An adaptation of “Los De Abajo” an adaptation of Mariano Azuela’s novel.Leone style.
Now I just have to read it.
Thanks for bringing it up.
I think that should read:
“Once you become a filmmaker, what will have been your first project.”
sorry to be an ass.
my first solo project was to make a short film, “Laughing Men”. It takes place in the soft wet cerebellum of a child murderer.
The encomapssing of all of man’s (and woman’s) feelings, philosophies, and experiences in one single glorious 3-hour-take, once the technology is available of course, then I will die…
(I hope you weren’t being sincere, I officially apologize if you were)
Col Dax hahahaha. My screenplay i wrote thats an allegorical story about life religion and all mankind.
If you’re talking about a feature, I don’t know yet. I still need to work on my shorts. My first real short film for school is about a guy lost in the forest.
A suicide a la Le Feu Follet or Mouchette
Rich Uncle Skeleton: First, I disagree, and second I can’t change the name of topic so it doesn’t matter in the first place. Everything here sounds really interesting. Keep this topic alive!
A very paranoid neo noir. Can’t go wrong with that.
Mmmm…. firsts…. How arbitrary they are….
The first project I felt like publishing and distributing was Kabuki Western, a movie about two men in masks fighting over a “doll”, also in a mask. It’s the first real narrative that came together and that I felt showed a complete work held together by a logical, cohesive structure. Before and after that I’ve made many studies and experiments, but no experiments I’d really like to sign my name on as “experimental cinema”…yet. I also take a lot of inspiration from YouTube contests, e.g., and try to turn them into something I’d like to share with anyone outside the contest, so I made a second video called Pulsion from the 2009 Project:Direct contest. However, sticking to the topic, Kabuki Western is my first movie. Maybe later I’ll feel differently whence I have my first widely distributed movie, my first feature length movie, my first award-winning movie, or whatever the hell the future may or may not hold. I’m not too picky at this point, I’m proud of what I’ve done.
Oh yeah, and more topically and less self-gratuitously: “Do you wake up in the morning and imagine pictures? Congratulations, you’re a filmmaker. Print yourself a certificate.” —Robert Rodriguez, Rebel without a Crew
—PolarisDiB
That’s cool PolarisDiB, I also take a lot of inspiration from the internet.
In the Australian Film Industry, many first-time filmmakers don’t get the chance to make a second feature. Mostly, because their films are financial disasters; due to lack of marketing, poor quality (most films are basically the same), poor distribution, lack of government funding (not sure about that), unwatchable (because the films are so “dark”) and because of the stigma attached to Australian films. So I believe in making films I want to watch, violent (not too violent!), good vs. evil storylines and more of a focus on entertainment. (I know there’s more I can put, simply can’t remember.) In my films, I will “Americanise,” my characters and dialogue and try to distance my films from being Australian. I believe Australians simply don’t want to watch other Australians on the big screen.
Rossoneri Fan— Seriously? To be fair I left the UK for similar reasons/problems with the industry there, but I’ve always considered Australian cinema to be some of the best in the world. Don’t abandon your roots.
I still want to call Australia home. But, if I’m to surivive as a filmmaker here, I’m going to have to do something different to what other Australian filmmakers are doing. Australian filmmakers are simply not making films Australians want to watch, hence the low box-office returns. If that means abandoning Australian culture and identity in my films, then so be it. If Australians, go see my films because of what I want to do, I’ll feel I’ve done something right.
Ah OK, that makes sense. I think of films like Picnic at Hanging Rock when I think of Australian cinema. And probably Walkabout, which isn’t a homegrown Au project.
I like your ambition and the clarity of your approach (practical). “Australian filmmakers are simply not making films Australians want to watch”. Typically, domestic film industries grow weakest when they try to compete for market space with Hollywood, and pre-empt audience expectations by copying ideas and forms from mainstream blockbusters, which leads to watered down work, playing it safe. If that’s the case here, then it sounds like it’s time for Au filmmakers to get more edgy, perhaps, redefine their film-making in light of their real cultural experiences. I’m out of the loop on new Au cinema. There must be somebody making a wave.
My first project was a personal short film about an emotionally abusive relationship between a father and his teenaged daughter. The entire scene took place in a telephone booth. I’ve never shown it to anybody and I don’t ever intend to…
Playing it safe, T? Not all the time. There was Wolf Creek and a horror film called Dying Breed about descendants of cannibals taking out Aussies.
However, I am a bit excited about a little film made in and around my home city of Brisbane, it’s called Acolytes, it’s a thriller about some teenagers taking revenge against a pedophile that raped them, I think.
I wouldn’t say many are recycling ideas from Hollywood, just recycling ideas from each other. Is there someone making a wave? I haven’t heard splash yet…
@ RF
Where can I see Acolytes? who directed it?
SO I’m a bit confused then: you’re saying that the Au filmmakers ARE being edgy, but that it’s not catching any fish (because the whole thing is an incestuous orgy of copycats)? I need to get up to date with what’s going on down under.
I guess my sweeping generalization about domestic film industries is ground in my exp. of the UK, where there’s a predominant ‘everything must go’ sell-out to Hollywood. Which explains why nobody has mercy killed Hugh Grant (yet).
Directed by a guy called Jon Hewitt. It’s been shown at different intl festivals but i think its only going to be shown in Australia. Here’s a link to a review
http://guides.news.com.au/couriermail/movies/movie/?title_id=37749&review=75246
About the filmmakers, some are edgy, as in yeah I’ll just make a horror film and kill a whole lot of people, but most from what I’ve seen and read, pretty much most don’t try to push the boundaries. They make a lot of personal stories. Look at "All Friends are Leaving Brisbane and The Black balloon. There was a rethinking of macbeth by geoffrey wright, he set it in modernday underworld melbourne. It was a pretty terrible attempt at Shakespeare.
What I mean by ‘copycats’ is that most current Aus films are pretty much about overcoming adversity. Sweeping generalisation about Aus film? Yeah.
I’m fond of sweeping generalizations, they make me sleep easy : )
By edgy I meant less schlock and more socially realist. I am thinking about Romper Stomper right now. Yeah, not a massive box office success, but undeniably powerful. And the only film to ever make me run to the bathroom and throw up.
re: Geoffrey Wright …the Shakespeare adaptation sounds generic and terrible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance of Shakespeare done in Elizabethan dress. It’s always “We’re going to make Romeo and Juliet, but set in a lesbian amputee leper colony in 21st century Papa New Guinea” syndrome."
Well, anyway I posted something about the Australian Film Industry in another thread.
Sean Walker Hutton
If you already are a filmmaker, what was your first project?