You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.
123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999
(123) 555-6789
email@address.com
You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab. Link to read me page with more information.
Took the kids to see Red Dog a few weeks ago. So good to sit in a 'packed' cinema for a Australian film, and one you can take the kids to see too. Red Dog is a lot of fun and I can see why audiences have been going to see it in droves. But rather than this be a post all about Red Dog, I thought it could be a good excuse to post one of my all time favourite short films. Two/Out which is directed by Kriv Stenders, who also directed Red Dog.
Two/Out was a bit of revelation to me when I saw it for the first time. There was and still is something so compelling about the simplicity of this film, which is so brutal and raw, yet at the same time, so warm and human.
Every now and then I go and chat to film students and I always try and show them this film in a hope to inspire and acknowledge that you don't need much to make a great film. If you have a good story, all you might need is two characters, one room and a single locked off camera. Can't really get more simple than that.
I've had four images selected for the Documentary Photography Award exhibition at CCP (Centre for Contemporary Photography) here in Melbourne. The four photographs selected are of some skate kids I met in Vladivostok, Russia last year.
From the CCP invitation...'The CCP Documentary Photography Award is a biennial showcase of contemporary Australian documentary photography. Since the inaugural exhibition in 1997, this event has grown in profile and significance. It represents a unique, national initiative in support of documentary photography, providing a rare opportunity to assess the themes, styles and ideas that characterise this fascinating genre. This year's exhibition demonstrates the breadth of contemporary approaches to documentary practice from traditional black and white narratives through to vibrant colour recordings, all of which have been achieved without digital manipulation. Themes range from the effects of war on US Marines through to dog shows, roller derby and the annual Miss South Sudan Australia pageant.'
For anyone who'd like to come along, the opening night is this Thursday the 27th of October at CCP, 404 George Street, Fitzroy. Exhibition details and more here...
I found the shots below buried in my Aperture files of the sorting process back when I was submitting the work.
If you have no interest in 70's inspired jazz-fused-prog-rock... you might want to click somewhere else. But if you do, you might like to listen to this 8 minute 'edit' of the 23 minute epic from Steve Wilson's new solo album Grace For Drowning. All of it, the flutes, melotrons, saxophones, guitars, pianos, choirs, it's nerdy as hell but I'm totally obsessed with it right now.
Steven Wilson - Raider (edit) (full track from Grace for Drowning) by Kscope
Travelled to Canberra this weekend to see my wife Natalie dance in a show, which was great. Arrived after the seven hour drive from Melbourne at the venue to find a metal kid, an 80's thrash kid and a skin head kid drinking beer together directly in front of where I parked. I looked around thinking there must have been a photo shoot taking place or a film being made near by. These kids were styled so perfectly. Got to love Canberra!
Along with another great album that's also having a significant anniversary, I can't believe this week marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
This is an album that had a real effect on me. It defined a very distinct time and place in my life.
I was already a huge fan of the Chili Peppers with Mothers Milk, and I was literally counting down the days for the release of Blood Sugar. A friend actually got an advance copy on Cassette(!) and I can distinctly remember the first time I listened to it. I was in Newcastle, studying design at University, living right on the beach in a tumbling down terrace. My girlfriend and I sat on our lounge room floor vying for the sweet spot directly in-between the speakers.
I remember being quite struck by how different it sounded. This wasn't the Chili Peppers I was expecting. The punk / funk was gone and it was more like funk and hip hop and had it had a 'rawness' to it. It sounded more like Public Enemy than say, Bad Brains. But by the end of that first listen I was totally and utterly hooked. An album so epically broad and appealing and yet so intimate and warm. It's an album that introduced me to a world of sounds, musical ideas and influences. Blood Sugar Sex Magik went on continuous rotation and quickly became the official soundtrack to my summer of 91-92.
I think the album still stands today. And although I feel old in saying this, it's now a 'classic', where sadly most (all?) Chili Pepper albums post Blood Sugar have not been.
But this post is really an excuse to put up Funky Monks a film documenting the recording of the album. It's easily one of my favourite rockumentaries. There is something immediate, organic and very cool about it. And perhaps because the album has become such a classic, Funky Monks serves as an oppotunity to be a fly on the wall to witness the alchemy taking place.
When I was in L.A a couple of years ago I went and found the mansion that Blood Sugar was recorded in and subsequently Funky Monks was filmed in. Listening to the album you can 'hear the rooms'. It gives the record such a unique ambience and tone.
I went and stood outside the house like a stalker it was some kind of sacred site. I peered through the cyclone fencing in the hope of hearing a distant echo of Blood Sugar being recorded, but all I could hear was traffic... just like at the very end of THIS TRACK (turn it up right at the end!)
Who ever said "... you never finish a film edit you just abandon it..." knew the feeling of locking off the Beaconsfield cut over the weekend. But I think the feeling is always there whether you have 10 weeks or 10 months or just 4 weeks as we did on this project. There is always something to tweak and explore and I don't think you could ever feel 100% 'finished'.
This is what the film looks like... all 125 minutes of it.
Huge thanks to editor Andy Canny who was a pleasure to work along side. Andy put in so many extra hours to try and make the film as good as it could be in the time allocated. Over the many late nights, early mornings and a few of all nighters, I appreciated his objective eye and attention to detail.
I do love a good picture of a picture. And I do love this Tumblr site Dear Photograph. The visual mix of the past and present and the simple written thoughts create wonderfully whimsical and sentimental moments. I'm such a sucker for this stuff...
Thanks to the cool guys who stuck these B/W photos of Bob up in their front windows in Carlton. I saw them as I walked past and they made me go home and listen to Dylan records.
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!?
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...
