LastRideMovie.com

The Last Ride website is now live and direct from Madman. (It's been up there for a week or two but I forgot to mention it) Check it out and let us know what you think.

The 'official' trailer is still to come. It's currently being cut on London.

One Year Ago Today, Again.

After spending a couple of days driving through The Flinders Ranges, I began feeling a little giddy with excitement. To much fresh air perhaps...

I had such a great time on this trip, I think we were out there for 8 days all up, and we drove around 5000kms, it really was like watching a dream come together in slow motion. However, the real trick at this stage was that the film had not yet been financed. We were being very pro-active and starting early so if and when it did get up we had already begun a major part of the pre-production, but on the other hand if the film failed to get funding, this trip would have been a great big tease for what 'could have been'. So once we returned home the pressure really started to build.

Below a selection from the thousands of photographs I took of locations and landscape on that first ride, many of which became part of the film.

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...

Adelaide Premiere pt2

The best way to describe what it felt like to show the film for the first time is that I felt just like I did on my wedding day. Nervous, a little scared and all those second thoughts etc, but ultimately knowing within myself that this is a really cool thing to do.

What I found really interesting about showing the film for the first time, was sitting there in the dark watching the film we had MADE, as apposed to the film we were MAKING. It was a really different headspace to be seeing it in. As everything to that point had been about making the film the best it can be. I felt this particularly in the 3rd screening on Sunday when my heart wasn't pumping as hard as it had been in previous screenings, I was able to sit back and look at all the decisions we had made over the past year. And in particular mid way through the edit where we really shaped alot of the film and gave Last Ride structure. These were the decisions that felt the most important now, not the smaller and far more obsessive sound and grading tweaks we had been making over the past few months. I've learnt alot in that regard.

It was really nice to share the film with other people. Like I said in an earlier post, it's been a really insular experience, and to finally hear and see people react in the cinema around me was the exciting part. And of course the after party, the handshakes, hugs and the congratulations were nice to. Very cool to have so many people come over to Adelaide as well, I really appreciate that! Although I never felt I was able to talk to everybody there properly. Also like my wedding day.

After the Friday night, Nick, Antonia, Paul C, Hugo W, John Brumpton, Tom and partners traveled up to Port Augusta where we showed the film to a whole bunch of people who helped us make the film from in and around the area. It was great to see some of the friends we had made along the way again. It was a really different audience as well, mostly people who wouldn't get to see a film like Last Ride, but they really enjoyed it and it was great talking to them afterwards. One guy hit an emu on his way to see the film (he drove for three hours!). You know your in the middle of nowhere when you hit an Emu on the way to the cinema.

We then all stayed up in Quorn, where we shot a big chunk of the film. I really love that little town. Then the five hour drive back to Adelaide, this time via the Clare Valley, I've never been that way before. Such a good drive.

The Quandong Cafe in Quorn. Best scones, ever.

On the way back down to Adelaide we passed through this really small town that had a run down Drive-In. Someone was living in the old snack bar / projection room. It would be pretty cool to live in an old drive in.

I think over the five days I was in Adelaide I had about 12 hours sleep. Pretty exhausting on all levels. Had a great time though, The Adelaide Film Festival is one of the best film festivals I've been to. And not because Last Ride was showing, it just has a good feel, and a most importantly a really diverse, but incredible selection of films. I'd love to go back and lose myself in the programme one year.

Adelaide Premiere

Wow... what a weekend...

The premiere and everything that went along with it was a fantastic experience. There was a really good buzz about the film and all 3 screenings had sold out well in advance. That was a good feeling in itself...

Much, much more to write, but right now... I need to sleep...

Ya Nervous?... pt 2

Just three more sleeps till the (SOLD OUT) prem in Adelaide. I wasn't really nervous (read entry below) but it's really starting to kick in now. It's a difficult thing handing something you love dearly over to someone else, let alone a whole bunch of people. I got a sneak preview of this a few months ago...

Towards the end of the edit we organised a little test screening. Just to see if we were making the film we thought we were, and to try and answer a few questions that we were not sure of. We hoped a small audience would help point us in the right direction. It was a really successful screening in that those questions were answered, and the discussions afterwards helped us focus on a few other things that we were not aware of as well.

But the really strange thing was, all of a sudden I had 65 other opinions to consider. Not that I had to take them on board, that could have been perilous, but the reality of them being there at all, I found quite overwhelming in itself.

Making Last Ride has been hugely collaborative. However, the process, particularly when I got into post, became very insular. The film exists amongst a handful of people. This is definitely the way it should be, but it makes handing it over to the outside world quite a strange idea, even though it's the very reason we have all gone on this journey. Why make a film if you dont want people to see it?

This Friday night there will be 400+ opinions of the film (and by the end of the weekend close to 1000). It's not so much that I care if people think it's good or bad or whatever (although of course I hope they do like it). It's more the idea of releasing it out into the world where it can be judged and also have a life outside of the strict confines of the post suites where it's lived quite happily for the past 7 months. I've been trying not to use the cliche about 'it's like giving birth to a baby', but alot of the same fears and paranoia apply.

While sitting here thinking and making myself more nervous I received a lovely message from a friend and wonderful actor Amber Clayton. She wrote...

"...Enjoy that you have such an amazing project that you have worked so hard for. You cant control what others think, just how well you've done! This is my new philosophy in dealing with the constant approval, disapproval, rejection and rejoicing in everything that we do as artists. It can send you seriously bonkers. So I try to enjoy the fact that I have something worth being terrified about."

It such a good way of looking at it. It IS a wonderful thing to have something to be terrified about in this way. The whole idea of being an artist is about taking risks and they wouldn't be risks if they were not scary to some degree. In this way I feel so fortunate that I have been able to create the film the way I wanted it to be in the first place. Where as so many amazing would be artists are fearful to make even the first step. The fear of failure, or exposing oneself sets in before they even commit pen to paper, or paint to the brush, or act, sing, photograph, dance etc. (Kind of on this subject, this talk by Author Elizabeth Gilbert is well worth the 20 minutes! thanks Struth!)

And speaking of handing your work over. Denise Young who wrote the book The Last Ride which the film is based on, handed her work over to the producer Nick Cole about 8 years ago. She came and visited us on set during filming and it was very cool having her there. She has written a very thoughtful and eloquent recollection of her experience of not only her visit to the set, but about the process of handing your work over to other people.

Crackbook

Now there is one more excuse for you to waste your time on Facebook.

We have launched a Last Ride Facebook page. It seems like a great place to make announcements, and communicate directly with people. Anyone can post photos, videos and news directly. There is a discussion board and a few 'fans' have already posted some of their own photos which is great.

Please do join in.

And on other geeky fronts. I've seen the working Last Ride website via Madman and I'm really, really happy with how it's coming along. Not sure when the full site will go live, I'm sure it will be sooner, rather than later...

"Ya Nervous?"

Perhaps not surprising, but now that the film is finished people keeping asking me if I'm nervous. I think I'm equally parts nervous and excited. I'm totally excited about the screening in Adelaide next week. Alot of cast, crew and friends are making the trip over and that's really exciting, I totally appreciate the interest and their continued support. It seriously means alot.

But I think the nerves kick in when considering the longer term goals of the film and it's eventual release (on the 2nd of July). I had a great catch up dinner with producers Nick and Antonia the other night before we watched the final print and we sat around for a couple hours and I think everything we discussed was pure speculation. What if? How about? What happens when? If this happens what then? We talked ourselves around in circles.

The next few months are really important for Last Rides life. And although I believe in fate and destiny, my fingers are crossed so tightly my knuckles are white. One thing I'm sure of is, is that this film has been looked after from the start. We have been very lucky throughout the entire process, so I trust this luck continues.

Finished.

2 boxes. 6 reels. 100 minutes.

Best Graffiti. Ever?

Off topic perhaps... but my sometimes assistant and now projectionist at the Kino Cinema here in Melbourne Dustin Feneley sent me this snap of some graffiti he found on the back of a toilet cubicle door.

"Fuck Digital. The future lies to Analogue Loyalists"

Dustin points out perhaps it should read "The future belongs to rather than lies..." which makes it grammatically correct, but I'm feeling it none the less.

I'm no Luddite and love most of the goodness that digital brings, but give me the warm crackle of vinyl any day over an mp3, pencil and paper over a keyboard and I will forever love film far more than I'll ever love a megapixel.

Finished... almost.

I wanted to be able to write that the film was officially finished today, but a few minor issues have popped up just to make it exciting for everyone involved... Nothing to worry about really. Especially as there are so many people with real worries at the moment due to the horrific bush fires raging about a half hours drive from where I'm tapping. Everything gets put into perspective when tragic things like that happen for sure.

Today we had a screening of the complete film in a Gold Class cinema at the Jam Factory. Really nice to see it so big and lush up there on the big, big screen. It's a beautiful thing, but I must say it's very hard for me to watch. I'm so attached to it, and so aware of all the glue thats holding it together, but others who have been working on the film all the way through were definitely drawn in, the way an audience should be. Which is a very good thing.

I have spent the last few weeks putting the final tweaks to the grade. We were fortunate enough to have Olivier Fontenay do a final pass over the film. Olivier is french guy who graded the film Breaking The Waves by Lars Von Trier, a film that totally changed my life. It forever changed the way I see things, and how I would begin to approach every aspect of my work as a director. It was really cool talking to him about. I thought he might have thought it was daggy, me asking stories about it and all, but I was quite surprised when he told me that working on the film had also changed his life and work process in many ways as well.

But, I don't necessarily want to single out Olivier, because Ian Letcher and the whole team at Deluxe have been a pleasure to work with and have been very supportive of the film from the start.

The Burning Leaves

I was passed some demos by a band called The Burning Leaves about a year ago and after listening once, I knew straight away that they had to play a part in the film in some way. I wrote them a love letter and asked if we could use one of their tracks in the film. They have been a pleasure to work with since.

The Burning Leaves are a young duo from 'The North' of England that are currently building a whole lot of buzz. Their delicate and haunting songs are all recorded on their home 8-track studio. It's this lo-fi approach that helps capture a certain warmth and immediacy in their sound. The kind of quality that gets bled out of the majority of recordings once they enter larger 'professional' studios.

I'm really pleased that these guys are part of the film. They will have an album out soon it seems. I hope it's real soon... I want to be their biggest fan!

Adelaide Screening Announced

Last Ride was partly funded by the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund, and as part of the deal they get to sneak a peak of the film first. Today the full program of the festival was announced. You can now book and buy tickets to see Last Ride on the 27th and 29th of Feb, after that it wont be till mid year until you can see it in theaters. SO if you have been searching for an excuse to visit rAdelaide, here it is.

Hallowed Halls

As I mentioned below, we did our final sound mix at the South Australian Film Corp sound studio. It was good to return to the building we did our pre-production out of 6 months ago. This time I could lift my head and have a look around at where we were, I wasn't burdened with the stress of the impending shoot.

As weird as it has been spending alot of time away from home and family, I really enjoyed returning. I don't know much about the history of the SAFC, but a walk around the corridors with their halls hung with rows of film posters that have been in some way influenced by the SAFC or in particular been created in part in the building, it felt great, even a little humbling. Perhaps I'm overly sentimental and too much of a fan boy, but I love the fact that some of the films that have influenced me over the years were created within the same walls where I was now attempting to make my own film.

One of the posters that kept jumping out at me, no matter how many times I walked past, was Storm Boy.

I remember clearly seeing Storm Boy at the Tamworth Regent Theater when I was about 7 or 8 years old. It connected with me the same way that it connected with everybody who saw it, it was such a simple story about a lonely boy and his friendship with a pelican (Mr Percival). I remember being totally aware of it's use of visual storytelling rather than dialogue. The film had a lot of space and Storm Boy as a character had this universal appeal of being every child. We all knew how he felt.

It's funny how these sort of stories bury themselves deeply within your psyche. I know for sure that Storm Boy has had a deep influence on me as a filmmaker. When it became available on DVD years ago I re watched and even though it was a little more rudimentary than I remembered there were some beautifully poetic sequences and amongst some clumsy plotting towards the end, was a film that felt cinematic and still universal in it's portrayal of childhood. Very much in the same vein of The Red Balloon a film which is a great influence as well. Interestingly like The Red Balloon, Storm Boy was directed by a french guy Henri Safran. Perhaps it's a European sensibility and an outsiders eye to the landscape and story that brought that special quality to it.

It's no secret that one of the things I liked about Tom Russell (who plays Chook in the film) when I saw him the first time was that he reminded me of Greg Rowe who played Storm Boy. So much so in fact that when I cast him we decided to cut his already long hair into a very similar style to that of Greg in Storm Boy. It's a very heartfelt and sincere reference and perhaps even a homage to a film that planted one of the earliest seeds of film making deep within me. Last Ride and Storm Boy are very different films, but thematically and in a desire for simplicity and visual storytelling they are quite similar. I can only hope that Last Ride shares some of the endurance and a place in peoples hearts and memories the way in which Storm Boy has.

Chook vs Storm Boy

The other film poster that I almost bowed to every time I passed it was Rolf de Heer's Bad Boy Bubby (click if you dare). Man, what a film. I went and saw it soon after I moved to Melbourne in 93. I went with my friend Hools to the Hoyts on Bourke Street and we sat in the back row. I don't think I blinked for the first 30 minutes. Surely the first act of that film is one of the most brutally intriguing openings to a film. Ever. It's one of my most fond cinematic moments. At the end of the film I don't thing Hools and I said anything to each other for a good hour or so. We were just so stunned... and I still am just thinking about it.

Everytime I see, hear or think anything about that film my heart beats a little faster.

I also love this french poster for Breaker Morant. Co-incidentally I saw Bryan Brown in the halls while we were in pre-production in June and he was half way through shooting Beautiful Kate in the studio. He asked me how long we had to shoot our film? "Six weeks." I said. "Six weeks eh... allot of film makers complain that six weeks isn't long enough to shoot a film. But we shot Breaker Morant in six weeks and we had the fucking Boer War in the middle of it!" It was a hilarious comment and a very encouraging one. It filled me with some confidence, what ever we were heading off to do for the next six weeks, at least I didn't have to worry about staging a full scale war in there somewhere. Thanks Bryan.

And speaking of Bryan. Another film I love, that was also based out of the SAFC in the 80's and that shares some similarities to Last Ride, particularly in it's themes and locations (and that Antonia Barnard, co-producer of Last Ride was the production manager of) was The Shiralee.

ps: I wonder where Storm Boy is now...?

The Sound Lounge

Last night we finished the sound mix. In some ways it feels like a bigger milestone than locking off the edit. Not sure why. Perhaps it's because even after the edit I still knew there was a long way to go with post, sound being the biggest of all the jobs. I've been obsessed with the sound and music for the film for the past 8 or 9 weeks. Literally. Every moment of my day and night, including many weird dreams and nightmares have been caught up in the sound of the film in one way or another.

And even though I'm feeling a little unsure of what to do with myself now that the mix is set in stone and I cant do anything else to it, I ultimately feel really good about it.

Craig Conway and Paul Shannohan did the initial sound edit at their very sexy new studio Final Sound in Melbourne, and Craig took on the overall sound design as well. I think they worked seven days a week for over a month sourcing, creating and editing 1000's of individual pieces of sound for the film.

John Simpson who co-incidentally lives in Quorn S.A , where a chunk of the film was shot, took on the foley. Check out his cool studio literally in the middle of nowhere.

And as discussed previously Paul Charlier composed the music in Sydney.

We all met up with Gethen Creagh in Adeliade at the South Australian Film Corp mixing theatre and mixed away for 3 intense weeks. I say intense even though most of it for me anyway was spent sitting on a couch drinking gallons of green tea, while others beavered away, pushing buttons and tweaking knobs. But it is an intense experience none the less. I love sound, I think I love it more than image. And I definatley feel more confident talking and discussing sound than I do pictures.

If the films pictures was an apple I could describe to you what the apple looks like, whether it was green or red, or a mixture of both perhaps. How big and or round it is, if it had a stem, and how long that was and which way it bent etc. But if the films sound was an apple, I could think about and explain in obsessive detail not only the colour and shape, etc, but I could discuss the spots and blemishs on the skin, every ripple and dimple, what the stem looks like and how far it reaches inside the apple, how it would feel like in your hand and what it would taste like if you took a bite out of it. (Is that a really crazy analogy..? I think I'm losing it...)

I can just see and hear the detail in sound more easily than I can pictures. And I believe sound is a far more powerfully emotive element than a picture can ever be.

So it's intense in the way that every decision we made was a really important one to me. And for every tweak and modification we made, I wished we could have done 10 more, and then another 10 after that. I think in this part of the process, we didnt so much as finish the mix, but we abandond it when we absolutley ran out of time and could do no more. But as I have mentioned many times on this blog, time is not something you have much of when making a feature film of this size.

Anyway... I'm really happy with the result. And very proud of the talented and colaborative team I had around me.

Adrian Medhurst(Assistant Mixer) Gethen Creagh (mixer) Craig Conway (Sound Designer) Me (in need of a haircut and shave) Paul Charlier (composer) Missing from this picture - Jack Hutchings (editor) and Antonia Barnard (Producer behind the Lens) and also Nick Cole (producer) who graced us with his sage like wisdom and guidance for a couple of days as well.

Paul and I. And Craig obsessing over some minor EQ of his own in the background.

Just a few more weeks to go...