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!

LAST WEEK, THIS WEEK

Spent last week scouting and tech recce-ing locations with the crew. Which included a trip to Beaconsfield in Tasmania. Toby, camera assistant Chris and I stayed on for an extra day or so to shoot some landscapes that I hope will become an important part of the film. Much of the film takes place underground in the deep dark of a gold mine, so the moments where we can break out and show the world above will provide a much needed breath of fresh air in more ways than one. It will give both the film and the audience a moment to breathe. It was nice to get some beautiful images 'in the can' or 'on the drives' so to speak (shooting the film on the wonderful Arri Alexa). Tasmania is such a amazing place to shoot these sequences, especially in winter. Low sun during the day and a morning fog that hangs thick in the air well into the day. So nice! One final and very short week of pre to go... it really doesn't feel like there will be a enough hours, minutes or seconds in the days to get everything done. But I know in these situations even if we had another 4 weeks, it still wouldn't be enough time. You got to take what you got and make the most of it!

Stunning

I once made a single take, real time, split screen video clip (shit, 10 years ago... really!?). But not even You Am I could come close to matching the explosive energy and visual poetry of this stunning split screen composite of the recent Space Shuttle Endeavour launch. Find five minutes and click full screen!

You can see the original footage (and way more cool space footage) here. Thanks NASA!

Yesterday

A wet and wild day spent on the road looking at locations. Searching for places in Melbourne that look like (and feel lke) Beaconsfield, Tasmania. I'm very focused on making a film about a community and a place, as I am making it about an event. But for budget and funding reasons we have to shoot most of the film in and around Melbourne. We will be shooting in Beaconsfield the place, but we can't do everything there I would like to.

LAST WEEK

I think last week was the last week of "maybes", "what ifs", "perhaps we coulds" and "how abouts". The last week of all the nebulous ideas taking shape and all the possibilities of film making thrown up in the air and looking at where they could land. My favourite part of pre-production. This week things really start to get pinned down. It's going to more, "it's this", "it's that", "you can", "you can't". All part of the process.

4 Weeks to go.

ON THE STREET

I've had a 'fancrush' on photographer Joel Meyerowitz for many years. His street photography is amazing, but for me it's the way he observes and captures particular qualities of light that keeps drawing me back to his work. The other day I watched this film made about him in 1981. Shot in New York, it's one of the best films I've seen about the discipline of street photography and what draws an artist like Meyerowitz to the street to photograph. The films camera sits back and observes Meyerowitz at work for extended sequences where he freely discusses his process to writer/curator Colin Westerbeck.

Click HERE to the view film, where it's featured on Nick Turpins great photography blog.

There are so many great moments in the film. If you don't have 57 minutes to watch the whole thing, scan through to 28mins 50 secs and watch for 5 mins or so where they move to a particular street corner. Meyerowitz gives a running commentary of the real theatre of street life playing out. The people and their actions seem so well placed and timed like it's all been planned out that way. New York presents this constant swathe of characters like no other city can, but it does remind me to look for similar rhythms and movements and moments where ever I am. It also makes me think that Meyerowitz is one of these people that not only instinctively knows where to be, but also one of these people where things just happen where he is. Or perhaps it's just as he says, he's out there taking the 'risk'.

The last 10 minutes are also incredible. Meyerowitz and Gilberg are sitting chatting in the studio and Meyerowitz says he's "getting antsy cos the light is beautiful outside..." (I so know that feeling!). They go out onto the street where the sun is getting rich and golden. It's fascinating watching Meyerowitz walk with his huge plate camera across his shoulder accessing the street and the light and again intuitively feeling where the right spot to set up and take the single shot will be. Being compelled myself to photograph in and around first and last light, I found this sequence, which is pretty much shot in real time absolutely incredible. The way that Meyerowitz sits down after he gets the shot and writes detailed notes describing the colour, tone and quality of the light for him to refer to during development to me was so fascinating.

The film is a bit of time capsule for many reasons, but rest assured, Meyerowitz is still out there today doing what he has always done.

HARD ROCK

300 meters or so below ground... which reminds me of a track from one of my favourite albums...

GREAT DECLINES

NONE MORE BLACK

Spinal Tap fans may appreciate the title of this entry, but it's a line that seems most appropriate when trying to describe how dark it is inside a mine. I've been down a few mines in the past week and it really surprised me just how 'dark' they are. It's not a dark I've ever experienced. It's a dark that is so thick and dense and seemingly never ending. None of the access roads or mine drives are lit, and where there is a light the fact that it is surrounded by so much darkness it seems to be sucked up by the shadows and surrounding black rock walls much quicker than it would above ground. At one point while standing in a group we all momentarily turned our head lamps off at the same time. I don't think I've ever experienced that kind of blackness. You can't get 'none more black'. Your eyes will never adjust to the point where you can make out even the slightest variation in tone or definition. It's like your sense of 'sight' no longer exists.

This disorientating quality of darkness has been a recurring theme in our conversations of how we 'light' the film and how we approach the film visually and thematically as well. How do we 'show nothing'? It's a problem thats always been there for filmmakers. And I'm forever distracted with 'night scenes' where everything is lit with blue ambience and 'silver' halo cutting everyone magically from the background. If this was a film to be released in cinemas I think we could get away with sections of just blackness on screen, no light, but as this is for commercial TV we will have to have 'something' on screen that the audience can see. I think there will be many ways we can use the darkness to our advantage in creating a really immersive experience for the viewer. And as we will be shooting much of the film in studio (read: a warehouse in Footscray), we can use the darkness to 'extend' the sets we are planning to build.

Images screen grabbed from test and recce footage shot by DOP Toby Oliver.