Voices Project: almost…

It’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks with grading, ADR sessions,composing sessions etc. We finished mixing both Bat Eyes and Boot last night*. All we need to do now is marry the sound and the vision and the films are done. Not popping the champagne corks just yet but soon… very soon.

Detailed (and much deserved) thanks coming soon – just need to catch up on a little sleep.

*Speaking of sound, there’s a great interview on the NYT with Lon Bender, the Oscar-nominated supervising sound editor for Drive. You can find it here.

Peekaboo: West End Film Festival

If you’re in Brisbane, come on down to the West End’s Rumpus Cinema on 25th March to see Peekaboo in the West End Film Festival! See the full line up here.

Peekaboo: WOW Festival

Peekaboo has been selected to screen at the opening of the 18th World of Women’s Cinema Festival (WOW) in Sydney on Tuesday 6 March. It’s on from 12.30pm to 1.30pm at Customs House in Circular Quay. You can find details of the full program here. WOW indeed!

today’s inspiration: M.I.A.

Cause when she’s good, she’s very, very good.

today’s inspiration: Ben Gazzara 1930-2012

Loved your work.

Voices Project: teasers

It’s a sunny Sunday morning in Sydney and Nikki and I are back in the edit suite cutting teasers for Bat Eyes and Boot. What’s the differences between a teaser and a trailer? About two minutes.

 

Voices Project: Bat Eyes locked

Live blogging from the edit suite: the picture cut is locked! Thank you Nikki. Great job.

today’s inspiration: Kill List poster

Jay Shaw’s new poster for Ben Wheatley’s film Kill List is deservedly MUBI’s poster of the week. Kill List was one of my favourite films at last year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, and Shaw’s poster perfectly sums up the film’s agaonising feeling of inevitability with its list/domino motif.

today’s inspiration: Albert Brooks’ Downfall

At the risk of this becoming the Downfall meme blog I had to post this. Drive was my favourite film last year and the omission of Albert Brooks is a huge snub. Maybe Jackie Weaver used up the Academy’s sweetie-gone-bad goodwill for her turn in Animal Kingdom.

And here’s the highbrow corrective from the New Yorker’s Richard Brody. As Brody says, ‘rarely has the velvet glove been worn more suavely, on-screen, by the iron fist’.

While we’re talking Oscars snubs, check out NPR’s Joe Reid on this year’s nominees for Best Original Song and why you won’t see the name Cliff Martinez (also Drive) on that list.

Voices Project: Bat Eyes

I spent today in the edit suite with Nikki Stevens cutting Bat Eyes. A solid day’s work with a late dash of inspiration. Very satisfying. We’re close to a fine cut now.

 

today’s inspiration: SOPA’s Downfall

Using the Downfall meme to sell the anti-SOPA message: genius. The thought that this might be taken down before you get a chance to see it: shit. Favourite line: ‘Don’t cry - Disney owns that emotion.’

this morning’s mail

I know ‘spinning media’ is dead in the water, but I was very pleased to collect Blu-rays of Blue Velvet and Buster Keaton’s The General plus a DVD of Ulmer’s Detour from the PO Box this morning.

And very excited to learn that Harold and Maude, another one of my favourite films, is getting the Criterion treatment.

Voices Project: Boot locked

On Saturday we locked the picture cut of Boot! Checking in at a tidy 8 minutes, it packs an awful lot of story, character complexity, laughs and tears (and some other body fluids) into a space not much bigger than a car boot.

Another edit by the award-winning Katie Flaxman.

today’s inspiration: margin notes

Inside cover of David Foster Wallace’s annotated copy of Players by Don DeLillo.

I can’t even bring myself to write even my name in a book.

More DFW marginalia here.

Peekaboo: wins best editing at Flickerfest

Last night at Flickerfest Katie Flaxman won the Avid Award for Best Editing in An Australian Short Film for PEEKABOO. Congrats Katie. It’s well deserved.

Thank you Flickerfest. And thank you Avid. Katie wins an Avid Editing System (rrp more than $3,450). Now Katie’s got an Avid at home there’s no place to hide.

today’s inspiration: Moonrise Kingdom

What kind of bird are you?

today’s inspiration: plants on the job

We’ve been cleaning up the balcony and I’ve brought a couple of succulents to work. (Don’t worry, that’s neither my plant nor my work.) Perhaps this photo from Kirk Crippens series Plants on the Job is simple inspiration to water regularly. Check out Crippens work here.

today’s inspiration: Mike Yanagita

The Mike Yanagita scene in Fargo is a brilliant piece of writing. Comedy aside, this seemingly superfluous encounter – and the subsequent revelation that Mike Yanagita was lying all along - prompts Marge to return to Jerry’s car dealership, where her reappearance sparks Jerry’s meltdown.

Peekaboo: Flickerfest screening

Apologies to anyone who came to the Australian Shorts 2 session at Flickerfest on Monday night expecting to see Peekaboo.

Along with many of the other filmmakers I got up to introduce the film at the beginning of the session, then sat down to watch. I didn’t know the exact running order, but I knew Peekaboo was somewhere in the middle. As film after film played I started getting a sick feeling in my stomach that somehow I was in the wrong session (even though I knew there were no sessions of Australian shorts running concurrently). Then the lights came up and people started streaming out the door. No Peekaboo. I went up to the projectionists to find out what had happened and they realised that they had screened the wrong film by mistake.

I’ve seen the film start without sound, projection glitches galore but never a complete no show. It was pretty distressing. The Flickerfest staff were mortified and very apologetic. Arrangements were quickly made to slot Peekaboo into the Australian Shorts 3 program which followed almost  immediately after. Luckily Peekaboo isn’t a 20 minute film otherwise it would’ve been a long night for everybody.

Take 2: Peekaboo screened in the outdoor amphitheatre to a large and appreciative crowd. I never get tired of watching it with an audience. SPOILER ALERT: When Marli ran back into the lift I heard someone behind me exclaim, ‘Oh fuck.’

So I’m sorry if you came to see Peekaboo and you didn’t stay for the Australian Shorts 3 program or I didn’t see you in foyer. Hopefully we’ll screen again in Sydney soon.

today’s inspiration: Charlie Kaufman’s BAFTA speech

Watch it here. In fact the whole BAFTA Guru site is worth a look.