by Samuel Bartlett

Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Writer, Director and Producer of HAIL, has created a film that has such a powerfully distinct voice it stands on its hind legs screaming at the world, demanding to be noticed. And noticed it will be.
That voice is delivered, channelled, through Danny, an Ex-Crim re-assimilating with his surroundings after yet another closed chapter on time inside.

It’s not so much the story that carries this film as it is the flawless acting and the way the story is told. The same story, the same subject matter in the hands of a lesser director, or lesser actor could easily fail, or so easily become yet another piece of easily digestible, easily forgotten film-fare.

The film’s lead, Daniel P Jones, is a non actor, or rather was, a non-actor as he now has a pseudo-biopic of his life in cinemas, and has just finished filming another feature in the states, with more opportunities begging.

Danny’s authenticity, the trueness to his being, his rawness, his edginess, his visceral realness all carry the film. His performance transcends performance, with a realness that stems from reality, not supplanted emotion transcribed from associated experiences, his acting is as real as he is real. This is not documentary, it is not a day in the life of an Ex-Crim getting back to the world.

Amiel has danced a very fine line with this film, too far in one direction and we have a boring film about someone we don’t care about in a contrived scenario, too far in the other direction and we’re watching a redundant episode of the real-crime channel, but Amiel has somehow managed to do what so few films manage to do, he has managed to do what all films set out to achieve:
— we are transported —
— we become something we’re not, we become someone we never imagined we could be, somehow we’re transposed into the mind of a man who has seen it all, done it all, and lives with a steely gaze that proves it.

-Samuel Bartlett

Samuel Bartlett is an award winning screen writer and film maker with two feature films currently in development with Los Angeles based production companies.

He shot his first award winning feature film in 2011 and has another short film ready for the festival circuit. He divides his time between Sydney, London and LA.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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by Mark Rasmussen

Perhaps even more remarkably, I am making my way and achieving results.

And that’s great. I need that. I need to know I am on the right path as a writer and uprooting myself from a comfortable, safe life, to that of the unknown and following my heart, has been a good decision.

But it’s a path fraught with danger, rejection and loneliness.

It’s the last part that is the hardest to take. Especially for someone who despite enjoying and loving my own company, loves being social, meeting people, talking and conversing and simply mixing it up.

As humans we need this as it feeds our soul and enriches our lives.

LA’s a lonely city. Not many people walk around. As a writer, I couldn’t have chosen a more solitary pursuit but when mixed with a city that’s all but desolate of life out on the streets (except the freeways which are teeming with people), it’s a lonely city.

LA’s a lonely city. Not many people walk around.
As a writer, I couldn’t have chosen a more solitary pursuit

Thankfully for an outgoing guy like myself, I just get out there, do fun things and talk to everyone. It also helps that I have one or two really great friends who have taken me out and shown me sites and introduced me to people. Without them I would be lost.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, especially to one in particular who is just so inspiring, unique and special. You know who you are but know I am deeply grateful.

I choose not to whine or complain about loneliness, it’s simply the nature of the beast here. On the flip-side, however, things have been going great. Better than expected (if I had any expectations).

I came with the 16th annual Hollywood Pitch Festival in mind. A weekend of pitch meetings with companies and agencies – 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Disney, Henson, ICM, Paradigm – that you would never get the chance to meet let alone sit down in front of and discuss your ideas and scripts.

Despite having five ideas, I soon whittled it down to three but after discussing them with two considered friends in the industry, I decided to pursue my strongest. I’m glad I did as it paid dividends.

After much rehearsing my pitch at home, I was as ready as I was ever going to be. To say that my first ever professional pitching experience was a baptism of fire would be an understatement. But surprisingly I didn’t feel overwhelmed, nervous or afraid. I simply felt I had a very good idea and like almost all the other writers at the event, I belonged.

I went in pitching a family comedy. First company was Disney. Although initially I had wanted to get warmed up and into a routine, another writer merely pointed out that it was good to get them from the get go. They were fresh, hadn’t been swamped with tons of pitches and would be more than enthusiastic.

This is exactly how I approached it. Enthusiastically. Besides, what’s the worse that can happen? They can only say no. My life and my writing do not end on the back of one rejection.

I got such great feedback and input throughout the entire weekend (some even complimenting me on my pitching technique), and from a total of 35 companies that I sat and met with, 20 asked for my one-sheet/synopsis, while two on the day requested my script. With two more after the dust had settled, also asking for it.

That’s a win in any one’s language.

from a total of 35 companies that I sat and met with,
20 asked for my one-sheet/synopsis,
while two on the day requested my script.

Only thing is, I then needed to work my arse off to get a virtually nonexistent script up to scratch and completed. All inside a one-two week timeframe.

Again, no need to panic. I am a writer. I have been taught by a great mentor, guru and friend. I’ve been around other writers who have offered their thoughts and opinions and I had some help from a revered professional screenwriter and master, Blake Snyder (through his books). Sadly, Blake is no longer with us.

I structured it all out first, laid out my beats, had my spine, then created a board of 40 scenes and simply filled in the blanks.

It worked!

As yet, I do not know how well (or how badly) but my script is with four companies. That’s four more than I would have had before coming here and pitching.

My mentor had told me not to rest on my laurels, as “writing is rewriting,” he would say. It’s true. For now, I let it sit for a week as I play catch up with life.

You see, I still have to live. I need to buy food, a car, get a California drivers’ license and find another apartment once this current sublet is up. But all the time I am thinking and writing in my head.

Thinking as I shop at Ralph’s (the US’s major supermarket). Writing, as I test drive a car. Doing both as I set up a US cell phone number or traipse through yet another apartment or room.

All the time I am thinking and writing in my head.

It all helps. It gets me out of my cave and out into the real world. A world that as desolate and lonely as it might appear here in Los Angeles, is fun, enjoyable, exciting, new and real. It really is.

In the two months I have been here, I have had some great, fun conversations. From a guy who told me, “ Don’t forget to push the magic button,” as I waited at the lights, to my very frank conversation with my phone guy about how women in their 40s will want to take me out for dinner, and more.

It’s that contact with everyday people that makes me realise LA is not all that lonely a place to be. It’s like anywhere really.

What you put in, you get out.

In two months, I’ve been on two film sets, one even had the Hollywood sign in the background as we stood on a rooftop filming. That was both a very surreal moment and one of pure joy.

In two months, I have kayaked the LA river. Something only 200 people in all of LA County have ever had the lucky privilege of doing.

In two months, I have spoken with numerous writers, I have pitched to 35 companies, and banged out a script in a week.

In two months, I have smiled, laughed, rejoiced at how far I have come in such a short space of time.

Who knows what will happen in the next two months or the two months after that. One thing I can tell you for certain, this is an incredible journey and I am so grateful to have taken the leap of faith, follow my heart (and passion) and simply embrace life, LA and everyone and everything in it.

The city of Angels a lonely city? Not bloody likely.

-Mark Rasmussen

Mark Rasmussen has been a professional writer for over 15 years covering music, sport, travel, plays, web and more.
In 2011 Mark was involved in six film projects, three of which he wrote, produced or co-produced. One of his films ranked inside the Top 10 of a public vote.
Mark’s currently working on six feature scripts and two shorts and is now based in LA to chase down dreams.

by Steven Fernandez

Some (if not most) local screenwriters see themselves as champions of local culture when they write loads of “G’day mate” dialogue in their scripts. They think that they are being stalwart defenders of charming “dinkum Aussie” characters when they write the same-old, same-old, rustic larrikins who are shallow and hardly evolve.

The problem with these over-done elements is that they are superficial and largely meaningless to the international audience.  And, like it or not, this audience matters a lot.  Why?  Because without overseas success an Australian film has almost no chance of making a profit.

Without overseas success an Australian film has
almost no chance of making a profit.

But what can we do to turn this around?

In short, we should stop perpetuating empty local stereotypes and start telling stories on the basis of universal themes.  Themes that everyone – including the overseas market – can relate to.  Two larrikins speaking ‘Aussie’ and drinking beer by a billabong do not cut it by this measure.  Unless, that is, there is a deeper context to this scene that is in fact universal.

For example, perhaps one of the men fears losing his wife to a more refined rival.  Or, alternatively, he has a son or daughter who adamantly does not want to carry on the family farm after he dies.  To make this second example less hackneyed, you can have the father himself conflicted about how much future his farm really has.

We should stop perpetuating empty local stereotypes and
start telling stories on the basis of universal themes

If you really must load your script with “G’day mate” dialogue, then at least have your characters deal with challenges that the world can immediately relate to.  Do not write or make a film that has little relevance to an overseas viewer.  No matter how important you think it is to put local idiosyncracies on a pedestal.

Let’s take the specific example of racism.  Suppose we want to craft an Australian story around this universal theme.  And to do so without resorting to over-done elements or shallow characters.  How could we go about doing that?

Well, I can immediately think of two different ways.

One story concept could be a nineteenth century version of Avatar.

The basic idea would be for some English infantryman to get lost in some east coast bush and then find himself rescued by the very “savages” that he has been ordered to hunt down.  You can have the familiar clash of cultures tension here, as well as the slow and grudging respect that grows within the soldier as he learns of the more elegant aspects of their culture.

To make this story less trite, you can show the indigenous culture having brutish and distinctly un-noble aspects.  For example, in the way that their women are treated.  In fact, on that basis, it is arguably more convincing that the pale-skinned stranger would actually succeed in winning the heart of the spunky huntress.
Simply because he treats her with comparative respect.

Do not write or make a film that has little relevance to an overseas viewer.

This story could be made less predictable (as well as historically more accurate) by having the local tribe lose on the whole.  Mind you, you need to be very careful when doing that.  In particular, you must still have the film end with hope rising.  So the colonial military must not win easily.  At a minimum, the tribesmen need to go down fighting heroically.  And, in addition, both the hero and the huntress must manage to escape into deeper woods.  (So that hope still rises.)

Additional tweaks could be made to this story to separate it from all the “white man goes native” films we have seen before.

Photo Credit: DaedaLusT – The U.S. Army – Dave Gray

-Steven Fernandez

What is your view on the stories told in Australian films?
Do you have an opinion? We’d love hear it in the comments!

Steven Fernandez is a writer-director of short films and theatrical shows in Sydney, Australia. He is currently writing Human Liberation – an epic novel and screenplay package set in mythic ancient Greece.

Writer-Director David Michôd talks about his cinematic debut.

With thanks to Louise Lee Mei.

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Karel

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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“We are a lying, hypocritical, duplicitous group”, says Tony Ginnane, giving the audience the results of his mature reflection on an industry he has inhabited longer than most.

It was a packed house at the Chauvel cinema in Paddington for Metro Cinema’s forum discussion on “Oz Films versus Oz Audiences”. Some fireworks were expected from the glittering panel of speakers, and Tony Ginnane, recently re-elected as President of SPAA, didn’t disappoint. His point was the bipolar nature of the film industry – was it art or was it commerce? When a film is a commercial success we praise it, when it wins prizes and bombs at the box office we still praise it. What is the benchmark for success?

OZ FILM VS. OZ FORUM presented by Metro Screen from Metro Screen on Vimeo.

Andrew Urban, from Urban Cinefile, introduced the session with a video of vox pops. It appeared that most Australians have clear views about Australian films (not all negative), but when later asked what was the last Australian film they had seen, few could remember. Those that did almost universally mentioned Australia though they weren’t entirely sure that it was Australian.

“Audiences should be more supportive of their own culture.”

Susan Hoerlein of Tsuki Marketing, spoke in Marketing Language about Australian films as a Brand. Clearly people recognised the brand, and if the brand had failed, then it would have to be changed and a new marketing campaign launched: not for a specific film, but for Brand Australia. But Troy Lum of Hopscotch, scotched the idea that people saw a film because of its country of origin: “Oh, we’re too late for the Swedish film, let’s see if there’s a Canadian one showing instead”.

However, both Margaret Pomeranz (At the Movies) and Rachel Ward (Beautiful Kate) felt that Australian audiences should be more supportive of their own culture. “Bloody lazy” said Pomeranz. “Could be more embracive” said Ward.

And so discussion moved to the content of Australian films: often seen recently as” dark”. Garry Maddox of the Sydney Morning Herald noted that most successful films were “hero films”: they didn’t necessarily end happily, but the main protagonist stood for something important.

“Telling our own stories should not be a driver for making Australian films”

This part of the discussion was brought to a focus with an invited contribution from the audience by Karen Perlman, who is Head of Screen Studies at AFTRS. Her iconoclastic proposal was that “telling our own stories should not be a driver for making Australian films”. This leads, she said, “to a dire state of naturalism in films”. Instead, the purpose should be to “contribute to our own myths”.

In a paper due to be published in AFTRS’s new journal Lumina later this year she will suggest that there are three aspects to good cinema: big scale (cinematics, staging, or emotion); dynamics (variation in tension, pace, scale, movement), and audience ownership: the film must not be the filmmaker’s story, but “our” (the audience’s) story.

Andrew Urban was quick to reflect that Australia had all three boxes ticked: scale, dynamics, ownership.

Later, Clare Stewart (Sydney Film Festival) would note from the audience that programming for the last Sydney Film Festival had also considered the purpose of films: she offered a few such purposes: “make me laugh”; give me a kiss”; “push me to the edge”.

“Big scale, dynamics and audience ownership.”

Representing the Australian Writers’ Guild, Louise Callan spoke in favour of the writer’s key role in the film, and wondered if too much money was spent on the apparatus of script development rather than directly funding writers. But Dr Ruth Harley (Screen Australia) was emphatic on the importance of building a craft-based culture, “otherwise we’ll just have to go on throwing money”.

Returning to the question of benchmarking success, Victoria Treole, also from the audience, said it was meaningless to compare Samson & Delilah with Australia. Many have looked at the overall profitability of each film, with Warwick Thornton’s film so far taking $3.5m at the box office, higher in proportion to its budget than Australia with ten times the box office takings in Australia alone. But she said Samson & Delilah was about giving a chance to a talented team of filmmakers, not about returning a profit.

Margaret Pomeranz wondered if Samson & Delilah” would be considered as much a success (on the strength of its Cannes Festival selection) if it had only taken $100,000 at the box office. Most of the panellists had difficulty in discussing success in terms other than box office success – and Tony Ginnane pointed out that most films all around the world lost money, before moving on to suggest that the industry needed to decide if it was a cultural or a commercial sector. “Why not both?” came from the audience.

Moving on to distribution and marketing, Andrew Urban asked if government tax subsidies (along the lines of the Producer Rebate) would be helpful to distributors. Troy Lum thought not, and Tony Ginnane (clearly from his perspective as a producer) agreed: distributors have no trouble making money, he said.

But Troy Lum was very clear on the trouble distributors had making money on Australian films, that were made or lost on their first day of release in the face of the publicity and distribution juggernauts of Hollywood films like Transformers 2. He conceded that Hopscotch was distributing Mao’s Last Dancer, currently worth $9.7m at the Australian box office. Susan Hoerlein later suggested that film promotion needed to start earlier – during the production – rather than a few days before the (usually too short) release.

Screen Hub asked whether the relative popularity of Australian films in the 1970s and 80s had any lessons for today’s industry: Tony Ginnane recalled a greater degree of cooperation between distributors and filmmakers, while Gary Maddox noted an entrepreneurial sense that showed through in Not Quite Hollywood.

A suitably subversive closing note (or call to arms) came from Jonathan Wald – leader of the campaign to save the Chauvel Cinema when it was threatened with closure a couple of years ago. He suggested that film industries rarely made money, and why should they? “We subsidise the army, we don’t expect it to make a profit: why can’t it be same for the film industry”.

Dominic Case

Dominic Case, until recently the Director of Communications for Atlab and an Australian Film Commissioner, has over 30 years experience in the film industry. He is the author of Film Technology in Post Production (Focal Press) and a Fellow of both SMPTE and BKSTS. In 2002 he was awarded SMPTE’s Presidential Proclamation for his dedication and outstanding reputation in the industry.

Reprinted with permission from ScreenHub.
Daily jobs and news for film and television professionals

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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I have blogged about this before but I believe these are the six key factors that have brought our industry to its knees:

1. Australian films have been financed almost exclusively by government agencies, whose primary concerns have never been accountability or viability.
2. Australian films have lacked strong concepts because writers and producers ignored the market, and distributors have come to the table way too late.
3. The development of Australian films has been managed by people without a stake in the projects or without understanding of story principles and market needs.
4. Writers and producers have been ignorant about universally accepted story paradigms (3-Act Structure, Hero’s Journey) or – worse – reluctant to adopt them.
5. Critics have mislead the audience by giving mediocre Australian films star ratings that are equally high as or higher than worldwide box office successes.
6. Film schools have prioritised an artistic, historical and technological approach to filmmaking. Feature screenwriting studies have ignored the commercial reality.

Metro Screen has promised to make a filmed report of the debate available to The Story Department. So watch this space over the next few days.

Meanwhile, if you have an opinion, specifically on the six points above, please give your comments below. Thank you!

Karel Segers

Here is a report on the night, confirming many of the points I made above.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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I recently moved to Perth to study directing with the West Australian Screen Academy, which is under the umbrella of West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA).  As part of the course, students direct a multi-camera piece, a lifestyle magazine piece (I don’t really know what that is either), a documentary and a short film.  I’ve chosen to focus on directing for this year, but I’m essentially a writer/director, so I want to talk about the process of transferring a piece of writing to the screen.

There is a maxim that goes, “A film gets written three times: first by the writer, second by the director and third by the editor”.   This is, essentially, true, and by no means is it a bad thing – although as a writer it can be difficult to see your vision become something else.

The reality is that each of these rewrites is necessary in order to distill the story in a way that makes it accessible for your audience.  When you are writing, you are drawing on your own experience and your own frames of reference and your own archetypes.   As the medium changes from the ephemeral space of your own mind, so the created film, by necessity, becomes an extended exercise in compromise. It is similar to the transferring of energy from one form to another: some of the energy always ends up getting dispersed in an unintended form, such as heat or light.  Baz Luhrmann says that he gets 60% of what was in his head on film, at best. That’s a pretty good average.

I often find, as a writer, that your brain gets snagged on particular images which become vitally important to you. They hold some personal significance to you, and in our own head they are full of subtext.  It can be devastating when they aren’t translated to the completed film, and rants about others not understanding your vision are sure to follow. So, the challenge is to figure out how to ensure which images are truly important to you in your piece and to ensure that they remain in the film.

For example, I recently had a stand up argument with a writer who was upset that, as a director, I wanted to change the colour of a car to fit in more the production design of the film. When I asked him why, he insisted that the car had to be black because it symbolized the Angel of Death. There was no other reference to this concept in the rest of the script, no implicit spirituality, no visual or verbal references to Angels or to the random spectre of death, so the symbolism that was so important to him made no sense to anyone else.

This was a wonderful lesson for me, as both a writer and director, because it served as a reminder about the fact that symbolism is not universal. Even the concept of death, which we may think is a major cultural archetype, will in fact mean something different to different people depending on their experience, background and spiritual persuasion. You can not rely on your own points of reference translating into your film.

Joseph Campbell often talks about the role of persona in Western as opposed to Eastern Philosophy. In Western Philosophy, according to Campbell, a persona is a mask put on by an individual in a specific role; the mask can be replaced or removed altogether, but the individual underneath the mask remains the same. In Eastern Philosophy, the individual is regarded as ephemeral, so the mask of persona is treated as real.

This idea reveals how different cultures have different cinematic gazes and, especially if we are to regard our audience as a truly international one, (which we should be doing. Screen Australia?) it serves as a reminder that we cannot automatically assume that our audience will share a common symbolic language with us.

So, how do you avoid this trap? It is my belief that as soon as you start introducing elements of your own symbolism into your script, it simply won’t translate. Your characters are seeing the narrative through their own eyes and their own framework of symbolism and archetypes, and ideally the audience also experiences the narrative through the eyes of the characters.

Weighting the symbolism so that it exists through the eyes of the character allows it to be integrated as part of the narrative. This means that the narrative can, in return, add additional weight to the symbolic elements and make them an intrinsic part of the completed film.

In summary: The narrative needs to be told through your characters eyes, not yours.

-Ngaire O’Leary

Ngaire O’Leary is a full time student and occasional writer/director.

Cleo Mees

Cleo Mees is a Sydney-based writer, filmmaker and dancer. With a background across several disciplines, her interest is in finding out how these different disciplines can intersect and inform each other.

Low Budget: Black Water

In 2006, I hooked up with producer Michael Robertson when he was in pre-production on the low budget croc thriller Black Water. I spent more than a decade writing for TV and short films in the UK. Still, I never managed to get a feature going, so I was about to have the best meeting of my life.

Michael told me three things. They were making Black Water for around $1.3m. If it worked – it ended up selling to 71 territories – then the financiers would want to do another low budget film. “And this is where you come in.” If I came up with a genre film that could be shot for $2m or less, then he would make it.

And … We’re Rolling!

Two and a half years later, Michael was true to his word. On May 11th 2009, the cameras rolled on my supernatural low budget thriller Road Train.

Michael’s list of must-haves for a great low budget genre movie was simple: high concept, small cast, limited locations, few or no special effects, and no night shooting. The first four I had no problem with, but the idea of no night shooting had me scratching my head. I knew I wanted to do a supernatural thriller,  Typically, in these kinds of films, the night time is where all the scary stuff happens.

In the true spirit of low budget filmmaking, I made a stylistic plus out of a necessity, and made all the scary stuff happen in the blazing desert sun. Indeed, the entire story takes place within a twelve-hour period, and it makes for a very compressed, storyline.

Selling At Cannes

After I came up with a basic outline for Road Train, Michael made up postcards featuring a mock up poster, a 200-word blurb, and a strap line: ‘Never, Ever Leave Your Vehicle.’ Check out Michael’s website to see what I’m talking about.

Michael took the postcards to Cannes in 2007 and flashed them around … and the money men said yes! Michael then put his hand in his own pocket (bless him) and paid me to write the script.

Researching the script, as usual, came down to three areas: experts, characters, and what I like to call ‘walking the ground’. ‘Walking the ground’ involved a trip to Dubbo NSW, to hang out with truckies, and a six-hour trip in a road train. My experts – people whose brains I could pick about what they do – included a truckie, a serious camper for the camping-in-the-outback stuff, and a doctor for the effects of dehydration on the characters. Character research involved pulling together aspects of different people I knew, in order to create written character backstories.

Financing The Low Budget Indie

I did about three drafts for Michael over eight months, before director Dean Francis came on board. Dean was the catalyst for turning an already good script into a great one, by being very clear about what needed to be left alone, and what still needed more work. Michael approached Screen Australia (SA) with the new version of the script and the private money attached, and SA agreed to put up the other half of the budget.

While the original private money eventually fell victim to the credit crunch, other private money and the South Australia Film Commission came in to make up the shortfall.

So, two years from (literally) an idea on the back of a postcard to the cameras turning – a mere blink of an eye in the world of film financing. Hopefully, at the end of it all we’ll have a small-but-perfectly formed Aussie genre film that, like Black Water, punches well above its weight – one that finds an audience both here and internationally.

I’m looking forward to visiting the production later this month, and will keep you posted on developments.

– Clive Hopkins

Prior to ROAD TRAIN, Clive Hopkins’ main claim to fame was as the writer of Oscar nominated short film, HOLIDAY ROMANCE.

Cleo Mees

Cleo Mees is a Sydney-based writer, filmmaker and dancer. With a background across several disciplines, her interest is in finding out how these different disciplines can intersect and inform each other.

National Screenwriters’ Conference 2009: Kenny – Plumbing the depths
by: David Tiley
Screen Hub
Thursday 26 February, 2009

Before opening a completely charming discussion with Andrew Knight about the writing of ‘Kenny’, Clayton Jacobson produced some very sobering numbers.

Kenny cost $500,000. By the time the film returned $5m, he was still $250,000 in debt. When it made $8m, his investors started to get a return. He has still not seen a dollar. As he said later, if he had cleaned toilets for all those hours he put into the film, he would have doubled his income.

However, he was determined to follow a film through the entire process, from idea to audience, and experience all the details in the middle. He is glad he did this, and learnt a lot, but he wants a fee for service in the future.

Andrew is an experienced comic writer and producer himself, and he brought a knowledgeable eye to the clips, the Jacobson touch, and the craft of comedy. Again and again he reiterated the same point – that the comedy works because it carries an exquisite sense of detail.

Indeed, Clayton acknowledged that the film is a mass of details driven by an underlying theme.

Here are the stages in the development of the project:

1. The Jacobson family assembles a gallery of fabulous characters with a fine sense of the vernacular. (His grandfather, for instance, ran a carnival, and the family lived for years in the big tent after it became unfinancial.) In a film mad family, the children are named after characters and actors. Raised on Jerry Lewis, Clayton sees Midnight Cowboy when he is fifteen and the skies open up.

2. Clayton goes to Swinburne, cleans toilets to pay for the course, graduates in 1984, ends up in high end commercials, develops many friends, writes extravagant features that have nothing to do with life.

3. Younger brother Shane runs a business doing lights for big shows. One day he imitates Ray, an old toilet plumber, and Clayton is fascinated. It sticks in his mind, and liberates in him the ability to write (O cliché! O wisdom!) what he knows about.

4. For months he collects lists of assets – dozens of connections, insights, lines, quirks and resources. Mates who can act, gear that is available, stuff that can go in the film, places that inspire him. Stories he is told. All to take him further than the limited world of his imagination.

5. Inspired by Paul Harris at the St Kilda Film Festival, they use a bunch of experimental rushes as a the basis of a 47 minute mockumentary.

6. They show this to the poo people, who supplied trucks, equipment and support, along with material from Shane. They are enchanted and want a feature film. They even want to put the money up. Clayton can’t see an extended version. Then they tell him about the toilet cleaning convention in the US, and it opens up for him.

At this point, Clayton made many decisions about the script. The first fifteen minutes is all about cramming scatology into the film, so the audience gets tired of it and happy to move on. We, the audience, see Kenny in his disregarded role, plodding on optimistically and decently doing a job we all need, and look down on. We are the antagonists in the film, it is our journey too.

He is driven by the desire “make the audience secretly love every character in the film” which means he gives space and emotional journeys to small sidebar stories and people. This is about an overwhelming ethic. He takes something crucial from Jerry Lewis – his ability to undercut humour with sudden tragedy, and then move on quickly.

He deals with the underlying melancholy of the characters and their crappy social tragedy by giving them an almost unshakeable sense of optimism. Bad things happen but they stay positive.

The film is built around a dual journey – we learn to respect and love Kenny, while he doubts himself. Moves into a crisis, goes to America, resolves the crisis – but it comes back. We want him to respect himself, but that is becoming less and less possible. The crisis is resolved because his father gives him some acknowledgement, and because he decides to reject the desk job which takes him away from his fundamental identity.

He plotted the film around the various events which the real company had, up to and including the trip to America. He invited ideas and talked incessantly about the projecte and its story, refining it as he saw how others responded, sometimes having them tell the story back to him. He recruited actors, mostly in his family – even his pestiferous brother in law who wanted to be in the movies, and developed a simple philosophy of performance: get people to exagerrate themselves, and use their own memories.

He plotted the emotional development in detail, and how the audience responded. He is an editor, and was keenly aware of set ups, and the way the audience can be placed on its feeling journey. This is very important – he managed the viewer’s knowledge of the characters very carefully.

He knew the script thoroughly, and would tell the actors what they were doing on the same day. He mined their knowledge of dialogue, and capacity to improvise. But he always knew the crucial lines and moments that had to be delivered exactly. Again and again, the right details.

Over six months, they shot the basic story, and over the next year they went back to the same events, for additional shots, to put in particular characters, to create atmosphere or simply reshoot.

Then Clayton went into the editing room until he just about went insane. With money, risk and family chaos layered on top.

He is now working on a web series called Mordy Koots: Blazing Angels, Clouds of Fear. Google as the project develops.

David Tiley
David Tiley is the editor of Screenhub, and can be contacted at editor@screenhub.com.au. or 03 9690 6893.

editor@screenhub.com.au
https://www.screenhub.com.au

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Republished with permission

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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And I see why it is not getting the word of mouth it deserves.

My take on the film is primarily from a broad story perspective. I don’t go into dialogue, performance, SFX etc. because I believe they are secondary and ultimately not decisive for the success of the film.

PUSHING IT: ACT STRUCTURE

In my view, Luhrman and Beattie have knowingly taken a few risks. The main one is the four-act structure. Here I mean: four acts according to the traditional three-act model. Not three acts with the second cut in two.

Both the drover and Sarah have a clear four-act journey. Their first objective is to get the cattle to Darwin, which spans most of the film. As a ‘road movie’, it works fabulously to my taste and it is in the second act that the film has its best moments, including some instant-classic scenes such as the cattle stampede threatening Nulla.

Ironically, the expectation of a traditional three-act structure is reinforced by the death of Flynn, perfectly halfway Act Two.

Then, when they reach Darwin and succeed in their objective, a new objective is set for the next act: the return to Faraway Downs. Here is where the structure begins to collapse. Where we had an instinctive feeling we were moving towards the end of the movie, we have exactly one more hour to go.

Act Three climaxes in the realisation that Nulla is in danger and drover decides to save him. The final act is the rescue of Nulla.

UNDERESTIMATED: POINT OF VIEW

The only other major potential problem is the multiple point of view (POV). Each POV has a serious problem.

The film is told through Nullah, Sarah and Drover.

Nullah’s story is that of the stolen generation: he is trying to stay out of the hands of those who want to take him away from his community.
This story is scattered across the movie and it doesn’t really have the power to span the entire film, to keep the three hours together. When we are in Nullah’s POV though, we all empathise with him because we understand this is a struggle for freedom, a basic human instinct. When sifting through the hundreds of promotional photo’s on australiamovie.net, the photo above is the only one I could find of Nullah. It says a lot about how important the filmmakers see this character and his story.

Sarah’s journey does a better job in tying the movie together, for at least three acts. In order to save her cattle station, she and the drover must undertake an epic cattle drive to Darwin. On the way, she falls in love with him. We empathise with Sarah, because we understand her journey, too. Because of the love journey, she is probably the most powerful POV in the movie. Everybody accepts her falling in love with the drover as he represents masculinity, freedom, her future.

Drover’s POV is more problematic. He wants to help Sarah, then falls in love with her. Here is the problem. Sarah Ashley is portrayed as a completely undesirable female. She is uptight, annyoing and sometimes plain naive. Who would desire such a woman, when you can get much better? I don’t believe many audience members would therefore identify with the Drover.

Looking at the three options, Sarah is the most likely character to identify with. After all, Hugh is a desirable male! I would like to see a breakdown of the demographics in terms of audience reception for Australia. It wouldn’t come as a big surprise if it turns out to be a chic flic.

MINOR ISSUES

Like most other good but not great movies, if you drill down you’ll find a lot of issues that keep you from fully participating.

Towards the end of the movie, I was getting totally annoyed by the mind-numbing repetition of the WIZARD OF OZ theme “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”. The original score of Australia is strong enough, there was no need to revert to this blatant recycling. A film’s identity gets lost when it has to rely on references to other movies to get a point across.

Finally, I found the visual style gorgeous until the arrival in Darwin, where things got completely out of control. Effects became totally in-your-face, unnecessary and plain badly executed. Luhrman had almost created a timeless classic piece of cinema, but in the last two acts he blows it.

That said, I enjoyed AUSTRALIA. The word of warning about its length did help me, as I gave it the time and space it needed.

And about the fascinating heated discussions after posting an article from the SMH and one from The Guardian on my Facebook page and Jason Gordon’s article on the Story Department Group at the end of last year, I would like to say the following: I am a Belgian and I look at Australia’s history with a certain level of neutrality. I find it hypocritical of a nation to say sorry but continue to celebrate Australia Day on 26 January. But I don’t have a desire to see social, political and historical issues resolved in the cinema.

In my view, despite its failure to appeal to the mass audience, AUSTRALIA is still one of the most entertaining Australian films of the decade.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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