DRIVE BY SHOOTINGS

They have been around for a while, but I'm still loving these seemingly random photographs of drivers by Andrew Bush. You can see all 66 Drives here.

WM3 ARE FREE. FINALLY!

So good hearing the West Memphis Three were finally released from prison over the weekend after 18 crazy years. I have kept up to date with the three guys over the last fourteen years or so after I first saw the documentary Paradise Lost back in 1997 at the Melbourne International Film Festival. I remember that night very clearly. I remember the cinema (The Forum) the seat I sat in (6 rows from the front, middle section, two in from the left aisle) and that I don't think I moved from the edge of my seat from the very first frame, till the last, I don't think I breathed either. Quite simply, Paradise Lost changed my life. It's one of the most, if not the most engaging film I've ever seen, it's the film that convinced me to quit my job and apply to film school.

If you haven't seen Paradise Lost, stop what you are doing right now and begin. Or better still buy it here and enjoy part two Paradise Lost 'Revelations' as well. I can't wait for Part three 'Revelatioins', which I'm sure will be getting a re-cut right about now. A trilogy 18 years in the making, and now with a happy ending!

Hard to imagine how these guys can adjust to any kind of 'normal life' after losing their childhoods and for one Damien, spending seventeen out of the last eighteen years on death row, for a crime he (and they) did not commit. I wish them all the best!

Tons of info about their release and the campaign to set them free over the years over at wm3.org

Also, where I be today without the soundtrack to Paradise Lost!?

IF NOT HERE, THEN WHERE?

HAIL RAISER

Congratulations to Amiel and team for their film Hail has been selected to screen at the Venice Film Festival next month. To help raise some much needed funds to get some of the essential cast and crew over to the festival they have organised an exhibition and fundraiser to be held in Melbourne this Friday night at Goodtime Studios from 6pm.

Photographs by me and Director of Photography Germain McMicking taken on set during the shoot will be on sale. (The prints look beautiful, are 30x20 inches and printed on archival paper. Limited to 5 editions each at $350 each. Bargain!) There will also be some poetry readings by star of the film Daniel P. Jones and music by The Midnight Juggernauts. Full details of the night are here...

BEACONSFIELD, WEEK 5 'Wrap!'

Wrapped the shoot last Friday! Our final week took me back again to Beaconsfield, Tasmania. This was my 4th trip, but this time I had some cast and (a reduced) crew in tow. As well as shooting some key sequences in the streets of Beaconsfield, we were most importantly able to shoot 400 meters below ground in the real Beaconsfield mine as well as some other scenes on the 'brace', the area underneath the now iconic triangular poppet head of the mine, including a recreation of the famous footage of the boys coming out after fourteen days trapped below ground.

I think overall we have done very well. From the start we approached the script like a feature film, even though we only had a 'TV' budget and schedule. In most parts I think we have succeeded and if we haven't it wasn't from not trying as hard as we could.

I'm so impressed with the crew that I have had around me. I'm looking forward to the time I can work with each and everyone of them again. On all levels they have delivered above and beyond what was expected. It's been a gruelling schedule to say the least and I know I could not have  made it through the shoot without a bunch of guys and gals around me who worked as hard and as fast as they did while still maintain a high level of creativity and craft. Thanks to everyone on the crew, from the production office, to the unit boys, right through and up to the heads of department!

Now into the edit... more fun and games...

GHOSTS FOR SALE

Saw these baby ghosts for sale during the week...

BEACONSFIELD, WEEK 4 'THE 925'

We have spent the last week shooting on sets built in a huge warehouse in Yarraville. The main set is 'the 925', which is the name of the drive (925 meters underground) that collapsed on Todd and Brant in the Beaconsfield mine in 2006. Even though we shot in a real mine, we could never create a 'collapsed mine' in a mine, so we had to build it. I've never really shot on sets, in fact I've made a point of not shooting on them, but I've learnt so much watching The 925 develop from inital recces and research, to rough sketches, to drafted plans and ultimately construction.

Production designer Jon Rhode has done an incredible job not only designing but also stretching our very small budget a very long way (over 50 meters end to end!) on this set and all the other smaller ones. Standing on the set of the 925 when it was lit and dripping with water felt alot like being in a real mine, I kept feeling like I needed to put my hard hat on.

A few more snaps after the break...

Just a sample of the bucket loads of fake rocks that had to be moulded, sculptured and painted...

MONSTER CHILDREN

Monster Children has been my favourite magazine for years. So I was pretty chuffed to be asked to do a couple pages in the latest issue (#31). They usually publish two different covers, which is cool in itself, but I was particularly excited to see both covers for this issue featuring past heroes of mine. Dennis Hopper on one cover as there is a great article about Hoppers photography and David Carson on the other, who when I was a graphic designer was like a god to me.

Featured  in the spread were a couple of snaps of my very own monster children, Ollie and Rosebud.

MINERS

Took some dirty portraits of some of the dirty actors one lunch break while shooting at the A1 mine.

BEACONSFIELD, WEEK 3

Returned on Saturday from a week shooting deep down underground. Filmmaking takes you to some pretty cool places, but I'm still trying to comprehend not only where we have been, but how on earth we got there. To even step foot in an underground mine is difficult enough, but to gain access and take fifty cast and crew for a week of filming under ground is a thought almost to crazy to consider, particularly on a schedule and budget as tight as ours. Mines are dark, wet, small and full of safety, technical, geological and physical considerations. A crew member with over 25 years in the industry said to me during the week that what we were doing was the most logistically and physically tough shoot he had ever been on. Which on one hand excited me, and on the other made me realise just how hard everyone was working to make this happen as smoothly and efficiently as it could.

The underground environment goes against everything a film crew needs to work; flexibility, accessibility and time. But what the mine took away from us in logistics, it gave back ten fold in providing a location that visually and structurally we could never have recreated in a studio. Speaking of which this week sees us back in Melbourne filming in the relative comfort and convenience of a set built in a huge warehouse in Footscray.

A huge thanks to A1 Consolidated gold mine, tucked high up in the hills about 4 hours drive from Melbourne (just near Woods Point, which is dying for a Deliveranceremake to be filmed there!). A1 essentially shut down for the week to facilitate the shoot and give us mostly free reign on their very cool place. And also a huge thanks to location manager Chris Stanton and the rest of the production team who help seal the deal!

And a massive thanks to the cast and crew who endured the cold, the mud, the dark and the insanity of it all.

More snaps after the break...

Director of Photography Toby Oliver, grinning and bearing it...

Make up designer Fiona Rhys-Jones doing final checks on Syd Brisbane. Everyone below ground had to wear a helmet, cap lamp, steel cap gum boots, safety vest and most importantly an OxyBoks self rescuer that thankfully no-one had to use!

These kids are more than alright...

...they're amazing!

Via Nick Turpin via The Guardian.

BEACONSFIELD, WEEK 2

We are half way through the shoot. This week we shot all the scenes of the boys in 'the cage', all 62 of them! We built a set that was the exact dimensions to what the real cage was, it's such a small space that Todd and Brant had to endured for over two weeks. All the news reports at the time, depicted the cage more like a prison cell size, or a least a space they could sit up and casually sit back in. But it was more like a coffin sized space that two big guys could just fit in, when lying down. They could not straighten out, nor sit up, and had the constant threat of thousands of tons of rocks hanging just centimetres above. I think it was Brant who described the situation as similar to having someone point a loaded gun at you for two weeks. Never knowing when or if they might pull the trigger. I had my mind set to build our cage exactly how the real one was, or as close to as possible. And even though we could remove walls and the roof etc to assist us with shooting it was still a really tight fit. It was built on quite a complex rig that could be shaken, jacked up and dropped. It was like this living thing, a bit like a theme park ride. The real Todd Russell dropped onto set and gave us the thumbs up, which is good enough for me. He joked earlier that we was going to get into the cage, but after he had a good look around it, I suspect that he didnt need to re-live the experience even if in the realms of make-believe.

Above: The Cage

We have been shooting between 10-13 scenes a day and I think we got up to up to 13 minutes of screen time on one day. I thought shooting in such a restricted space would reduce time, but because it was so small and there were so many special physical effects (rock falls, dust, water, 'seismic' activity, blasting etc) everything took much more time than I expected. But we got most of what we needed in the end. I hope we have captured some of the true horror of what it would be like to be trapped and buried alive a kilometre under ground.

Despite the long hours and the pressures of the schedule, I'm really enjoying myself. Fingers crossed the good experience continues for the next 2 weeks!

Lachy and Shane Jacobson (below, who plays Brant) are doing a great job as Todd and Brant. I've been so impressed with their approach to the characters and their performances. It was hard to shoot the scenes when they actually left 'the cage' I wish I could have spent another day or two with them on that set!

We are heading to shoot in a working gold mine this week for five days. A very cool but remote location about four hours drive from Melbourne.

HACKSVILLE

Last Thursday night Hoaxville disappeared. Some angry nerd and his bots hacked in and deleted the entire site and left a lovely (read shitty) message proudly stating they had done so. I contacted the host company in the U.S and they confirmed the site was indeed just 'not there anymore'. They asked if I had a back-up of the site and the terrible sinking feeling began to well and truly, sink in.

I know in the scheme of things losing a blog is not that huge, but I felt gutted (not unlike the pigs above which I snapped in Beaconsfield recently). I quickly began the process of trying to see it from all angles, trying to console myself with 'it's just a blog', 'you can start again...', 'surely there is a positive in this somewhere' etc... but it began to hit very hard the importance of not only this blog is to me, but the whole concept of  irreplaceable 'data' is. Especially when it's personal, and has been amassed over time. I have been lucky enough (unlucky enough?) to have had my home broken into just once in my life (touch wood!). The thieves didnt get away with much, but one of the things they did take was my back-pack that had a camera, my laptop and most importantly the notebook I had been using for over a year. I didn't care about the laptop or the camera, they were insured and backed-up, but I still feel bad sometimes about that simple back moleskin notebook. It was useless to the the thieves but had the most value to me.

So it was a really similar feeling to being robbed, even if what was stolen is just my random ramblings and to cut a long and boring story short, after being told by a few people that the site was 'gone'. I received an email from the host on Friday evening saying they did actually have a back up of the site from the previous week and within an hour or so Hoaxville was back on the internet map. A huge sigh of relief. That night I installed a back-up utility and changed and reinforced my passwords.

I'm actually pretty good with backing up (I have back ups of my back ups!) but I foolishly thought that because a blog is already in 'the cloud' the need to back-up was less important. But there are some lessons we learn the hard way. So... if you have a blog, back it up. Now!

A shout out it to my buddy Stu for his help and also to Kobi at Data Rescue, who if you ever lose anything digital, is the man to talk to!

SHOOT DAY 1

Just finished day one out. Fast and furious shooting to say the least... A good day though and a good start to the next 23 days. Below, Lachy Hulme (who I first met and had the pleasure of working with on Offspring last year) as Todd Russell. Lachy has packed nearly 20 kilos for the role. Impressive!

END OF PRE...

Last day of pre was on Friday. Shoot starts tomorrow. Weekend was spent soaking up some family time and last minute script tweaks with writer Judi McCrossin. There was a good energy in the office on Friday. Everybody seemed reasonably calm and on track as much as could be expected. I'm usually pretty nervous the night before any shoot, but I'm actually pretty excited! I'm looking forward to getting on set and getting some of this story out of our heads and into a camera!