Idea Fix - The Blog

One thing I have noticed in my years of running MUFF and making independent cinema, is an absurd prejudice in this country to low budget aesthetics. It’s as if years of government funded, technically well polished (but crap!) films, have Australian film industry personal and potentates all hooked on the fine tuning of a films aesthetic. And not worrying about its content, excitement, originality or quality as a work of art. I mean Esther Blueberger was polished, but it was a polished turd. Am I right, people?

At Accent Underground (AU), the MUFF DVD label we set up with Accent Film Entertainment, we have been releasing these less polished and low budget gems to the Australian public. Just watch “demonamongus”, “Welcome Stranger”, “The Garth Method” and others on AU and tell me these are not great local films?

They may not have the millions wasted on them polishing every detail. But they are all ballsy, original new Australian movies.

The Magician, by Scott Ryan, was 90% the same movie that played at MUFF compared to the version that came out after the FFC got involved, adding 300K or so to polish it that extra ten percent. I’m all for doing that polish, if you can and The Magician is better for it. But the original was equally as impressive as the finished product. It just had a new ending, decent sound mix and some proper credits. But the talent revealed in the early cut was clear to see.

Whenever I watch a low budget movie, Australian or otherwise, I enter into an agreement to expect some rough edges. It comes with the territory. That’s why its a low budget movie! I call this expectation ‘the low budget impressionist effect’. Things are sometimes not as polished as they could, or should be. For example, the sound may be a little low in one scene, a music cue not quite at the right level in another, a visual effect that could be slightly better, etc. These things all can be fixed given large $ in post. But the point is low budget films often don’t have the lolly of big budget films and should not be scolded for their inherent limitations. In fact, these drawbacks should be understood and appreciated!

Lars Von Trier’s whole Dogme 95 movement pulled us away from this absurd obsession with over polish in modern cinema. I mean, do we look at impressionists and ask of them why they didn’t paint a clearer picture? Of course not.

Low budget aesthetics are a form of cinematic impressionism that varies depending on the resource, budget or even intention of the films creator, and should be acknowledged as such.

If we embraced a more rough and tumble aesthetic, that recalls many great movements in cinema from Dogme to the French and British New Wave movements, back to early days of experimental, underground and even silent cinema, we can see the excellence in low budget cinema, for what it is. And perhaps reward it, next time around, with a more comprehensive budget. Instead of pouring millions down the gurgler on crap like September, Blueberger and other recent flops.

Like Robert Connolly says in his ‘white paper’, and in what he said was canvassed at 2020 conference, we should reward talent, innovation and success. I say to do so, also, from whatever aesthetic tier a work of cinematic art may emerge from.

Again, your thoughts are welcome in the comments page…

Its no secret I love the music of the eighties, especially that of the electronic variety.

Here is a funny/cool video of 80’s band The Twins, they were sort of like a German Pet Shop Boys, but with a Giorgio Moroder LA style flavour. Made up of Sven Dohrow and Ronny Schreinzer they had a string of excellent singles and albums in that golden decade. The music of local bands like The Presets and Cut Copy would kill for this retro style and sound. Dancing space girls, weird colour coded suits and little hip insignia badges, Idea Fix gives you all a blast from the most musically significant decade post WW2, yes, the 1980’s.

Enjoy!

Also I just found this video called “Life of a Toy” from a band called “My Favourite Toys” produced by Ronny Schreinzer from “The Twins”. It’s tres cool. Does anyone out there in internet lands have a copy of the “My Favourite Toys” album or single they can burn onto CD for me? If so comment with your email and I’ll get back to you. I love to discover this, rare, 80’s electro shit. Cheers!

My Favourite Toys clip.

I had the great pleasure to see John Foxx perform live at The Corner Hotel, a few weeks back. I have wanted to see him live for around 20 years and now have! All you kids that like the electro of Miss Kitten, FisherSpooner, The Knife and local acts Cut Copy and The Presets, should check Foxx out, he is the real deal. With his work with early Ultarvox!, to his first solo album Metamatic and his recent 00’s releases being equally as superd as his first three solo albums, Foxx is back in serious form and more relevant than ever. His new CD “From Trash” is a masterpiece of Ballardian electro and alienation.

Foxx’s number one Oz fan Colin Savage was there snapping away with his camera.

After the concert with Bruce Butler we spent some time chatting with Foxx and what an unpretentious nice guy he was.

See photo below of Foxx and Wolstencroft.

I would love to work with him one day on a soundtrack. His new instrumental CD “Tiny Color Movies” makes NIN’s recent non vocal album look like a joke. If you haven’t discovered Foxx you are missing out on some of the most intelligent and disquieting electronic music around.

Film Victoria held a conference a few weeks back called Mindshift, as a kind of official response to the on going Australian Film Industry Crisis, that we have long harped on about here at Idea Fix, and through my own prosetylising at MUFF. I have been biding my time to see other articles or discussions of the event, so as to respond to them, but so far I have found none! Yes, a conference on change in the Oz film industry that receives no media coverage. So, I thought I’d better publish my own humble thoughts before the whole event receives no review on the Internet.

I was a little sceptical about such events, i.e. as it is often organised by the very people who have made our industry so mediocre for the past while. But anyways I’m usually up for a bit of debate and that is always healthy. I bumped in to Steve Jennings, from Nothing But The Struth, who was brave enough to sit next to me, the Oz film Industry gadfly, at the forum.

Here was the guest list of official speakers at Mindshift:

* Robert Connolly, Director of Arenafilm and author of the excellent white paper Embracing Innovation.
* Joel Pearlman, Managing Director of Roadshow Films.
* Debra Allanson, Managing Director of Ishmedia.

Also:

* Pete Wilson - Director of Movie Measure. Pete works with investors, filmmakers and distributors to gather market research on the way audiences respond to films.
* Patrick McIntyre - Acting Executive Director of the Australian Ballet.
* Debi Enker - Chief TV Journalist for The Age Green Guide.
* Michael Padden - General Manager of BigPond Mobile Network.
* Paul Wiegard, Madman Films
* And others

The event was well attended with about 300 people from all aspects of the industry.

Robert Connolly was clearly the most interesting speaker, as he addressed issues raised by his extremely important paper, “Embracing Innovation”. See here. His main points are that the film industry in Australia is stagnating and going nowhere, unlike other Oz creative industries like the music industry, that all readily adapt to innovation and change. Connolly says the industry does not embrace new ideas, ways of making films cheaper, for example, and is stuck in a cumbersome mode of production and infrastructure at both Industry and Government funding levels. Basically, he contends that our beloved industry is outdated, incestuous with non-innovators and retrograde. Not only that, Connolly says the system is also corrupt! He says that it encourages established producers to raise their budgets into the millions to justify their producing fees. He says he has done so himself on Three Dollars that cost 6 million, but he admits should have and could have been made for much less! He calls this inflation of budgets ‘perverse incentives’ i.e. for producers to get a reasonable fee they have to inflate their budgets, thus creating vast wastage, excess and over spending in the industry. Gov bodies approve all this and turn a blind eye to the lot. Connolly suggests establishing decent Producers and Directors fees based on track record, innovation and talent and not related to budget. A brilliant idea! So even on a low budget film, the producer can still be well paid and fairly compensated for her time. This ‘perverse incentive’ he describes sounds more to me like official corruption in the Australian Film Industry…

That is why at the drinks afterwards I heard Connolly’s name being sullied by various anonymous sources as a ‘light weight’ and an ‘up start’, all because he had the guts and honesty to blow the whistle on the gravy train, that could easily be fixed with some common sense and lateral thinking. I spoke to Connolly after the event and gave him a copy of my own contribution to Oz film industry criticism “The 1st MUFF Manifesto”. I said that we are the only two people in this decade or more, from the industry, to have created an official paper or manifesto that had the guts to stand up and constructively criticise our local film landscape. Connolly is a wry chap and probably thought, ‘Who is this guy?’… but the point stands.

Back to the conference. I must say I felt many speakers had their heads firmly planted up their asses, talking in industry double speak about “creating critical mass” (whatever that is) and similar jargon that is totally meaningless and unproductive. It was clear that 80% of the speakers and audience had no clue about how to fix the film industry.

The exceptions were Joel Pearlman from Village, who espoused a theory of genre, especially Comedy. Paul Wiegard’s comments on finding niche markets and about there being no formula for success and that it comes from fragmentation, multiplicity and many different approaches to film making .i.e true diversity in movie making. The film tester and market researcher Pete Wilson also had some good points about content, that he gleaned from his research. And Bobby Galinsky’s questions concerning the quality of script writing, that has been so poor in recent examples of OZ cinema, like Esther Blueberger, et al. A Victorian College of the Arts Professor also asked why large corporations don’t contribute something back to the film industry in the development arena, which sounds a fair idea. There were other good speakers, but too few. What the head of The Australian Ballet was doing there as a guest, I don’t think even Socrates could enlighten me on?

You know me, I’ve more front than Myers, so I had no trouble asking/telling the panel about Genre being the main road out of our industry doldrums, about the fact everyone in the room but a few is over 45 or so and where is fresh new film making talent? I also stated that Australia needs to move away from the condescending PC story lines of most Oz films of late, and to (sometimes) allow a darkness to enter Australian cinema. When questioned by the clueless host as to how I came by this information? I used examples of recent OS hits No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood being very dark and immoral hits and also pointed out local TV hits like Underbelly, as proof of my ‘theory of darkness’ in Oz cinema. The question was met by silence, as was Bobby Galinsky’s re: scripts, no one had the nerve to address any of these raised issues. The host quickly moved to the next question of a more non-threatening nature

This is one of the things that most sickens me about the Australian industry. The head in the sand approach. Just ignore the problem, if you hold a privileged position in the industry, and eventually it will go away. But it hasn’t and it never will. That is the problem, that is why we are at Mindshift. Its about ‘mind shift’, people, not a ‘head in the sand box’ meeting! This denial and repression of the problem is not Connolly’s innovation! Many have applauded Connolly’s paper and well they should. We need questions and more importantly answers, yes, and debate. Then decisions, real change and difference with lateral thinking, I can go on, and on. We are the most exciting wing of the creative arts bloc but the stuffiness, closed naturedness and ‘don’t rock the boat’ attitude is stifling, unproductive and destructive in our Industry. Until someone with real power makes change happen through innovation… its Esther Blueberger city, let’s be honest…

As Connolly said, “Innovation is what the industry should be about”. And he’s 100% right! He produced the excellent “The Boys”, one of my favourite Oz films of the last decade and he seemed to have his head firmly screwed on in relationship to the Film Industry Crisis. Journalists like Craig Mathieson from The Age and Bulletin were there and asked questions, but as far as I can tell, no official story from The Age has been published on this event? I hope I’m wrong…

Film Victoria should be congratulated for at least holding this event and acknowledging the problem. But the worry is, are the good ideas canvassed at Mindshift, going to be actioned upon? Unfortunately, I seriously doubt it.

The after party drinks sickened me a little, as I heard so many contrasting views from the usual suspects, the same ship of fools, who collectively have no idea about what to do about the industry. They have eked out their position in the industry and score big grants occasionally and they defend these ‘perverse incentives’ like rabid seagulls, from any criticism. The suggestion that the industry should be based on ideas like success, innovation, track record and performance made them all go pale, as many would be unemployed in two years. Not all obviously, but some.

From this multiplicity of contrasting opinion and double speak; will some equally clueless committee act on change? Even if they do, will it be the answer?

People like Robert Connolly need to be given Executive Power to make actual change in the industry. The new ‘Screen Australia’ amalgamate was raised. Connolly suggested seeing some filmmakers on the board of the FFC. This surely makes sense.

There are many other dynamic ideas that could be swiftly implemented.

Will ‘Screen Australia’ be just another name change to hide the fact that the Australian film industry is going down the toilet? Or will it give real power, not to clueless committees, but to a range of sensible innovative individuals at various levels of the industry, who can make varied executive decisions for change, vitality and innovation. This is the solution.

If this could be done, within a year or two this industry could be as dynamic, innovative and vital as it should be! Thoughts from the stalls?

The trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s Australia is up and running starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The films supporting cast reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the Australian acting community with David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Bruce Spence, John Jarratt, Ben Mendelsohn, Jack Thompson, Barry Otto and many others.

I like Baz’s over the top style and theatrical approach to film making. Its fairly original and different to what other bigger directors are doing today.

The Trailer looks interesting. Baz is going for the great Australian myth with this story. And good luck to film in his search for it and for its success at the box office.

It looks a bit like the kind of film we used to make in the 70’s with Baz’s trademark campness and lush photography thrown in. It looks Epic and its too long since someone made an epic here and, more to the point, about our continent.

What you all think of the Trailer?

Someone brought this to my attention. An interview with Joel Edgerton on the set of Jon Hewitt’s up coming teen serial killer movie, Acolytes. I have had the privilege of seeing the rough cut last year and it was totally excellent then, so now it must be schmick.

In this interview see footage of Jon Hewitt directing. It has a brief moment of Jon caring for the well being of his cast. It brings back certain fond memories of our early days of collaboration on Bloodlust, our shared first feature. And Joel Edgerton is great in Acolytes. This is one of his best roles. A good actor should always always play a psycho early. Just ask Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale about that. I was impressed with Joel way back when he did the Henry plays with John Bell in the 90’s. He remains one of my favourite contemporary Australian actors.

Here is the interview from last year. Acolytes played at the Cannes market last week.

Andrew Bolt is a lot of fun. While I may not agree with a lot of his conservative trex in the Herald Sun, I can’t help but like the fact he is our answer to Bill O’Reilly… or even Stephen Colbert. This guy needs his own reactionary TV show! He used to be an arts writer too, so he has a stone in his shoe about the vast wastage of tax payer dollars in the arts community. Bolt should be taken more seriously as a writer, than many give him credit for, in my eyes. And occasionally on various issues Mr.Bolt is spot on. Like, for example, in this article about the Australian films industry here.

He rightfully attacks Esther Blueberger for being the piece of shit it was. Yes, I saw it, what a turkey.

Here is a choice Bolt quote from the piece,

“The badness of Australian films is now so firmly fixed in the mind of the public that you’d earn more money selling tickets to the opening of a leper’s scabs.”

Pretty harsh, but acknowledging there is now a firmly entrenched prejudice against Australian films in the public’s eye, after 20 years of the current ‘regime’ running the film industry.

Bolt goes on to attack film critics who go easy on Australian films. Pointing out Stratton and Pomeranz from At The Movies, for chastisement.

There is a certain truth here. If people praise shit like Blueberger, Oyster Farmer, Danny Deckchair or laud unworthy accolades on mediocre at best films like Somersualt and The Black Balloon. How will anyone know, for example, that Rats and Cats that opens next week in a limited release really is a good, if not great, Australian movie?

Jim Schembri and Leigh Paatsch tell it like it is, many times, and should be commended for doing so.

The issue of critical responsibility is all part of the on going Crisis in the Australian film Industry declared in The MUFF manifesto. The crisis appears to be getting more serious, as time goes on.

Intrepid Filmnet reporter Gawain McLachlan is in Cannes, making his yearly sojourn, and filing reports. I have a few friends over there this year. i.e. Jon Hewitt who had a market screening with Acolytes, Bobby Galinsky, same with Prey, Joe Connor who produced the short Jerrycan, directed by Julius Avery, that is in competition, so congrats there. And others. See some of Gawain’s pictures of the AFC drinks at Cannes, posted here.

Here is some (not so) highlights from Gawain’s first Cannes report:

“Usual suspects are over at Cannes Film Festival again this year.
Seems a little quieter this year as the low $US may have scared some
yank filmmakers and buyers away.

As usual Australia has done very poorly with Cannes Film Fest
representation with only 2 short films in the fest. A good indication
of the poor state of the industry and failure to deal with the
continuing structural problems (well discussed over the years)”

and

“LAZY OLD AFC
Unlike most countries the AFC didn’t even bother to open their office
on day 1 (Wednesday) of the fest unlike previous years. Which wasn’t

much help to any Aussies who had just arrived in town and needed to

urgently check emails / get organised etc.”

Doesn’t sound all that thrilling, really. Hopefully Gawain will have some more tres interesting news from the festival for us later. I’ll post it here, if he does.

Cannes is fun. I went twice in the early 90’s and look forward to a return sooner than later. I was the Cannes party crasher, par excellence. But that’s another story…

Just got home from the Rats and Cats Premiere at the Sun Cinema in Yarraville. Great comedy. One of my favourite Australian Comedy features of this decade, I’d say.

It starred Adam Zwar and Jason Gann from Wilfred and was directed by Tony Rogers. It is about a faded Australian movie and TV star Darren McWarren (Jason Gann) living a very odd life on the fringes of a strange town called Merickvillie (or something like that). Film Industry reporter Ben (Adam Zwar) comes to town, to do an in depth story on McWarren, falling into his strange and eclectic crew and world. The charismatic pairing of Zwar and Gann from Wilfred is again a hit in Rats and Cats. These two are funny in just about every scene, as the film explores the out of control ego’s of the film world, small humorous details of McWarren’s life and the shoddy reality of most TV ’stars’. There is a great scene with the two scuba diving, that is a treat. Also, the Father Roger gags are suitable politically incorrect and sick. Not only is Rats and Cats funny, the film has an excellent mise en scene, in this strange village, that looks like some seaside shanty town, only with McWarren as its hero. Filmed partly at Avalon beach, a truly weird location, where Mark Savage shot part of Defenseless with me, the locations generally are bizarre, original and well chosen. McWarren plays in a crap local band (ala Russell Crowe) and is fucking the town bikes, but really is in love with the local massage girl, Cindy. At Ben’s behest, a more serious relationship is pursued. The film is oddly affecting in its tale of a fallen star. The mood of the film is almost Lynchian surreal and odd, that moves the film from that of light comedy, to that of art, as well. It really is excellent.

It premiered at MIFF last year as a rough cut, which I missed, but this new version is a winner. It’s the best Australian movie I’ve seen at the cinema, so far this year. It had no government money and a budget of around 300 K. It’s criminal that expensive crap like Esther Blueberger gets 6 million $ lavished on it, while this film with established and award winning comedy actors, gets made with no government funding… and has to be self distributed theatrically!

This film could easily be a Kenny in the making, if it finds the right audience. If you dug Wilfred, you’ll really dig this! Thanks to producer Jen Livingston for inviting my good self, David Thrussell and Kristen along to the red carpet event.

The after party was cool, too. Caught up with many people as we all got mildly sauced. Jason Gann is a nice bloke in person, his performances was top notch in Rats. He would make an excellent gangster or crim in a film, he has this strange way of intimidating people on screen that is funny, mildly scary and real. I also had a good chat to Aran Michael, manager of some top local actors, who reminded me about how he acted in my short Off Season, from the late eighties. I congratulated Tony Rogers on his film and his daring to make a comedy with edge in this country. Spoke to some of the excellent supporting cast and to Adam Zwar, who has got to be Australia’s answer to Simon Pegg, don’t you think? Adam appeared in MUFF hit Narcosys, back in 2000, directed by Mark Bakaitis and we had a good chat about his time on that film.

Rats and Cats other Producer Jason Byrne came up to me and asked me if I knew him. I’d seen his face around, but I said I couldn’t name him, no. He said we went to school together (Ivanhoe Grammar) and that he was the year below me, with Craig Knuckey and others. He also said he remembers an incident when some school bully’s apparently crucified me to a statue with rope(!) and threw eggs at me. I said I have absolutely no memory of that event, but he was sure it was me. I was bullied at Ivanhoe, a hot bed of teenage sadism in the 80’s, but not too bad from memory. I escaped from Ivanhoe for various reasons, in 1984, at the end of year ten. To go to a coed school with Media Studies classes (and girls!), but couldn’t remember this incident. I wondered if I had repressed it or buried it?

But hey, if you ever wonder why I am, the way I am, you may now have one of the small keys as to why. Maybe, that’s where I get my God complex from. Hehe.

Psychic TV had a live LP titled from the late 90’s “Were you Ever Bullied at School? Do you want Revenge?”. My answer (in my mind) to that album, whenever I see it, has always been, “Yes”.

Rats and Cats opens next week at Cinema Nova in Melbourne and across Australia on selected screens.

Saw the new Aussie film release Cactus. It’s had a bad critical response and box office results so far haven’t been good, but due to my on going critique of the local industry I trotted off to the Kino to check it out. One other person in the cinema at a 9pm session.

The film wasn’t all that bad. Better than I thought. At least its a genre film. Why it hasn’t had better notices I’m unsure. Part of the critical Oz anti genre conspiracy perhaps? Its a semi crime film about a wanna be kidnapper delivering a gambler in debt to somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, where he will get his comeuponce. Travis McMahon from Good Guys Bad Guys plays the kidnapper/hitman well. David Lyons is just as good as the victim. Add Bryan Brown as a psycho cop trying to quit smoking and Shane “Kenny” Jacobsen as a truck driver and would be rescuer of Lyons and you have a good support cast too. Shane Jacobsen would be good in a crime film, he’d make an excellent gangster I’d suspect. And Bryan Brown is always a pleasure to watch.

Jasmine Yuen Carrucan, who has worked on films with Quentin Tarrantino, does a work women like job directing. The cliche of the Oz outback is used, but its isolation is actually part of the story, so its cool. The cinematography is effective to convey this feeling.

The main problem though is the script. Its just a bit corny and unbelievable at times. For example, the motivation of Bryan Brown’s character, a cop who kills one of the main characters, is sort of absurd. So to David Lyons character who feels sympathy for his abducter, when he gets a chance to escape. The film ends on an obtuse moral note that doesn’t ring true of Lyon’s character or the film in general.

What is it with Australian films and morality? Always ladelled on, corn syrup thick and in a condescending way to its audience way. Please, Australian filmmakers, read Nietzsche before you make another film, he’s only been around like120 years and its time you all caught up with the lay of the land. The script has some other odd moments, that mean the film just doesn’t really work. But still its a competent job and a lot better than early 08 turkeys Esther Blueberger and The Black Balloon. You could do worse than see this Aussie flick. But its lacklustre box office continues the Australian Film Industry Crisis. My report on the Film Vic Mindshift conference coming soon.