The Black Pearl and Abbas Kiarostami

I guess the highlight of my trip to Abu Dhabi and the Middle East Film Festival was winning the BLACK PEARL for 'Best New Narrative Director'. It was a huge honor to accept the award not only because it came with a nice bit of metal, with a large black pearl mounted in the middle of it, plus a sizable and very generous cash prize, but mainly because it was awarded by a jury that was headed by one of the few true masters of cinema and hero of mine, the legendary Abbas Kiarostami.

Abbas Kiarostami (AK) has been a direct influence on me for many years. All his films (that I have seen) are like book marks in my continuing education as a filmmaker. I can recall each of them as a precise and life changing moment.

Needless to say that when I learnt that AK was to head the Jury at the Middle East Film Festival I was excited at the mere chance of meeting and perhaps shaking his hand. I never considered winning a prize or anything.

It was a cool experience just sitting in on the competition screening of Last Ride knowing that Abbas and the rest of the jury was watching the film in the audience with me. It could have been quite nerve wracking, but I felt regardless if AK liked the film or not, I could see parts of the film that he and his films had a direct influence on. It was a great feeling. I walked away from that screening feeling that if nothing else, it was very cool to have sat in the same audience with AK and watch my film together (even if we were on opposite sides of the dark cinema).

Any of AK's films are worth seeing, but the film of his that has had the most direct and personal influence on me was actually an extra feature on the DVD for his film Ten. The film is simply called Ten on Ten and it is essentially AK's 10 point guide to filmmaking, using the film Ten as an example, but I dont think you have to have seen the film for it to be valuable, but it would help, as Ten is an amazing film that I highly recommend! He filmed Ten on Ten himself with a camera mounted on the dashboard of his car as he drives through the hills surrounding his home town of Tehran. It's like riding shotgun, on a Sunday drive with one of the most incredible film makers, having them discuss their thoughts on technique, process and philosophy. Each section covers a different aspect of filmmaking: Camera, Music, Actors, Locations, Story etc..

As a fan, and as a filmmaker, it is a gift. All ten parts are on YouTube and if your a film student or interested in learning about filmmaking from a totally different perspective then it's the best hour or so you could spend. It's everything they don't teach you in film school. And if you buy into the rhythm, style and the content, the final two minutes of part 10 'The Final Lesson' is one of the most cinematic, profound and poetic moments I have experienced.

But it only really works if you spend the time working through the 10 steps. You have to spend the time for the payoff to be effective. And in this way its very much like all of his films. I hope I'm not building it up to much... it's actually a very, very small but in so many ways an illuminating conclusion, for me anyway.

I could go on and on about AK and the ways in which he has inspired me over the years, and not just as a director, but also as a photographer and as a writer. If you are really keen to learn some more, I recently found this great interview, featured on Facebook of all places.

I had the chance to have a good conversation with AK after the awards ceremony about Last Ride and bunch of other stuff. It was very cool to say the least. I'm not one for having fanboy photo's taken with people of whom I'm fans of, but this was one meeting I just couldn't resist.

One of the happiest moments of my life.

I've been lucky enough to travel to many film festivals all around the world, but I would have to say that the Middle Eastern Film Festival would be one of the best. It has been able to strike that great balance between shall we say 'hospitality' and cinema. It's what a great film festival should be. (And I must ad I was feeling this way before I won anything!)

We were made to feel most welcome and there was alot of interest in the film and in Australia in general. The nightly parties were spectacular but most importantly the selection of films were amazing. Such a high level of talent. So again I was as honored to receive any prize, as to just have Last Ride in competition was reward enough.

Random Abu Dhabi (pt2)

Fire Works in Abu Dhabi

Just arrived home from Abu Dhabi and The Middle Eastern Film Festival. What a blast! More soon...

ps: I'm so over eBlogger, and it's constraints. Newer and more betterer site coming soon - stay tuned.

5Dmk2 crazy war footage update.

I'm not sure about the objectivity of this film and the music is a little OTT. But there is no denying the incredible camera work of imbedded journo Danfung Dennis (cool name!). This teaser trailer for his upcoming PBS docco appears revealing, intimate and engaging on so many levels. It also looks stunning and again it's all shot on the very small, very cheap and very accessible Canon 5Dmk2. I'm so inspired by this kind of thing at the moment, not just the energy of the production but the evidence that the technology is providing a different kind of access and opportunity for filmmakers at all levels.

Battle for Hearts and Minds Trailer from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.

Insane.

Via Planet 5D where there is more info and less superlatives...

Random Abu Dhabi (pt1)

More 5D love...

A few people have asked if I am being paid by Canon to be spreading so much gratuitous love about the recent release of their Canon 5Dmk2. Unfortunately I'm not, but I do want to continue the love by putting up to recent examples I have come across of the camera and it's users producing outstanding work. What makes this work stand out for me is that these productions would not have existed in the same way, had the 5Dmk2 not been created.

By that I mean, the two examples below could only have been created using that particular camera. Film cameras, or the much larger HD cameras either couldn't have done the job, or would have produced a very different and perhaps more compromised end result. This is what excites me most about the 5Dmk2 (and the new 7D!, check a comparison here), it just hasn't given filmmakers a new camera, it's a camera that creates whole new opportunities to create.

The first is a commercial directed by my friend and fellow Exit director Garth Davis. He recently shot this U.S Cellular commercial using only available city light, in Wellington in New Zealand. He really wanted to shoot the whole spot 'in camera' ie no post production. He shot tests on 35mm and various HD cameras, but nothing performed as well in the low light as the 5Dmk2. To shoot the same job traditionally on 35mm or RED for example, would have meant immense lighting set-ups. Something that budget nor time would allow. The 5Dmk2 went where no other camera could. It's beautifully shot by 'Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind' DOP Ellen Kuras.

The next clip is an amazing piece of embedded journalism. Photo-jounalist Danfung Dennis

spent some time with some frontline marines in Afghanistan. The opening sequence was all

shot on the 5D and it's unlike anything else I have seen from such a small one person set up.

Filmic and rich, it feels like watching a real life Full Metal Jacket.

Here is a quick extract from a longer interview with Dennis.

How did you manage to film in this situation?

You just stay quite low and focus on working the camera. … I am using a new camera called

the Cannon [EOS] 5D Mark II, shoots full HD video. I’ve custom built it so I can rig it onto a

steady cam-like device, so that when I am running it will shoot a very smooth, steady picture.

It’s a bit tricky because [the Marines are] running, you’re running, you’re wearing huge

amount of equipment, and at the same time you’re trying to stay very level and very steady.

So it took a lot of practice. I believe I am the first to be using this set up in this situation.

I think more and more docs will be filmed like this because all you need is this camera, your

own laptop and some editing skills, and you can put together your own documentary.”

I find it very hard to believe that these two very different clips, were shot on a $3000 DSLR.

And neither would have been possible a year ago.

LA LA Land

Back home after a week of 'meetings' in LA. I now have a U.S agent and a head full of possibilities (not dreams). I have never had much interest in working in the U.S and in particular LA, but now, particularly after having made my first film, the idea of working in and/or via the U.S is a really exciting and much more defined opportunity.

Made some new friends as well as a chance to meet up with some old ones, including my good friend Mike (above) who was passing through at the same time I was there so we spent the weekend cruising around. Random shots below...

Strangely beautiful and a very particular quality of light in LA. Perhaps its all that pollution that hangs thick in the air that gives the hard sunlight a permanent diffusion. Although the shots above were mainly shot near Venice and down in Orange County where the sea mist was real thick. Very cool.

I've heard some pretty bad things about L.A, ad although I found it pretty hard to access at first but I think it's a city that slowly reveals reveals itself the more time you spend digging, I barely even scratched the surface. It has definatly wet my appetite for more.

Fireworks in L.A!

New York State Of Mind (pt 2)

Top of the Rock!

MOMA guards.

Tribeca woman.

Oldschool

Kid on the Statten Island Ferry.

Another Kid (Rosebud) on the Ferry.

I want to shoot a whole film right here.

Natalie on a late night walk 'home' near Wall Street.

Like I've died and gone to heaven...

I ? NY!

New York State Of Mind (pt 1)

(As I write this I'm mid-flight between New York and LA. They have Wi-Fi on the plane! Giddy Up!)

This was my first trip to New York. I cant believe it's taken me so long to get there. What an amazing city. I've been to some great 'cities', Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, London, Paris and I live in what I think is one of the great cities, Melbourne, but New York seriously takes the cake. In some ways it was so familiar because you see so much of it in film, TV and popular culture as a whole, but on the other hand it was so much more intense and awesome than I ever thought it might have been.

My wife Natalie and daughter Rosebud flew over from Australia to join me for the week and it was such a great time. We walked and walked taking it all in. . Met up with friends, old and new. So many images and experiences to sift through.

Whenever I travel to a knew place, it's like from that moment on I see my own POV in everyday life with a slightly wider lens, New York has done that to a tremendous degree, it's almost like a fisheye! I have only just left and I can't wait to go back.

Also whenever I'm in knew places I like to totally geek out and hunt down locations that have been used in films that I love. It was Degrassi Street last week in Toronto, but in New York you could spend months just finding film locations. They are everywhere! So I decided to head out to Brooklyn to find a place that my brother went to last year.

My bro and I where obsessed with the film Saturday Night Fever when we where kids. So I went to find not only the street(s) from the opening credit sequence and in particular the Pizza place that John Travolta gets two slices from. "Gimme Two."

(UPDATE 'NO LONGER AVAILABLE, DUE TO COPYRIGHT CLAIM'...? What a load of baloney.

Lenny's Pizza still exists and is still serving Pizza. I don't think it's changed much in 30 years. I had the Vodka Tomato Sauce (yep Vodka!) and Cheese and a slice of margarita. It was really great Pizza!

It's a really cool area, with the overhead train line so iconic in so many films. Really broad accent out here too. "Yoo whann-a Cwup o' Cwoffee?"

They have this framed photo hung at the counter of John visiting the shop, but who is that other guy next to him? You can see the owners have taken pictures from a TV screen to show the scenes where Lenny's is used.

As novel and geeky as it might be, I really love going and finding film locations. I guess I see them as sacred in some way. Alot of thought and consideration goes into choosing a location, and most of the time when you see a great location in reality, you can see why a director has chosen it, it might has great depth, how the lens they used has changed or distorted the reality, or a distinguishing feature that gives it a sense of place (like the overhead Railway in Saturday Night Fever, it's a great piece of production design just sitting there waiting to add value. It's one part of the production process I enjoy the most.

If your as tragic as me, there is a great website here that lists a heap of great films, their locations and how to find them.

(A special hello to my friend Keri D Light, who I met by surprise in a bar last night, which is always where I seem to run into her...! She has just moved to NY and has head full of dreams and inspiration. All the best Keri! I'm so jealous!)

The revolution will be televised.

I recently bought a Canon 5D mkII. For those that know even a little bit about this camera and it's abilities, it will come as no surprise that I am totally blown away by it's potential and what it promises filmmakers looking for cheap and totally accessible technology.

I love film. I have shot most of my projects over the last 8 years on 35mm, regardless of budget, I have always found a way to make it work, because I love the look and the feel of film and nothing has ever come close to replacing it aesthetically or creatively. I'll hang on to using it for as long as my white knuckle grip can can hold. But five minutes with 5DmkII, I was so impressed with it that I knew there and then that I have probably shot my last film, on film.

Regardless of it's (current) technical restrictions of file format and shooting at 30 fps etc. For me the real value of this new technology is in the immediacy and the intimacy it provides with an actor or character.

The image it produces is incredibly beautiful, almost painterly in the right conditions. In low light it excels like nothing else I've seen, it leaves film and every other HD video format I have played with (mainly RED, HDV and GENESIS) for dead. It has changed the game, and this is only it's first incarnation. Who knows where this will take us in the next couple of years.

Below is the very first footage I shot with the camera. It's my 2 year old Rosebud early one morning. There was very little light in the room, I was amazed MkII could see anything at all. It's rough and ready, but with this footage a whole new approach to making films became excitingly possible.

There is no way I could of captured Rosie at such ease if I had a bigger camera and or other 'crew' with me. This footage stands up on a HD monitor, or 'the big screen' no problems.

It excites me for so many reasons. Without a doubt, with the proliferation of low cost, high end image making tools like this, the kinds of films we make and the way we make them will change forever and for for the better.

I've been doing alot of tests with the 5D. The other night we went out and did some side by side tests with the RED, similar lenses, lighting etc. It's surprising how close they came up, and again in low light the 5D just soaked up anything resembling light and used it to produce a startling and rich picture, totally blowing the RED away. I might post some of the tests up here a little later, if anyone is interested.

But in the mean time, there is a really great RED vs 5D vs LUMIX comparison here.

Top 1500 of all time.

On the weekend I met a book publisher (who coincidentally publishes the book that one of my favorite films of the year is adapted from...). He was a very interesting guy and very passionate about books and the publishing world in general. He told us that when he turned 40 he was confronted by the fact that even if he read a book every week until he was 80 or so, he could only ever read around 1500 more books. And he set about forming a list of what those 1500 book would be, increasingly lamenting the fact that he would be forever missing out on more and more books that he would love to read but through his own mortality would never be able to read. The more he put on the list, the more he realised would be left off the list.

It's really got me thinking about the never ending stream of films, books and music that enters my life. Just when you think you've explored a certain writer / director / artist / genre etc, you find out you're just scratching the surface. The more you know, the more you realise you don't know.

Think about it though. If you knew you had a finite amount to read, watch and listen to, what would you choose?

Above is a snap of the 'To View or Re-view' section of my DVD collection. Every film in this section I really want to watch (and every couple of weeks new films get added to it). If I was to watch one of those films every week or so, that's nearly a years worth of viewing just there. And thats not taking into consideration the constant MUST SEE films that are constantly coming my way, from the past, present and future.

One Year Ago Today

Back in the olden days, before I kept this blog, I used to write things down in a book. Freaky!

It's one year today (even though my journal says Feb, it was actually March) since I went on the initial location scout for the film. It was the first of three, but in many ways the most significant.

Nick and Antonia (Producers) Jo Ford (Production Designer), Mason Curtis (Location Manager) and me, all jammed into a 4WD for five days...