tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50153685042621308612012-02-02T08:43:20.884+11:00Process. Fragments. Notes. Film.The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.comBlogger2621100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-28064804840369538512012-02-02T06:22:00.001+11:002012-02-02T06:22:40.862+11:00

The hectic frenzy of another festival visit is finished and I'm now holed up in some small town I've never heard of... Paris, I think it's called. We've travelled over to these parts to be in Biarritz to attend the Festival International des Programmes Audiovisuels where 'murundak - songs of freedom' was screening in competition and, in the midst of meetings and madness we encountered an

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In Paris. Killing time between festivals. Finally, furiously, finishing a script that almost had me beat. Haunted by the spectres of far too much romanticism about the words scribbled down around these parts. Still, always work. Always keep human.

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When I think about why my films deal with voyeurism, it's because that's part of what we all seek out of any film image. Making people aware of the deeply rooted desire they have to escape into a screen image is something that I find really stirring. And I think part of that is addressing exactly what it is that they're expecting to see, and then playing with that or

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Earlier today, while I flicked through script pages to rewrite, trying to think of bomb proof solutions, I indulged in a little procastinatory desktop clean up and found some images that I shot during a film that I made a few years back - 'Skin'. It was a brilliant and strange shoot. Over a few weeks we filmed with taxidermists willing to work with human skin, international experts on rare

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"The possibility of making a new cinema completely outside the system depends on whether or not filmmakers can transform themselves from 'directors' into total filmmakers. And no one can become a total filmmaker without being a film technician, without being capable of handling the production." words: Fernando Solanas image: Morgan Massen

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The end of the year is always spilling over with dozens of film, music and literary critics listing their top tens/twenties/fifties/hundreds. These kids have time on their hands and a year full of notes and knowledge with which to create their lists. I only wish that I felt that, in any given year, I had seen enough or read enough or listened to enough to feel like I was anywhere near an

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The day owns us. And then, the nights are ours.  

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“When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.” Sergio Leone If by dynamite you mean soft skin then I'm getting there, Sergio... Not yet, not quite, but I'm getting there...

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And half of us is lovers losing lovers, And half of us is lovers losing out. The heartbroken sound of my town  beats the heartbreaking sound of your town. Photo of The Kills performing at The Fox, Atlanta by Wilson Lee Lyrics from 'Half of Us' by The Kills

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Holy Hell. While trailers for The Hobbit and Dark Knight Rises are flying around the internet, I have to confess that the trailer below is for the blockbuster I am dying to see. Okay, so it's not quite a blockbuster but, in a perfect world, tales of desire, sex and humiliation would be the blockbusters and stories of talking fucking robots would be in some dusty section of straight to DVD

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"I think by de facto, that the very act of the making of a film, is an act emerging from hope. So questions that surround hopelessness are in contradiction to the actual fact that there is a film" and, "I think that cinema, a certain cinema, is a form of resistance. Especially when it is the habitat of a certain moral questioning; of a certain place and pleasure and inspiration of a

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That's how we like We like what we like That's what we like We love which is you We got an eye An eye for what's romance We've got our eyes Our eyes straight on you You watch us dance We dance till we're dying We dance to free ourselves from the room We love the sound The sound is what found us The sound is the blood between me and you Photo of Carrie Brownstein/Wild Flag performing at

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Dear Middle Aged Couple Kissing On The Park Bench, thank you for making out like lusty teenagers, legs entwined and hooked over each other. As I rode past on my way home, I felt like everything was right in the world. Dear Tash and Amiel, thanks for getting stupidly drunk with me last night and talking about the joy of those films that feel like they are about to fall apart with

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"Since I'm inarticulate, I express myself with images." words and image: Helen Levitt

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I almost always find my favourite photos and my favourite photographers come from the world of essay or journalistic reportage. The ones who approach the world like an observer destabilised by the emotion, events and impulses that pass before their lens are the ones who most directly affect me. The ones who make images of the world that, to abuse Ezra Pound's words on poetry, are "news that

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“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It

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It's been a tough month. Facing a bit of an existential collapse in the face of the haunting bureaucracies of Australian film financing I have spent long periods imagining that rather than rewriting draft after draft of scripts and submissions, I am instead running a late night taqueria on the streets of Guadalupe, Guanajuato or Guadalajara. Luckily, we had our christmas party on the weekend and

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“We're artists too, but we do a good job hiding it, don't we?” Roberto Bolaño, "The Savage Detectives"

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I have always loved the writer Jim Thompson. I can't think of a single writer who could whipcrack a sentence, a line of dialogue or a chapter the way he could. So, you're a romantic, well try this on for size: "She looked cute-mad and funny-sweet. She looked like she'd started somewhere and been mussed up along the way. She was a honey. She was sugar and pie. She was a bitch." Jim Thompson

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"If one could learn the most important things in life, one would still have to learn how to keep quiet about them." Péter Nádas, 'The Book of Memories' image: Jerry Hsu

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I feel like a beginner. I've made a handful of little fiction flicks and couple of longish non-fiction flicks. And, each of them, at numerous stages, has demanded sitting in a room with people, often hostile, occasionally sympathetic, and explaining not only what the story of each film is, but also responding to the ever present fallback question these days, why we need to tell that story. This

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"The viewer has to dig into the film and make an open interpretation of things. The kind of atmosphere – or the universe – created by the film uses illusionary elements to speak about a problem that is real, based on true stories, but it creates this possibility of talking about reality through the eyes of the viewer. The film becomes a prism that you can relate to in different ways,

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impossible  to resist  the night sky

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"If you die without anyone to remember you, it's like dying twice" Image: Tod Seelie Words: Santiago Roncagliolo

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A couple of weeks back, I mentioned a pretty damned perfect night out, filming a live performance by Mono. Washes of darkness interspersed with moments of light. Not much through the camera lens, but a whole lot felt through the body. And, so, here is the short performance piece we put together for the larger project profiling artists of the Melbourne Festival. It's one of the things I've done

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“Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.”  image: Benjamin Lowy words: Cormac McCarthy

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Over the last fortnight, along with a barrel load of other work, our little production company has been churning out twenty short documentaries exploring the artists and works of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. They are short and sweet pieces about some extraordinary folks and, we've been able to rope in a lot of the great crew that we like to work with so as to allow us to turn

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"It’s all true. I don’t know what truth is, though.  I think it’s a lot truer than I intended it to be." Alma Har'el on her film 'Bombay Beach' which I would like to see very, very, very badly.

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A decade or so back, during its infancy, I used to write a bit for the journal Senses of Cinema. The editors at the time - prolific filmmaker and founding editor Bill Mousoulis and cineaste Fiona Villella - were generous and inviting in giving reign to writers to explore whatever it was they felt most passionate about. So I wrote short essays on Jay Rosenblatt and Peter Tscherkassky, on Rosetta,

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While playing with Thelonious Monk in 1960, saxophonist Steve Lacy transcribed these notes of advice as given to him by Monk. They are a beautiful thing. "When you're swinging, swing some more." "Always leave them wanting more." "It must always be night, otherwise they wouldn't need the lights." “Don’t play everything (or every time); let some things go by. Some music just

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image: Patrick Zachmann

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In 2001 - a particularly great year for cinema, for festivals, and for me as an audience member - I saw a handful of movies that blew my mind. I thought that I had reached some kind of zenith and that, forever after, I would be on a slow downward slide of disappointment. Turns out that it was partially true (really, 2001 was a great year for cinema going for me). That is, until Fatih

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"A week later, López Azcárate hanged himself from a tree and the news ran through the university like a terrified, fleet-footed animal. And when I heard the news it left me shrunken and shivering, but also amazed, because although it was bad news, without a doubt, the worst, it was also, in a way, exhilarating, as if reality were whispering in your ear: I can still do great things; I can still

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Throughout the Melbourne Festival, our little rabid crew are turning our day jobs into night and day jobs and shooting a couple of dozen short films with visiting artists and performers. We've already finished a couple - on Russian Art superstars AES+F, on Tom Tom Crew, photographer Daniel King - and many more are underway. But last night, after 12 hours of cutting, I went out to film with a

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image by wastedrita

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"In my cinema, when faced with the choice of distancing oneself from reality or using an effect that might be used to win the popularity with the public, I always renounce these possibilities and stay close to reality." Gillo Pontecorvo  • The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo. Blowing minds since 1965.

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 Let us go where no one judges us. • • I love the images of photographer Nikita Pirogov. The cold. Stark beauty. The warmth. •   • Simonides: "Dancing is silent poetry" • • And can't we just run, and run?  • • Let the wind burn our ears and whip through our hair. •

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Credit where credit is due. At different times in my life, I've encountered work (as probably many of us have, whatever field of life we stumble through) that has radically altered how I think about film and what I believe is possible both as a viewer and as someone who aspires to make the damn things. Sometimes it's just a single film that cracks the lid, and sometimes it's an entire

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"I think it would be more exciting to be one of a number of artists working together... I think it would be terribly nice to have someone to talk to. Today there is absolutely nobody to talk to." Francis Bacon

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I love this poster that Mark Gowing design created for Hopscotch's release of Raising Victor Vargas some years back. I love it. I. Love. It. That is all.

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For what it's worth, this is my advice for today:  If, like me, you're tied to the desk, churning out words while listening to rowdy tunes, looking out the window and wishing you were elsewhere, do not, under any circumstances, procrastinate by looking at Chad Moore's photos. They are way too beautiful. Way too energetic. Way too much fun. Way too loose. Way too romantic. Way too lyrical

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Here we go again... Songs that should be films. That have the energy, the dynamism, the emotion, the immersion, the complexity, the drama, the mystery, the elusiveness that films these days need a whole fucking lot more of... "Don't You Hit Me No More" - Carla Thomas "Day 6" - Explosions in the Sky "We Only Fuck to Black Sabbath Vol. 4" - Love Like Electrocution "California (All The Way)" -

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 "...Cinema is a desire, not a school. Cinema just happens, full stop. Nobody can tell you how to do it or what the rules are. And you do it with new faces. Personally I don't like actors who have already been the bearers of other withered desires. Isn't the camera more suitable for discovering than for filming - for discovering the inner soul through those big, big, mystery- revealing close ups

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Wasted Rita says,   and,  and,

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These have been lost weeks. Meeting after meeting, draft revision after draft revision, budget discussion after budget discussion. In between a mountain of other work, we've had to fit numerous dances, shimmies and shuffles as we teeter on the verge of getting a new flick off the ground. If all goes well, we'll be filming a feature drama on location in Canberra early next year. I've written on

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"However it is encountered, beauty is always an exception, always in despite of. This is why it moves us." John Berger, from essay 'The White Bird'

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Carson McCullers. No one can write of the violence of desire and first love the way she did: "They both turned at the same time. They were close against each other. She felt him trembling and her fists were tight enough to crack. 'Oh, God,' he kept saying over and over. It was like her head was broke off from her body and thrown away. And her eyes looked up straight into the blinding sun while

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I like to drop out. Every now and then for a couple of months, I like to disappear; forget everything and everyone by going someplace else, where life is still. But in recent years, this hasn't been possible. Work mounts, projects entrap, life encircles. But this past month, I got to drop out for a while. At last. At last. It was the sweetest salve imaginable.

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-46004609977947132692011-07-17T15:05:00.001+10:002011-07-17T15:06:45.807+10:00

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-41316638255984252342011-06-01T09:59:00.001+10:002011-06-02T10:56:17.685+10:00

"A film has its own life. It's like a person. It has a certain charisma and a certain wavelength. You either have the same wavelength or not. For me, my duty is to express my wavelength…"Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-15288447460008769162011-05-31T17:35:00.008+10:002011-06-01T09:59:33.050+10:00

This past week I've been finishing an adaption of a Tim Winton short story for The Turning, a portmanteau feature film project I'm involved in. The Turning, produced by Rob Connolly, has a number of different directors freely adapting the short stories that make up the novel-like collection published under the same name. One of the key images within the particular story that I'm directing is of a

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-2044893708367121022011-05-31T09:39:00.002+10:002011-05-31T09:43:27.055+10:00

"Experience at full speed, self-consuming structures, crazy contradictions ... Never too long in the same place, like guerrillas, like UFOs, like the white eyes of life prisoners ... Make new sensations appear—Subvert daily life.LEAVE IT ALL BEHIND AGAIN. GO OUT ON THE ROADS."Roberto BolañoExcerpts from the First Infrarealist ManifestoMexico 1976

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“The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything - gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness - rediscovers itself at precisely the point where the mind requires a language to express its manifestations. To break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theatre.”Antonin ArtaudThis often excerpted text of Artaud's may be slightly

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-86391337081676992092011-05-18T15:41:00.004+10:002011-05-18T15:45:17.244+10:00

"It's the margin that holds the book together"image: Jason Wurmwords: Jean-Luc Godard in conversation to Agnès Varda("Que la marge c'est ca qui tient le livre")

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-62871134113185801332011-05-16T12:03:00.002+10:002011-05-16T12:05:09.614+10:00

"Nowadays it often seems writing is nothing at all. Sometimes I realize that if writing isn't all things, all contraries confounded, a quest for vanity and void, it's nothing. That if it's not, each time, all things confounded into one through some inexpressible essence, then writing is nothing but advertisement. But usually I have no opinion, I can see that all options are open now, that there

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-79127647876344288672011-04-22T19:08:00.002+10:002011-04-22T19:10:54.500+10:00

Wasted Rita says:

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-45814805765169305962011-04-19T15:04:00.005+10:002011-04-19T15:07:15.087+10:00

In earlier blogs, I've written my lists of Songs That Should Be Films. There's one here. One here. And another here. What's the point? Maybe the point is that embodied in a perfect four or five minute song is enough emotion and narrative and dynamism and complexity to sustain a feature length film. God knows a lot filmmakers could take some notes on light and shade, structure and depth from

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-81065534146433778162011-04-12T14:41:00.007+10:002011-04-12T15:01:47.024+10:00

There's nothing as satisfying as breaking the back of a script or story problem that refuses to yield.In recent weeks I've been wrestling with a script after making some changes that were reasonably and politely requested by the exec. producers, distributor and sales agent.I wanted to make these changes, as I think they were all seeing the same kind of sense, and, over time, I began to see it

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-6198890702980546272011-04-12T10:22:00.004+10:002011-04-12T10:26:54.234+10:00

In the interests of full disclosure and the self stripped bare, here, from the bottom of the drawer, is a page, a poem, from a zine printed a decade or more ago:

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-5563007622076458922011-04-12T09:29:00.007+10:002011-04-12T14:41:13.844+10:00

You might have seen this already, but I hadn't and if it was any further up my alley I'd be making a right turn.HOW TO STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST (AND 9 OTHER THINGS NO ONE TOLD ME)In which the esteemed writer and artist, Austin Kleon of Newspaper Blackout Fame--- --- riffs and reels on how to work, how to live, how to create, how to be, under the following subheadings:1. STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST2.

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-57635406986884524572011-04-08T12:52:00.004+10:002011-04-08T14:28:51.892+10:00

"I want to address the light that we see in dreams and make spaces that seem to come from those dreams"James Turrell

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"destroy all dreamers with debt and depression"printed on the CD face for the album'he has left us alone but shafts of light sometimes grace the corner of our rooms'by 'A Silver Mt Zion'

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-34151640623342112432011-04-06T16:17:00.009+10:002011-04-06T20:54:04.000+10:00

I'm obsessed with process; with the way people achieve what they achieve and do what they do. I've long wanted to get some understanding of filmmakers processes outside of the structured periods of production and shooting. It would be fascinating to see how people maintain discipline when such a scattershot approach to work is required.My obsession with process extends far beyond film, however.

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-61649574168689345812011-04-05T14:51:00.006+10:002011-04-05T15:12:47.342+10:00

We went to Adelaide.We had film launches.We went to see friends who had film launches.It was great.We went to Canberra.We celebrated gestations.We tackled step fathers and tied them up with rope.We let off smoke bombs.We went driving and scouted for locations.It was great.

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-45577006667396138282011-04-04T18:28:00.004+10:002011-04-04T18:48:29.135+10:00

"It's no fun holding hands with gloves on, Miss Alma."image: Ivan Zhaowords: Tennessee Williams(from 'Summer and Smoke')

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-18852356834246674002011-04-04T13:37:00.006+10:002011-04-05T13:20:15.432+10:00

It's a little predictable for a Melbourne film geek that I always fall back on the 'new wave/nouvelle vague/cinema novo' periods of cinema reinvention in the 60s. Mostly out of a subterranean sense of embarrassment, I often question why. All I can come up with is the idea that intertwined with the various national cinema waves of experimentation that took over cinema in the late 50s and 60s

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Sometimes, when you're writing or preparing for a project, you stumble on an image, or a piece of music, that pierces you in a way that is surprising, perfectly aligned and perfectly timed. It is, in practise and reality, what the punctum is in theory.By way of a preface:I've had to step away from the studio for a while to return to a draft of 'Galore' that requires urgent completion before

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"If you want movies to give you everything, this movie fails. You have to be there. I need you. I don’t want to show you. I want to really share something. It’s not easy. When you have a conversation, and you really want to understand the other person, it takes time and effort. It's the same with this movie."Lucrecia Martel talking about La Mujer Sin Cabeza

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"There is always a road when you get into the mountain."Yiyun Li

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-57433450848308116702011-03-26T14:14:00.008+11:002011-03-26T14:31:52.548+11:00

I still love journals. Mine gets neglected terribly and these days it's all words and no pictures. But it's still handled with love.Through an illustrator friend I stumbled on the work of Portuguese illustrator/designer/DIY chick Rita Gomes. I'm not sure if this is exactly a journal, given it's solely dedicated to Sleater Kinney but, I'm gonna say it is and put it in as my current entrant in

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We're running around like blue-arsed flies as we embark on a limited release of 'murundak - songs of freedom' and I thought I would take a quick moment to abuse this blog with a bit of spruiking...Attached is a link to the new website for the film - www.murundakdocumentary.comAnd below is the trailer. Humble thanks.

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-29918168356027520252011-03-15T15:08:00.001+11:002011-03-15T15:09:26.484+11:00

"And there's kids playing guns in the street/And ones pointing his tree branch at me/So I put my hands up I say "enough is enough,/If you walk away, I'll walk away"/And he shot me dead"Image: Mark CohenWords: Bright Eyes

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-67124123816140750192011-03-15T14:55:00.007+11:002011-03-15T15:13:53.168+11:00

This short doco on the great Mark Cohen shows him in the process of creating his strange, whimsical and beautiful street photography. To be honest, his approach seems to me to be kinda frightening and amusing. The elegance of his images does not in any way suggest the invasiveness of his approach. It certainly dispels the image of the unobserved street photographer loitering in the margins. It's

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-78509399986490509852011-02-24T20:44:00.002+11:002011-02-24T20:47:49.385+11:00

I so badly want to see this:And I so very badly want to see this:There is something carnivalesque in the air.

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-89604391095158021502011-02-18T16:24:00.019+11:002011-02-21T19:22:02.332+11:00

Okay. So, we had our launch. I loved it. I hated it, too, for passing so quickly and for being so overwhelming that I can't remember much of it except for the initial desire to die when the screening began, the desire to drink my weight in free beer to silence my nerves, and, later, the desire to curl up in the corner with every one's kind words and scratch them into a pile like some creepy,

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-86137457556205738342011-02-09T20:02:00.005+11:002011-02-21T19:17:59.724+11:00

It's the eve of the premiere of 'murundak - songs of freedom', the feature doc we've been working on for so long, and it feels surreal. The artists and subjects of the film are flying in from around the country, crew members are coming to town, we're running around frantically picking up posters, organising after screening bevvies and food, we're sitting through meetings with all the pretty

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-31924606588201013732011-02-09T00:51:00.003+11:002011-02-09T00:56:20.834+11:00

"You have to fight sophistication. Sophistication comes to anybody that has been doing their job for a while. You have to fight knowing, because once you know something, it's hard to be open and creative; it's a form of passivity - something to guard against."John Cassavetes

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-91531210965174650172011-02-08T09:31:00.005+11:002011-02-08T09:55:21.446+11:00

"Sometimes, a single word can kill"Pedro Costa

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A damned fine weekend in.It's the hiatus between completing the planning for the launch of murundak and the launch itself. Key artwork locked off. Premiere planned. Sponsors locked in. Theatrical distribution on the move. Artists booked on flights and in hotels. Thank you speeches written.So, by way of reward and retreat, a weekend hidden away watching flicks, finishing books ('Freedom') and

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-91625890234148875412011-02-07T10:06:00.001+11:002011-02-07T10:26:18.830+11:00

"...The first film and the first photograph are somewhat terrible things. They're not love stories, they're anxieties. Somebody took a machine in order to reflect, to think and to question. For me, there is in this gesture, this desire – be it the gesture to make a film or a photograph, or today to make a video – there is in this gesture something very strong,

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-5828077182033078352011-02-06T19:37:00.010+11:002011-02-06T20:28:50.926+11:00

Some years back, fellow traveller Emma Crimmings and I got together and edited a saucy little book called Short/Site: Recent Australian Short Film which we saw as a celebration of some of the best short filmmaking going on at the time. It emerged from a frustration with the continual reductive discussion of shorts as a 'stepping stone' or 'launching point' for directors and never as a form in and

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-40740567513983538342011-02-01T12:50:00.003+11:002011-02-02T10:03:05.885+11:00

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-72579166891351349092011-02-01T10:45:00.010+11:002011-02-02T09:58:27.565+11:00

I'm an outer suburban kid. Wastelands and nature reserves. Burnouts and ghosting bikes. Over- watered lawns, closed blinds and hot tarmac. Skateparks at night, lonely winds and wandering kids.Like a lot of folks I got a buzz from the Arcade Fire's album 'The Suburbs'. That appreciation only surged when friend and past collab Greig Fraser shot the epic short film for Mr Spike Jonze and Arcade Fire

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-19296582883822196882011-02-01T10:25:00.004+11:002011-02-01T10:45:09.293+11:00

Evil genius compañera, amiga y colaboradora Amy Gebhardt (mentioned in my most recent post) was invited by Screen Australia to create a short film evoking her sense of the Australia summer for a series they are presenting. She worked with multidisciplinary artist Justin Shoulder and crazy brilliant cinematographer Jody Muston to create this hypnotic, seductive thing of intense beauty:

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-59713222298791830712011-01-31T20:53:00.003+11:002011-01-31T23:07:22.540+11:00

Some thoughts on a past project whose process continues to thrive and develop...A couple of years back, I became involved in a series of documentaries called 'Anatomy' which was being produced by Tony Ayres & Michael McMahon - the director/producer partnership behind films like 'Home Song Stories', 'Walking on Water', 'Sadness' and a wildly prolific array of projects in between.I'd been

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While I have a thousand other things to finish, I keep getting sucked back into writing a new script I've had burning away called 'Lover'. It may be self evident that there is a whole lot of loving in the film. I'm a sucker for a great lovers scene - Beatrice Dalle and Jean Hugues Anglade trying to pull the couch out in '37º2 Le Matin' is one of my favourites even though there is no sex, only

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-15139913776674472882011-01-28T09:56:00.004+11:002011-01-28T16:29:54.641+11:00

Apparently there is wind in the sails of independent film once again. A report from Sundance this morning by the esteemed Mr Ted Hope was published in the Huffington Post in which he wrote:Yes, the business of indie film is back. The rapidity, volume, and consistency of deals blossoming ($30M and counting!) at Sundance should give investors more confidence that you no longer have to rely just

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-48393316555358508232011-01-27T17:19:00.003+11:002011-01-27T17:22:33.583+11:00

Probably best not to sit too close... you may fall off the edge of the world.

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-13466670413557057972011-01-26T16:01:00.008+11:002011-01-26T16:15:09.766+11:00

Slowing down when you've spent a long time at full throttle is tricky.Lucky we have friends who can throw on the handbrake.A weekend away. Lazy light. Deep dam swims. Afternoon drinking. Beautiful song. Damned foolishness. Dawn dancing. Acting like kids. These are the circuit breakers.

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Fellow traveller Eron Sheehan left our little hub a few years back to take up a residency in the Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany where he went to develop the screenplay and project for his feature film 'Errors of the Human Body'. If you've seen any of his shorts (like Fish, Bing and William), you'll know he is a freakishly talented man with the unique

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-57472600791480700112011-01-19T15:30:00.007+11:002011-01-24T11:34:57.348+11:00

Fellow travellers - hailing from the fine state of South Australia, the insanely prolific and lovely Closer Productions - Matt Bate, Sophie Hyde and Brian Mason - are winging their way over to Sundance to premiere their new feature doco SHUT UP LITTLE MAN - an Audio Misadventure. It is one of three new films they will be releasing in the coming months. These are damned fine filmmakers and damned

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-8618055216535338382011-01-17T16:15:00.005+11:002011-01-31T23:16:51.983+11:00

This is a link to a lazy afternoon piece I cut together for friend and collab Stefan Duscio who shot all the beautiful images. It is one of an ongoing series* of skate atmos pieces Stefan has been working on; films about those blissed out, sweaty, aching mornings, afternoons and nights you can never get back, particularly if, like me, you're getting too old and crusty to hit the concrete. Cutting

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-7710300851479219192011-01-16T11:30:00.010+11:002011-01-16T12:08:31.931+11:00

Increasingly, the world is an open book. A rough draft of life as we'd like to live it. We now trade in the betrayal of people's secrets, modesty and privacy. Creativity is visible as it evolves, people's diaries lie open on the web, and social sharing demands a continual spill of information.So, the story of Vivian Maier is a beautiful thing. Vivian was an intensely private woman who worked

The Buoy Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160548993227332966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5015368504262130861.post-40213231039175407912011-01-13T11:22:00.004+11:002011-01-13T11:26:51.034+11:00

The most excellent Andrea Distefano who works with me here at Daybreak switched me onto this new blog that one of her peeps has just started up. Face Review. After you've seen a film, take a photo of your face and send it on to the blog. They'll post it as the review. That is all. Ace.

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Scott Macauly has written a great blog for Filmmaker about some 2011 resolutions for filmmakers. Here is a quick summation (but definitely check it out if you have a soft spot for lists and resolutions like I do):1. Amplify your voice.2. Improve your social.3. See the Essential 100.4. Work for a friend.5. Make more than you did last year.6. Make one piece in a different form.7. Read more.8.

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"If you don't risk yourself and the people with whom you're working in almost every shot you make, it's not good, it's useless, it's just another film"Pedro Costa

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