BLOOD MOON

STEPHEN RAE CORE

Over the last few years composer Stephen Rae has created a whole world of music for me. We met on Beaconsfield and hit it off immediately and since then we have worked on both series of Puberty Blues and most recently Gallipoli. That's around 19 tv hours of drama! Along the way we have become good friends and it's a collaboration I value dearly. Stephen has just put up the soundtrack work for Puberty Blues and Gallipoli on Spotify. It's beautifully evocative work and it forms a huge part of the tone and the drama of those shows. To me the track Streams is the heart and soul of Gallipoli. Similar to the track Sea Hassle in Puberty Blues, once we found that track it seeped into every frame of the show. Even when it's not playing, I can still hear it. I need to do another entry of the process of working with Stephen because I love it so much. Essentially our approach is to write a large portion of the music first (as opposed to after the shoot during the edit). For both Gallipoli and Puberty Blues I had selections of music to work with during pre-production even before we had shot a single frame. I usually send Stephen photos I have taken of cast, locations and other details I find along the way. These help form a discussion about tone and from that Stephen creates long improvised pieces of music which I listen to throughout production, while in the office in pre and then constantly on set while shooting. For me, it's alot easier to see the images, if I know what they sound like first.

There is a great sequence of Stephen working on the Gallipoli 'collectors editions' behind the scenes and there is a great clip of Stephen working on the music for series 2 of Pubes HERE.

And I just found this sneaky iPhone clip I took of Stephen working on the first episode of Puberty Blues... such a great time.

FIRST / LAST

Synching up the first and and last shots of some of the great films. Surprisingly (or perhaps not) in many of the examples the first and last images sum up the entire story. It's like you really only need these two images and nothing in between  to explore the ideas and the theme of the film. I also love just how beautifully enigmatic they are. Like the beginning and the end of a film is the time when you can be most poetic, lulling the audience in and out of the experience...

Thank you Jacob T Sweeney for taking the time... I could have watched a whole feature length of just these moments...

Full list of films below...

What can we learn by examining only the first and final shot of a film? This video plays the opening and closing shots of 55 films side-by-side. Some of the opening shots are strikingly similar to the final shots, while others are vastly different--both serving a purpose in communicating various themes. Some show progress, some show decline, and some are simply impactful images used to begin and end a film. MUSIC: "Any Other Name" by Thomas Newman Films used (in order of appearance): The Tree of Life 00:00 The Master 00:09 Brokeback Mountain 00:15 No Country for Old Men 00:23 Her 00:27 Blue Valentine 00:30 Birdman 00:34 Black Swan 00:41 Gone Girl 00:47 Kill Bill Vol. 2 00:53 Punch-Drunk Love 00:59 Silver Linings Playbook 01:06 Taxi Driver 01:11 Shutter Island 01:20 Children of Men 01:27 We Need to Talk About Kevin 01:33 Funny Games (2007) 01:41 Fight Club 01:47 12 Years a Slave 01:54 There Will be Blood 01:59 The Godfather Part II 02:05 Shame 02:10 Never Let Me Go 02:17 The Road 02:21 Hunger 02:27 Raging Bull 02:31 Cabaret 02:36 Before Sunrise 02:42 Nebraska 02:47 Frank 02:54 Cast Away 03:01 Somewhere 03:06 Melancholia 03:11 Morvern Callar 03:18 Take this Waltz 03:21 Buried 03:25 Lord of War 03:32 Cape Fear 03:38 12 Monkeys 03:45 The World According to Garp 03:50 Saving Private Ryan 03:57 Poetry 04:02 Solaris (1972) 04:05 Dr. Strangelove 04:11 The Astronaut Farmer 04:16 The Piano 04:21 Inception 04:26 Boyhood 04:31 Whiplash 04:37 Cloud Atlas 04:43 Under the Skin 04:47 2001: A Space Odyssey 04:51 Gravity 04:57 The Searchers 05:03 The Usual Suspects 05:23

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DOOMED YOUTH

Select pages from a visual and tonal document I put together to hand out to cast and crew in the lead up to shooting Gallipoli. Made up from a selection of archival material, paragraphs from Les Carlyon's wonderful book, poems from some of the great war poets and my own photographs.

Jo Ford our production designer has said (half jokingly) that she wished the project wasn't called 'Gallipoli' as it brings with it such an immense amount of scale and preconception that it overwhlems with expectations. So I found an alternative title which helps establish an idea and an over arching theme that is constant throughout the project.

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THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...

For the past five years I've photographed a sad looking plant outside an old barber shop on the main street of Peak Hill, NSW on our annual Xmas drive north. Something about the shape of the building and the plant that I'm drawn to. Sad to see the plant has disappeared and the building is mostly boarded up. I wonder what Ill find next time?

I think 2012 was the best year... that plant was in it's prime!

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

MORE HERE AND MORE NOW

I was recently interviewed for the upcoming release of Gallipoli and the journalist was interested to know aboutt my End Of Days photographs he found here and here on Hoaxville. Afterwards I thought more about what my photos have been in the past and what I'd like them to be alot more of in the future. The End of Days series was about finding some space at the end of each shooting day. A moment of stillness after the intensity of shooting. A visual excuse to take a deep breath in and out. To reflect on the days events, what worked, what didn't and what needed to be done for the next day.

I think this is what I want more of in the way I approach photography. Not so much trying to 'capture a moment', more the photograph is the moment. A practice of trying to take time to ground myself and be present in that time and place.

Below: The beginning and end of Day 56 of filming Gallipoli (Mt Eliza beach).

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Catching up on some photos from the past few weeks and realising Hoaxville has been feeling a little neglected. Gallipoli took every last drop of energy, especially over the last few months. Blogging seemed to be the last thing on my mind... Will rectify.

GALLIPOLI DONE...

I finished Gallipoli last week... Kind of unbelievable. For over two years it's been this monolith project that ended up consuming every single part of my life. This time last year I was wondering "...how on earth are we going to make this?" and now it's done and I'm wondering "...how on earth did we make that!".

Normally I'm quite sad when a production is over. But I'm happy to say I was quite relieved to walk out of the post house for the last time. Not because I hated it, far from it, but I was just super tired. I've put everything I could into making this series as good as it can be. I'm exhausted now in a way I have never felt before (one of the reasons why this blog has been a little neglected). I'm spent.

Luckily, I'm really happy with what we have made. It's epic when it needs to be (the script always had a scale that scared us all) but ultimatley it's emotionally driven and intimate in it's tone and nature. Hundreds of people across all departments put a huge amount of energy into the series, above and beyond what I could have expected. As a director to be supported by so many truly talented people is humbling.

Eight hours, on air sometime (early-ish) next year.

MORE THAN A FEELING

Hot off the press. More Than A Feeling, photographs from the second series of Puberty Blues. Available in hardcover and ebook. Or as a special volume with Flaming Youth and More Than A Feeling together. Way more info here.

It's taken a bit longer than I expected because of Gallipoli, but as I've been working through post production, I've been slowly getting a normal life back and I've been able to find the time and headspace to complete the book.

More Than A Feeling feels different to Flaming Youth (photographs from series 1). Not sure how, maybe in the way that Series 1 felt different to Series 2. I flick through the pages of Flaming Youth and feel an overwhelming pull of nostalgia. Flaming Youth feels as innocent as Debbie and Sue in Series 1. More Than A Feeling feels darker, perhaps revealing some of the sting of discontent that comes with older.

I think it feels more complete as a document and as a collection. It's more stripped back and perhaps like Debbie and Sue in Series 2 slightly more confident.

Excerpt from the foreword by Brenna Harding... There is a place on the set of Puberty Blues that escapes the chaos of concentrated pressure. Here, the background noise fades to nothing and the challenges of the day are lost for a brief moment. It is in this place that the quiet beauty of what we are creating is realised in the click of Glendyn’s camera. Suddenly we are not in the high-pressure world of a television set nor even experiencing the newest development in character, but instead in a limbo between art and life.

DAYDREAMY

Rosebud shot in her natural habitat with a new piece of old Leica glass (M 90mm Summicron) and also my first dip into Lightroom since Apple killed off my favourite piece of software, R.I.P Aperture. It was so good while it lasted.

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Turkey

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER

Two heroes of mine punk rock singer Ian McKaye and photographer Glen E. Friedman discuss photos from Glens new book My Rules. Glen E. Freidman released one of my favourite photo books back in the day Fuck You Heroes. I'm looking forward My Rules.

And just cos… here is Ian McKaye belting out my favourite Fugazi song (and one of my favourite songs ever) Instrument.

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Random Turkey...

WOAH...