HOME AND AWAY

Being away from home and family for extended periods of time sucks. Years ago I had lunch with a director who had just come back from shooting his second feature film in Germany. He said to me "...as exciting as you think being a director might be, in the end the reality is you spend huge amounts of time by yourself in hotels rooms far away from family and friends..." It seemed like a weird thing to say at the time, I was desperate to make a feature or anything longer than a short, but the honesty of the comment has always stayed with me.

Since then I've found myself on many occasions in that exact situation with his comment ringing in my ears. As much as I love the exploratory and immersive aspect of filmmaking and the fact that it has taken me places and given me experiences that I could only have dreamed about at that lunch ten years earlier. Alot of the time the reality is your distant from the people you love. And I must add, not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

This isn't a whinge, I love what I do too much to ever really complain, it's just a post about one of the flip sides. I know alot of directors, actors, cinematographers, producers and all crew feel it too at times. Not to mention other friends who have work that takes them away from home for long periods of time. The work / family balance is always a trick to get right, but when you are immersed in a project in another city or country, the balance is near impossible to get right.

Last weekend I flew back home to Melbourne for a night with the kids. The highlight was sitting wedged between the two of them on the couch watching Star Wars. The next morning while Ollie was a birthday party, Rosebud and I had waffles at one of our favorite cafes Luncheonette. The photo below of her laying down she is demonstrating to me how she can count to hundred... It takes a fair while for a six year old to count to a 100. I think she is at 67 in the snap. Precious moments.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

I was a 14 years old when I first saw Pink Floyd's Live at Pompei. It blew me away then and it still does now. The clip below has been such a strong influence on me as a filmmaker over the years. I like the pureness of it all. It's more about capturing the energy that is there, rather than trying to fabricate what isn't. It's about tapping into the essence and documenting it in the most unaffected way.

It's funny how random things inform and inspire what we do. It's usually (and hopefully) such a random mix of things that the culmination of them all manifests to become something new and not derivative of the sources.

One week into shooting Puberty Blues 2, I'm drawn back to have another look at Echoes. This clip is like a compass to me. If you want to cut to the chase, jump to 6:30... Magic happens.

Do yourself a favour and watch the whole film here... (Directors Cut!)

IF NOT HERE, THEN WHERE?

POSTCARDS FROM PUBERTY BLUES 2 #2

Cheryls house.

SPRAANG BRAYYKE...

Saw Spring Breakers last night (trailer here). I haven't been so engaged and inspired by a film in a long time. I've been a fan of Harmony Korine from back in the day. The film Kids (1995), directed by Larry Clarke and written by Korine when was like 18 or so, totally blew me away. And the night I saw his debut feature Gummo, is perhaps one of the more defining moments in my creative life. That film was and still is a revelation to me.

Between Gummo and now he has had a few hits and misses in my opinion, but his work has always remained singular in vision and in and of it's own specific world. The films are not always perfect, but I don't think he's seeking perfection. I think he is exploring other things. He is a bit like Herzog in this way, Korine is searching for deeper truths and in the process discovers the absurd and the beautifully surreal.

Spring Breakers is perhaps Korine's most accessible film, in many ways it's his most extreme and experimental. The approach of using the non-linear narrative aspects of music videos and applying it to a feature drama structure makes perfect sense and mid way through the film I wondered why I hadn't seen this done before . The neon skittles colour palette, the sound design and the dark essay of youth culture, hedonism and materialism.

There was a point in the movie where I wished the film would last a for days and how great it would be to just sit back and let it wash all over me for hours and hours. Thats a rare feeling for me in the cinema these days. I woke up buzzing with enthusiasm and with a very clear and defined feeling that there is still so much potential in cinema and story telling. Spring Breakers got me all totally excited about it all again!

Part 2 of the above interview here.

And just give James Franco ALL of the awards! He is amazing in this!

Enjoy some other Harmony Korine highlights below...

POSTCARDS FROM PUBERTY BLUES 2 #1

Driving around revisiting old haunts from Series 1 as well as discovering new locations for Series 2. Finding inspiration and clues for colour palette, texture, tone and detail...

OLD SCHOOL

Not only did part of our Puberty Blues school location burn down recently... but what remains still standing has been vandalised beyond repair. Got to give the kids some credit though, they obviously worked very hard and put alot of time and effort into this particular project. Every room, every surface, inside and out of the entire school has been smashed, tagged and sprayed.

I can see their individual report cards now... "If only he put as much energy into his school work as he did his vandalism!" 

10

Our beautiful boy turned 10 today!

BOOTH

Slow posts of late... Firstly I got a new laptop so I've had the joy of transferring, updating, re-finding, sourcing software and plug-ins etc. All seems to be working fine now. But seriously, screw you iTunes. Surely there is a simpler way to transfer a music collection from A to B. Still missing huge chunks of my old library... argh! And why can't you export your playlists as a group and not individually. Dull. Also, I've re-located to Sydney and in pre-production for Puberty Blues 2. Let the games begin!

Good Badalamenti

David Lynches favorite composer Angelo Badalamenti conjures up the story and the spirit behind the music from Twin Peaks.

And cos it's been slow week...

SO cool!

LAST WEEK

A day pre-shoot in Sydney for Puberty Blues 2. Wandering the streets of Elwood and Brunswick and a couple of chilled days on the peninsula south of Melbourne over Easter.

R.I.P ROGER EBERT

A true legend. My heart skipped a beat the day he tweeted the link to his review of Last Ride when it was released in the U.S last year.

And this wonderful piece he wrote I Do Not Fear Death.

SLEEPERS

A couple of years ago I went to the Vladivostok film festival with my feature film Last Ride. I had been there a few years earlier with my short film Cracker Bag and it always remained a strange and very surreal place in my memory. This time I really wanted to explore a lot more of the city than I was able to the first time. I made contact with a photography student who lives there and he drove me around for days exploring the outer suburbs, translating, meeting locals and generally looking much further afield than what a film festival introduces you too.

I have a whole bunch of photos from this trip I've never really shown anybody. Some photos I took one night of some skateboarders ended up in the 2012 CCP Documentary Award, but the rest are just taking up space on a hard drive unseen for the moment.

I just came across this shot I took while exploring an abandoned building. The building was in the middle of the city which is congested noisily with cars and pedestrians but inside the building it was surprisingly quiet and still. The ground was littered with rubble and used syringes.

On one of the upper floors I was startled to find a couple of kids sleeping on a window sill. At first, I really thought they were were dead as they were so 'lifeless'. But as I stood still I could sense their breathing, slow and faint. I'm not sure if they were stoned, drunk or just tired. I thought they looked so peaceful perched on the window, soaking up the sunlight, blissfully unaware of me or the four story drop to the ground just behind them.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't their 'home' but I did feel a little like an intruder. I wasn't sure if I should take a photo. I felt that in some way I might be stealing some of their solace. But of course the documenter got the better of me.

I only took a few of quick shots, edging closer with each frame, trying to get close enough to see them properly, but far enough away not to wake and disturb them. Each step crunched broken glass underfoot and in the big empty space the normally quite shutter on my camera seemed to heavily 'clunk' and echo through the empty shell of the building.

Later when I downloaded the images I saw that the boy sitting up was almost cradling his friend in his lap, the detail below shows his hand resting gently on his friends cheek.

It's a moment and a photograph that has stayed with me. In all it's sadness and it's beauty. I hope these two had found a moment of warm escape and were dreaming deeply of different lives in different places.

I've often thought of them and wondered what they were up to and what they might be doing now. I hope they are both well. They seem like perfect characters for a film.

UP NEXT

At the end of April I'm heading back to Sydney for Puberty Blues Series 2. I'll be setting the show up again, directing the first two and the last three episodes (5 of the 9 eps). I can't wait to get sucked back into that world. It feels like a best friend that I'm desperate to catch up with, span time and create new adventures together!

The above trailer is cut from the four episodes I directed from Season 1.

THE THREE ELEMENTS OF GOOD (DOCUMENTARY) FILMMAKING

One of the most valuable things I learnt at film school was a very simple break down of what contributes to 'great documentary' filmmaking. Interesting people, doing interesting things, in interesting places.

I'd argue these three things should be applied to all filmmaking in general.