Revelation continued

I had the opportunity to speak on two presentations at the Revelation Screen Conference, 'HD Heaven I and II', see the audience comment by Kate in an earlier post. The Artistic Director of Rev 2007, Megan Spencer kindly invited me to participate this year and it proved to be a great experience over the four days i was in Perth. Other talks such as the 'Inside Track' session with Jeremy Sims, director of 'Last Train to Freo', and the producer of low budget gem 'Boxing Day', Kristian Moliere were a highlight for me along with the chance to meet and chat with other filmmakers at the Rev Club and other venues. The special event sessions of the 'Wholphin' Shorts collections, presented by Wholphin's founder and editor Brent Hoff were a great example of what can be done with the short film medium, and in fact inspired me to think about short films again.
The opening night film 'Monkey Warfare' was terrific Canadian indie filmmaking, along with others such as 'Jesus Camp' and the world premiere of 'Streetsweeper' getting a great audience response. http://thestreetsweeper.blogspot.com/

Some extra notes from the Screen Conference audience:

Inside Track: Last Train To Freo & Boxing Day
Speakers
Kristian Moliere (Producer – Boxing Day), Jeremy Sims (Director – Last Train to Freo)
and Reg Cribb (Writer – Last Train to Freo)
Chair
Richard Sowada
Kicking off the Revelation Screen Conference we were treated to delicious insights from filmmakers Kristian Moliere, JeremySims and Reg Cribb. Similarly these two Aussie features were both shot in real time with a superb focus on performance and creative vision. The term ‘low budget’ is obviously one that varies greatly but it is certainly closely aligned with both Boxing Day and Last Train to Freo in differing degrees.
Directed by Kriv Stenders (Illustrated Family Doctor, Blacktown), Boxing Day was made for just $150,000 and funded entirely through the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund. This experimental approach to narrative was shot on HD with one location and six characters, rehearsed over two weeks and impressively shot in just one week. Kristian said they approached the production not unlike that of a short film where Kriv (who shot and directed at the same time) captured the whole film on mini DV during rehearsals to work out the choreography. With a 360 degree set, up to five actors conversing at once and 10 minute shots, the sound recording was a major challenge for the team who were fortunate enough to secure the talents of Bad Boy Bubby sound recordist James Currie. But the biggest feat of all was that the final 81 minute film was cut together from less than 100 minutes of rushes.
Last Train to Freo was supported via ScreenWest’s West Coast Visions initiative ($750,000) plus private investment. West Coast Visions sped up the process for this old school Perth team who were keen not only to bridge the gap between performance and storytelling and film but also cement the relationship of the creative team, or as Jeremy refers to it, the ‘tribe’ “Tribes can develop their own projects and their own storytelling”. The questions soon arose of what came first the film or the market? It’s that old commerce versus art debate – both as relevant as the other. The Last Train team decided not to secure market attachment prior to production and wanted to see what would happen if they owned the whole film themselves. After much international travel of physically taking the film to buyers overseas and an extensive learning curve the film has now successfully been sold to about 15 territories. But according to Jeremy the bottom line is that filmmakers have to have a great product and they’ve got to be smart “there is an arthouse audience out there – you just have to make a
shit hot film.” Being your own distributors is another possible solution becoming increasingly and certainly in the next five years distribution deals will be all electronic. The theatrical release, if nothing else, becomes an excellent promotional tool.
Kristian’s take on the commerce discussion is to concentrate on performance where, in the low budget world, the only way to compete with high budget flicks is to maintain the audience’s interest in the story.