and perhaps even a homage to a film that planted one of the earliest seeds of film making deep within me. Last Ride and Storm Boy are very different films, but thematically and in a desire for simplicity and visual storytelling they are quite similar. I can only hope that Last Ride shares some of the endurance and a place in peoples hearts and memories the way in which Storm Boy has.

Chook vs Storm Boy

The other film poster that I almost bowed to every time I passed it was Rolf de Heer’s Bad Boy Bubby (click if you dare). Man, what a film. I went and saw it soon after I moved to Melbourne in 93. I went with my friend Hools to the Hoyts on Bourke Street and we sat in the back row. I don’t think I blinked for the first 30 minutes. Surely the first act of that film is one of the most brutally intriguing openings to a film. Ever. It’s one of my most fond cinematic moments. At the end of the film I don’t thing Hools and I said anything to each other for a good hour or so. We were just so stunned… and I still am just thinking about it.

Everytime I see, hear or think anything about that film my heart beats a little faster.

I also love this french poster for Breaker Morant. Co-incidentally I saw Bryan Brown in the halls while we were in pre-production in June and he was half way through shooting Beautiful Kate in the studio. He asked me how long we had to shoot our film? “Six weeks.” I said. “Six weeks eh… allot of film makers complain that six weeks isn’t long enough to shoot a film. But we shot Breaker Morant in six weeks and we had the fucking Boer War in the middle of it!” It was a hilarious comment and a very encouraging one. It filled me with some confidence, what ever we were heading off to do for the next six weeks, at least I didn’t have to worry about staging a full scale war in there somewhere. Thanks Bryan.

And speaking of Bryan. Another film I love, that was also based out of the SAFC in the 80′s and that shares some similarities to Last Ride, particularly in it’s themes and locations (and that Antonia Barnard, co-producer of Last Ride was the production manager of) was The Shiralee.

ps: I wonder where Storm Boy is now…?

December 21st, 2008 by Glendyn

Last night we finished the sound mix. In some ways it feels like a bigger milestone than locking off the edit. Not sure why. Perhaps it’s because even after the edit I still knew there was a long way to go with post, sound being the biggest of all the jobs. I’ve been obsessed with the sound and music for the film for the past 8 or 9 weeks. Literally. Every moment of my day and night, including many weird dreams and nightmares have been caught up in the sound of the film in one way or another.

We all met up with Gethen Creagh in Adeliade at the South Australian Film Corp mixing theatre and mixed away for 3 intense weeks. I say intense even though most of it for me anyway was spent sitting on a couch drinking gallons of green tea, while others beavered away, pushing buttons and tweaking knobs. But it is an intense experience none the less. I love sound, I think I love it more than image. And I definatley feel more confident talking and discussing sound than I do pictures.

If the films pictures was an apple I could describe to you what the apple looks like, whether it was green or red, or a mixture of both perhaps. How big and or round it is, if it had a stem, and how long that was and which way it bent etc. But if the films sound was an apple, I could think about and explain in obsessive detail not only the colour and shape, etc, but I could discuss the spots and blemishs on the skin, every ripple and dimple, what the stem looks like and how far it reaches inside the apple, how it would feel like in your hand and what it would taste like if you took a bite out of it. (Is that a really crazy analogy..? I think I’m losing it…)

I can just see and hear the detail in sound more easily than I can pictures. And I believe sound is a far more powerfully emotive element than a picture can ever be.

So it’s intense in the way that every decision we made was a really important one to me. And for every tweak and modification we made, I wished we could have done 10 more, and then another 10 after that. I think in this part of the process, we didnt so much as finish the mix, but we abandond it when we absolutley ran out of time and could do no more. But as I have mentioned many times on this blog, time is not something you have much of when making a feature film of this size.

Anyway… I’m really happy with the result. And very proud of the talented and colaborative team I had around me.

Adrian Medhurst(Assistant Mixer) Gethen Creagh (mixer) Craig Conway (Sound Designer) Me (in need of a haircut and shave) Paul Charlier (composer) Missing from this picture – Jack Hutchings (editor) and Antonia Barnard (Producer behind the Lens) and also Nick Cole (producer) who graced us with his sage like wisdom and guidance for a couple of days as well.

Paul and I. And Craig obsessing over some minor EQ of his own in the background.

Just a few more weeks to go…

December 7th, 2008 by Glendyn

Assistant Steven is smiling cos he can finally get some sleep!

This is a shot of the music cue that the film ends with. It has kept me and others awake for many nights for many different reasons…

Tonight we finished the music. Paul Charlier has created something quite special. In very little time I might add. It’s probably been the trickiest part of the process for me personally and I wont say it’s been an easy run.

Music is such an intangible thing. Everyone has a different opinion of what they do and don’t like. Finding a common language to discuss the intricacies to creating a piece of music is something that will continue to frustrate, confuse but ultimately intrigue me for the rest of my life.

In the end for me it comes down to the fact that all the other aspects of the filmmaking process I can physically get my hands on. I can bash away on a keyboard and write. I can make decisions about casting. I can search for and choose locations. I can attempt to direct. I can physically place a camera and make an assessment on what lens should be used. I can assume people share and understand my vision for things. I can bash and crash an edit together. I can hold a microphone, I can even make the sandwiches if I have to.

But essentially when it comes to music, I cant play an instrument (despite my father and brother being very talented musicians). So I physically cant grab a guitar or a keyboard and play it like I’m hearing it in my head. AND THAT KILLS ME!!!

Jack, Greig and Jo and others that I have worked with over a long period of time, share a common language and set of experiences and references that allow us to communicate in a kind of creative shorthand. It’s very easy for us to discuss things of a visual things amongst ourselves. But, I hadnt worked with Paul before and this placed us in the tricky position of finding this language in a very short amount of time. And in my opinion it’s far harder to discuss sound than it is pictures.

Perhaps thats why Werner Herzog said he would give 10 years of his life to play the cello. Not so much as to be able to play an instrument but to be able to cut to the chase while working with musicians and composers. It’s interesting watching Herzog in that clip. He famously said once that making films is a physical activity more than any other. And there he is in the studio sitting quietly in awe of what the musicians are creating. It’s the least active I think I have ever seen him. BTW that clip is from the extra features on Herzog’s GRIZZLY MAN one of his most accesable and best films. I highly reccomend it!

I’m obsessed with sound and music. I think about it perhaps more than other other element. In fact if I am really honest, I think I make films cos I can’t play an instrument. After all film has much more in common with music than any other form, as like music, film is linear and time based.

I’ve been in Sydney for the last week working with Paul and we finished today after two days of track laying at Sound Firm. It was such a pleasure to finally hear the tracks being layed down. I cant wait to get to Adelaide now and get into the final mix with the others now that we have all the ingredients to finish the film.

The end is in sight!