July

It was a slow movie month in Australia. I’m assuming due to the fact that the juggernaut that is the Harry Potter franchise was set to release its final instalment and it certainly did not disappoint!

It was also a relatively slow month for LateNite with everyone being a little bit exhausted after the Hannah screening in San Francisco. Slow may not be entirely the right word, with Jacqui being very busily plugging the first instalment of Spinning Dreams.

The 40min doco became available for viewing online through Fairfax Digital, and even made it to the front page of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald websites, giving it a huge national audience. Why not do yourself a favour and check it out - and see what all this fuss is about!

August

Too many GREAT movies were released in August so I feel like it’s only fair to narrow it down to three (I told you there were lots of good ones) of my personal favourites. Enjoy.

and for the second one…

and finally…

Now the reason I have listed three trailers above is because this month was pure cinematic madness with the annual Melbourne International Film Festival. I was a little light on films this year only catching 30-40 (usually it’s around the 60+ mark) but I must say I saw some dynamite films. Both Beginners and The Guard which I’ve listed above were two of my favourites of the festival. Check them out if you get the chance.

So not only was it MIFF time in Melbourne, but we were keeping tabs on Hannah which had begun its longer festival circuit with screenings in Dublin and North Carolina. Also announced were our friends at Dark Heart Productions having their pilot The Weatherman (featuring our very own Nick Colla) being accepted into the New York Television Festival. You can view the (incredibly funny) pilot right here:

Also we were very excited to hear that the feature film Hail by award winning director Amiel Courtin Wilson, which Chris and the team at The Butchery and The Refinery had worked on, had been selected for the very prestigious Venice Film Festival in Italy.

Chris also lent a helping hand on Directors Jared and Daniel Daperis’ short film Phone Call which won the Raw Nerve competition run by Open Channel. Chris helped out in pre, giving the boys some handy tech advice before, as always, lending a helping hand on the shoot.

To wrap up the month we slowly but surely began moving into our new home. The first thing to go in was the combined library of film books. It’s a bit impressive, I’m not gonna lie.

September

Again another great month for movies but I’ll restrain myself to one trailer this time. One of the best trailers of the year in fact.

September saw the team back on the road shooting all sorts of weird and wonderful projects. The music video that we launched just before Christmas for Melbourne band July Days kept Nick, Chris and Hugh busy while Jacqui felt like flying a little higher whilst in East Timor.

Chris was also back on board with the Daperis Brothers short Phone Call, taking on post producing duties. He also brought on board our good friends Eugene Richards and Craig Jansson who were so gracious in helping us on Hannah and the Hasbian. Those two guys are invaluable friends and colleagues, both masters of their chosen crafts.

Upon his return from New York, Al was keeping busy in Canberra shooting some doco footage for a highly anticipated documentary which will take him around Australia next year with Australian actor Samuel Johnson. More on that in the New Year!

Hannah continued to screen around the globe as we rolled into October where the 48 hour film festival awaited.

October

Talk about a rollercoaster of a month.

The month of October was crazy. Literally freakin’ nuts. To give you an idea here are a bunch of things that happened within the first 2 weeks of October.

• Our very good friend Mike Lutman had a screening of his documentary Plasticized at the Melbourne Environmental Film Festival.
• Jacqui launched her new Ad for the Australian Orangutan Project in association with PlayUp Music.
• This month was hit with an incredibly sad news, not just for the technology industry, but for the entertainment industry and the world as a whole. Steve Jobs was a visionary and sheer genius who pushed every boundary, and challenged every rule. His impact on the world will last for generations. Not only did he co-found Apple then keep it afloat when most thought it would sink, but he also rescued Pixar, and helped it become another of the most cutting-edge and inspirational companies in the world. He’s inspired millions – and will continue to do so for many years to come – us included.
• We announced our partnership with Pocket Bonfire Productions in the launching of the Three One Six Oh film, music and arts festival to be held in 2012 in the Dandenong Ranges.

Apart from these major things, our favourite weekend of the year had also arrived, unfortunately though the 48 Hr Film Festival fell on Nick’s birthday. This didn’t seem to worry anyone too much though as the crew teamed up with LateNite newcomer Michael Shanks to attempt one of the harder 48 hr films in recent memory.

With numerous locations, over 20 actors, having to wrangle RED footage, horses, dance numbers, Muppets and more special effects then you can poke a stick at. It was certainly not going to be easy.

48 hours and several melt downs later and LateNite submitted their entry for the 48 Hour Film Project for 2011 with the working title The Script Machine.

November

Another film that I caught at MIFF which was released a few months later in November. To be honest I wasn’t expecting a lot and what I got was a really funny, sweet little film. You need those every once in a while.

November was an interesting month as Nick took some time off to perform on stage in Stork Theatre Company’s production of Helen by Euripides.

Chris meanwhile got the exciting news that he would be representing LateNite up at SPAA after being accepted into the Emerging Producers Scheme. He joined about 30 other emerging producers from around Australia at the weeklong conference in Sydney and walked away with an enormous spring in his step, excited about the possibilities of the future of film in Australia and also for LateNite. You can read about his experience at SPAA on our blog.

In terms of projects, Jacqui made the big announcement that the second instalment of her Spinning Dreams documentary series, set in Cambodia, would be having its World Premiere in December across 7 cities in 4 countries including Australia, Singapore, Vietnam AND Cambodia.

Hannah continued on its merry way with festival screenings in Chicago, Italy, Spain and also Switzerland.

Chris managed to find some time in his busy schedule to help on one of the TAC Make A Film, Make A Difference shorts for 2011. The winning entry Room for One More was directed by Tom Campbell and will be in cinemas come early 2012.

We had a brand spanking new release from our very good friend and sometimes collaborator Dave Cleeve (and his very talented team at Scene Collective) with his music video for Melbourne based band Kingswood. Chris & Eddie were once again on board to help make the clip happen alongside the incredibly talented of Director of Photography, James Ballard.

All of this craziness aside, there was one night which we looked forward to for the month of November and that was the screenings for the 48 Hour Film Project entries for 2011. Nick unfortunately had to miss the screenings due to being on stage however Chris, as usual, went to every single session.

He was blown away by the jump in standard from the year before and reported back that the entries this year were up there with some of the best 48 hr entries he had seen from the past few years.

It was announced that we had made it into the top 12 and come awards night we were all very nervous. Especially due to solid entries from our great friends and 48 hr competitors The Cameralla and No Man’s Field (formerly BetaMax).

What came was a huge surprise to all of us. And I don’t mean that in an arrogant “please, as if we weren’t gonna win” pretend bullshit kind of way. The whole LateNite team were literally gobsmacked. We knew our film was a really hard sell – I mean to be honest, it’s like being on an acid trip for 7 entire minutes. There were zombies and musical numbers and muppets and horses with lasers for eyes… See what I mean when I say acid trip??? So even the idea of coming close to winning ANYTHING was quite a distance from our minds.

We were fortunate enough to take home the awards for Best Script, Best Sound Design, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Director and the big one, Best Film. I said in my speech over the phone (I was running to the awards night after my play finished so Chris and Lee were good enough to call me) that I was very humbled by how well our film was received and the warmth that people showed towards such a bizarre piece of filmmaking. And I truly meant it.

I feel like our approach to filmmaking is very bold in the respect that even if we’re not sure if we can pull something off, we’ll give it a go anyway.

That’s one thing that I can say that I am truly proud of us for. The fact that even though sometimes it may seem like what we are attempting is insane and completely impossible, we are still prepared to give it a go. Sure there is always a possibility of failure… but if you don’t even attempt the impossible, how do you know if it was impossible in the first place?

December

Most people get pretty crazy busy over the month of December. Even though most people finish up at work, there are Christmas parties and last minute present shopping and holidays to plan and Christmas lunches and New Years plans to finalise, etc, etc, etc.

For us, as well as continuing on our merry way with projects a plenty, December is always a time for us to reflect on the year past. The projects we’ve been involved with, the people we’ve met, the experiences we’ve had and more importantly the people and projects that have inspired us and made us excited about 2012.

If you’re a filmmaker and this is all you know and love, and film is the only thing you want to do with your life, but you spend days and days and days sitting around wondering how it’s gonna happen, then have a look into these people who went above and beyond in 2010/2011, then stop whining, pick up your camera and start shooting. These people are living proof that you have no excuse.

Lena Dunham – Tiny Furniture

Gareth Edwards – Monsters

Edward Burns – Nice Guy Johnny

Realm Pictures – The Underwater Realm

Enzo Tedeschi & Julian Harvey – The Tunnel

Dario Russo & David Ashby – Danger5

If you’ve heard of these people then great. If you have no idea who they are and why they are so inspiring when it comes to indie filmmaking then you better get yo ass on Google and check them out.

So we finish off the year on a high. Jacqui screened Spinning Dreams Cambodia in early December, Nick & Mike played starring roles in the second MAFMAD winner for 2011 entitled Adventure (directed by the very talented Steph Parsons and Tess Fisher and which has also been produced by our multi-talented friend Pete Wells from Inspiration Studios), Hannah continues its path around the world with another screening in Spain, our friends at The Cameralla come runner up in Webfest with their entry Betty and Frank Will Have Sex, some more friends at Wizard Sandwiches wrap up for the year on their exciting web series The Tomasino Brothers (shot by our dear friend Cail Young, also from Inspiration), Mike’s viral YouTube clip goes mental on Christmas Eve and becomes the most viewed video on YouTube for that day with thousands upon thousands of hits, and the slate fills up for what will be an EPIC and EXCITING 2012.

And (if you’ve made it this far) here my friends is a sneak peak of what is to come in 2012…….

• Jacqui is sailing from Africa to Brazil as part of her TOPtoTOP documentary.
• Michael is busily writing his first Sci Fi feature to shoot late 2012 with the working title The Uncanny Valley.
• Nick has a full slate with music videos for Melbourne folk band Huckleberry and Me and Hip Hop guru Grey Ghost on the cards.
• An exciting new feature film written by Amanda Logan with the working title Splinter to be shot mid 2012. Nick will be taking on directing duties.
• An exciting new web series which is a collaboration with some of Australia’s brightest emerging filmmakers on board. Being produced in association with Inspiration Studios.
• Some exciting news on the SAKOOZ front too… but that might be giving too much away!

So there, my friends, is just a taste of things to come.

Excuse my French but 2012 is going to be one putain de exciting year. So please all have a safe and happy New Year from all of us here at LateNite Films. We thank you so much for all your love and support over the last few years, we honestly couldn’t have achieved what we have without you all.

And here tis. The very latest LateNite Films reel for your viewing pleasure.

See you in 2012 all you wonderfully brilliant people.

And what a bloody busy year it has been at LateNite HQ! As the year comes to a close, we here at LateNite feel like it’s important to reflect on an incredibly tough but ultimately rewarding 2011. To complement our stories of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll (hardly) I have decided to throw in some of the great films that were released over the last 12 months. All of which have my personal seal of approval – which is all you need really!

January

The beginning of the year was a fight indeed with the LateNite team having to start the year by “fighting” for some funds to get them over to Miami to watch their multi award winning film, Fallout compete in the Miami International Film Festival for a spot at Cannes. Nick took charge of the art-show campaign with the very talented Thom Holt looking after the band night. Meanwhile, Chris was left to continue post production for our first feature film Hannah and the Hasbian.

The ever hard working Hocking actually took away all the Hannah footage that we shot over 3 days in December and began transcoding the RED footage whilst he was away on holidays! If that’s not commitment I don’t know what is.

The craziness of the new year swept all the way through January with press releases for Miami, Jacqui and Paula having a mad “tweet off” at the Virgin Mobile – Rolling Stone Awards and (possibly the biggest announcement of all) our very good friend Liam McIntyre working his little ass off to land the lead in the hugely popular Starz drama series Spartacus. The beautiful man currently has his face plastered all over Times Square.

The prep was in full swing too for our Feb March to Miami party with bands being booked, art being collected, venues being locked down and booze being sourced for a typical LateNite blow out – we really do go too far sometimes…

February

We did all but cut our own arm off to get this warehouse screening/party off the ground and boy did it go off like a frog in a sock. A big thank you must go out to all the bands that played, the talented artists that donated their amazing art work to be sold and of course all the people whose hard work made these two events what they were. It was very humbling to know that there are people out there who were willing to take a punt on us and who truly believe in what we’re doing. The venue was jam packed both nights, the bar was fully stocked with all kinds of wonderful drinks (although the home brew didn’t quite make it after a minor explosive accident), the slightly-too-big-for-the-venue PA was pumping with some incredible local bands, DJs and comedians – it truly was a EPIC and amazing weekend, with plenty of sore heads on Sunday morning!

Enough money was made to get Chris, myself and Thom to Miami for the screening so we were absolutely stoked and had so much fun putting it all together. Definitely one for the memory bank.

But of course not everything was fun and games with our very own Jacqui Hocking also working hard to orchestrate her own screening with the Australian Premiere of her very successful doco Spinning Dreams. A massive thank you to everyone at Open Channel for allowing us to use Shed4 for the screening. With over 200 attendees, and thousands of dollars raised for Timor Aid, we couldn’t be happier.

Jacqui had a very busy month as not only did she have her screening to organise, she went to East Timor to film footage for the World Vision 48 Hour Famine campaign, filmed at the Sustainable Living Festival, started working with the incredibly talented team at Inspire9, attended the Australian International Documentary Conference, was a guest at the Audi German Film Festival, helped out on the warehouse party AND had an exhibition set up at Federation Square during the weekend of the Tropfest screening in Melbourne. As with everything that Jacqui does, all went off incredibly successfully and the world had its first glimpse of the Spinning Dreams series.

But of course it’s not only our shenanigans that we like to keep track of and plug. We love a good community and there is no better company that we love working with than Inspiration Studios who used the month of February to launch their very own unique web series Sensible Digital Cinema.

March

The trailer above is for an incredibly powerful film that the LateNite boys managed to catch at the Miami International Film Festival. Not only did they get to see this amazing film (it won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award) but they were lucky enough to sit in on a Q & A with the Director Susanne Bier.

There were movies a plenty during our time at the festival so for a more thorough look at what we saw and what we thought you can check out our previous blog posts here.

Anyway it was an incredible month away for us but one which was too EPIC to put into a short month long blog summary so instead I’m gonna give you some dot points:

• Our filmed screening as part of the International Competition for the 48 Hr Film Fest. Unfortunately our screening (as well as the Sydney teams) was riddled with technical issues so needless to say we weren’t the happiest filmmakers in the cinema.
• The boys spent their days at the movies and their nights networking. Met some inspirational filmmakers from all around the world including a Mexican indie filmmaker who made his film on 10,000 with only himself and his actor in the back of a truck. Amazing Stuff.
• The winning film from the 48 Hr was SHIT HOT and starred the ever amazing Martin Freeman (trailer below). The filmmakers were a great bunch of blokes to boot which made us happy.
• Nick & Thom discovered a Cuban way of drinking Corona’s. Roll the top of the bottle in salt and drop in a touch of tabasco – Massive Win.
• Seeing Chris’ little face at Disneyland – he’ll always be a kid at heart!
• And of course, there was the day trip to incredible 6 Flags with our good friends Damien Csehi and Jared Daperis!

The winner of the International 48 Hr Film Festival:

After such an epic month we thought we might get some downtime over April until…

April

…we found out our feature Hannah and the Hasbian had been accepted into a massive Film Fest in San Francisco called Frameline for it’s big World Premiere.

Unfortunately for us the copy submitted in was an incredibly rough cut of the movie so now it was up to Post Master Hocking to get the film rollicking along so that it was ready for its June screening. Chris and Jacqui locked themselves away with Director Gordon Napier to really push out the film and make it the best it could be with the little money and time we had available to us.

We were lucky enough to have the support of The Butchery, the sleepless and unstoppable Eugene Richards at The Refinery, the incredible and beautiful Nidhi Chanani, Justin Viney, all our bands and of course the always amazing Craig Jansson at The Magic Sound Company – who personally went above and beyond what I ever thought was humanely possible.

April wasn’t all fun and games though as we were all very sad to hear of the passing of John Bowring ACS, the founder of LEMAC. John did a hell of a lot for the Australian film industry and his passing was a sad day for film in Australia.

May

What better way to kick off our May summary than with a solid Australian film from 2011. Snowtown was as brutal as it was tense, obviously not a film for the light hearted, it was really made for me by the solid, often frightening performances of its lead actors Daniel Henshall and Lucas Pittaway.

Anyway it was another crazy busy month with lots of exciting announcements and more projects in the pipeline. Our first few announcements were that we were moving into our shiny new office at the much lauded 16th St Acting Studio, a place which has been our home ever since. And also that a film that we supported and were quite heavily involved with called There’s A Hippopotamus on the Roof Eating Cake by Jamie Snyder and Joel Sharpe was to screen at the very prestigious St Kilda Film Festival during May. Very exciting stuff.

Jacqui was busy preparing for the next month, whilst at the same time filming events such as the Mindful Conference.

We continued to push through with post on Hannah, spending more and more time with Craig and Eugene – trying to get the sound and grade locked down before the end of May. It was go go go for most of the month but we pulled through with shining colours. Despite Craig’s unfortunate altercation with a roof, Hannah was in the mail and off to San Francisco…

June

Another month another couple of international festivals to be had.

Not only did Nick, Director Gordon Napier and the Hannah cast head over to San Francisco for the World Premiere of our feature film Hannah and the Hasbian. But our good friends over at Pocket Bonfire Productions, Joel Sharpe and Jamie Snyder, made the long trip to Edinburgh to see their film There’s a A Hippopotamous on the Roof Eating Cake in the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

For us though the month was all about Hannah.

The Frameline Film Festival was an incredibly successful trip with the film playing to a near sold out audience at the famous Roxy Theatre in San Francisco. We got great reviews and some very interested distributers to boot so we were all smiles.

By all accounts the Hannah team had the time of their lives and with the excitement and buzz behind the film, were all ready to send it off around the world.

Although, while Chris & Nick were busy with Hannah & The Hasbian – Jacqui was off to Cambodia with the amazing Michael Lutman for the second instalment of Spinning Dreams.

So that was the first 6 months – you’ll have to wait till after Christmas to hear about the second 6 before we launch into a New Year. But what the hey, we may as well give you a little treat while you wait over the next few days.

So here my friends is LateNite Films Music Video for Melbourne based band July Days…

What an absolutely exciting and intense few days it’s been!

For those that don’t know, I was fortunate enough to be excepted into the Emerging Producers Scheme, allowing me to attend the SPAA Conference in Sydney, which has literally just wrapped.

The Scheme is designed to subsidise and assist newer members of the industry to attend and participate in the Conference by offering a carefully selected group of producers the opportunity to attend the festival at a reduced rate of $770, as well as giving participants the “tools” they need to best “work” the conference.

We were extremely lucky to be provided with two INCREDIBLE mentors – Melanie Coombs and John L Simpson.

Melanie has produced award winning shorts, animation, documentaries and features since 1999. Harvie Krumpet won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Short Animation and Mary and Max opened the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Melanie was awarded  the SPAA Feature Film Producer of Year in 2009 – so we really couldn’t have had someone with more experience and enthusiasm to show us the ropes!

John is an award winning creative producer with over twenty five years’ experience working in the performing arts arena. His film productions have been screened all across the globe, from Rotterdam and Warsaw to Copenhagen, Montreal, Palm Springs, London and Algarve. He was one of the producers of Razzle Dazzle and was co-creator of the powerful Australian film, Men’s Group – a winner of the Digispaa Spaartan Award, and also winner of Best Film, Best Actor and Best Script at the 2008 Inside Film Awards. Through his distribution company, TITAN VIEW, John distributed The Jammed, which is still the highest grossing independent Australian film on screen average ever, during it’s opening two weeks. The Jammed went on to win Best Film, Best Script and Best Score at the Inside Films Awards 2007 and the following year was selected by the United Nations to be screened at international conferences on human trafficking in Vienna, Geneva and New York. Needless to say – John is an absolute expert of the industry, who has probably forgotten more about the business than I will ever know – so it was an incredible opportunity to have him guiding us through the conference floor.

There were thirty one emerging producers in total – from the ACT, NSW, South Australia, Victoria, WA and one International Guest from China:

• Yve Laffey (ACT)
• Brianna O’Donohue (ACT)
• Justene Taylor-Cannon (ACT)
• Daniel Aponte Prypchan (NSW)
• Che Baker (NSW)
• Jimmy Carr (NSW)
• Aaran Creece (NSW)
• Bec Cubitt (NSW)
• Rami Fischler (NSW)
• Julian Galea (NSW)
• Michelle Hardy (NSW)
• Angelique Papadelias (NSW)
• Chloe Rickard (NSW)
• Susan Schmidt (NSW)
• Courtney Wise (NSW)
• Megan Huitema (SA)
• Daniel Joyce (SA)
• Brendon Skinner (SA)
• Tim Standing (SA)
• Kirsty Stark (SA)
• Simon Williams (SA)
• Juliette Buxton (VIC)
• Beverley Callow (VIC)
• Wes Greene (VIC)
• Jess Leslie (VIC)
• Lee Mathews (VIC)
• Clare McGrath (VIC)
• Nic McRobbie (WA)
• Kelrick Martin (WA)

So what does being an emerging producer actually involve? Well, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

To apply for the scheme you basically just needed to fill out an online form – assuming you conformed to the basic terms and conditions (you must be a SPAA Associate Member, it must be your first time to the conference, you must have at least one production credit, you must demonstrate an interest in pursuing a career as a producer, and you can’t have worked extensively as a producer in long-form or television). Apart from providing a CV and basic contact details, the only real thing they ask you is: “why would you like to attend the SPAA Conference (related to your professional development including details of your proven interest as a producer)”. Then once you submitted the form – you just played the waiting game.

Luckily for me and the thirty people above – we were all selected. The next thing to do was book flights and accommodation. My only suggestion is to book early – as hotels book out quickly, and it’s really hard to find cheap accommodation (at least it was in Sydney – as this years conference was at The Hilton). I ended up staying at the Travellodge on Phillip Street, which was actually quite good. It’s wasn’t stupidly expensive, it was walking distance to the venue, the rooms were simple but nice – it’s quite, the shower is good and the best is comfortable. Flights were fairly expensive – but that’s to be expected. I ended up flying with Qantas, as they offered the cheapest flights – although that has meant I had to fly quite early on Sunday morning, and at 3ish on a Thursday to return home, which is not ideal. However, as a broke emerging producer – cheap is more important than sleep!

I want to give a big shout-out and thanks to the incredible Katie Fagan from SPAA – who really looked after us and made sure that all our questions were answered before and during the conference. She’s the membership manager at SPAA, so if you ever have any questions about membership, she’s your girl.

The fun all started on Sunday afternoon. To start things off – all the emerging producers met at The Hilton for an introductory session with John and Melanie, as well as pitch mentors Joan Lofts and Diana Manson (thanks to the ABC). As predicted, each member of the group needed to “stand up” and explain who they were, what they do, and what they want to get out of the conference – and I must say, even at this stage, I was realising just how lucky I was to be surrounded by such an amazing group of young and inspired, talented filmmakers. After everyone introduced themselves, Melanie and John offered up 20 tips for a successful SPAA. I won’t list all of them here, but the general gist was:

• Producing is NOT cool. You will be humiliated at some stage in your career – but at the same time, don’t pitch unless asked to do so (although you will be humiliated at some stage – it’s still best to be avoided!).
• Producing is NOT a competition. You need to play nice with your peers so that everyone can succeed.
• Be a good person. Don’t lie, don’t exaggerate, don’t slag anyone off, and just be nice.
• Be fun and have fun.

And with advice (along with a whole collection of funny stories) – it was off to the first official SPAA event – Welcome drinks at The Loft. There’s not really much I can say about this – apart from it was a really great start to the conference. Basically, all thirty emerging producers were thrown in a bar jam-packed with other much more experienced producers, and left to our own devices – to network, and make new contacts, but with the safety net of having thirty of “our own kind” to always go back to if conversations dry up. For me personally – I spent most of the night getting to know the emerging producers in the group, but also ran into a good friend who I worked with on my first ever properly paid gig, and haven’t seen for years, which was a very nice surprise – who also introduced me to some good people to know. It wasn’t a late night – which was good, as this was going to be a big few days anyway (and I also needed to tweak some things on our new website).

And then… it was day one. First up, everyone from the conference (I would imagine there was about 2000 people), met in the Grand Ballroom at The Hilton, for the Plenary Speech from Geoff Brown (Executive Director of SPAA) and Brian Rosen (President of SPAA). Having never heard either of these people speak before, I have to say that I was quite impressed. Geoff Brown just oozes with intelligent and wit, however Brian’s talk was especially powerful, and right on the money (at least in my opinion) in terms of some of the issues that the industry faces, and possibly ways we could work around them. Next up was the Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture – which was basically a history lecture, much as you would experience in University – taken by industry veteran, and previous Australian of the Year, Nigel Dick. During a long and distinguished career Nigel has worked at the highest levels of the Australian television industry as a former chairman of HSV 7, Southern Cross Communications and chief executive of GTV 9, TCN 9 and the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand. Now, at the age of 83, he is writing a PhD thesis in the history department of Melbourne University. It just goes to show – once a hard worker, always a hard worker! The general gist of his talk was that history is basically repeating itself, and a lot of the mistakes from the past, can be used a lessons for the future. You can read the complete lecture on Screen Hub – which I highly recommend.

After the lecture, and a few other house keeping talks, it was time for morning tea. Let me know just take the opportunity to say that the food throughout the whole conference was absolutely incredible. Lunches and morning tea at the Hilton, dinners at the various events and nibbles throughout the conference were all first class. The waiting staff at the Hilton were also fantastic, and always on the ball. Having worked on many high-profile conferences over the years in both Australia and overseas (as a lighting operator) – I can honestly say that this once of the best conferences I’ve been to in terms of food and hospitality.

After a coffee, cookie and party pie – it was time to head to the first Breakout Session.

But first, to give you a rough idea of how the conference is organised, there are basically a few different elements:

• There are several Breakout Sessions throughout the day, split into different rooms for 360 (i.e. New Media), Television, Feature Films, and Kids.
• There are Roundtables throughout the day, which give delegates an interactive opportunity to meet informally with speakers, industry decisions makers and financiers in a relaxed environment amongst a small group (a maximum of nine people) of their peers. Bookings are made on a first come, first serve basis and is a great way to just have a chat with experts in the industry.
• There are a few Heavyweights Half Hour sessions – which are basically just industry leaders giving a much more focussed session explaining who they are, what they do, the commitment level of their company, how they partner with Australia, and what they are looking for.
• SPAAmart is a market place full of projects chosen by the quality of submission. Project teams meet with local and international investors (co-producers, financiers, sales agents and distributors) appropriate to their financing needs in pre-arranged mettings with the aim of establishing relationships, building upon past relationships and deal-making for the benefit of their project.
• Scriptworks Feature Scriptclinic is one-to-one sessions that allow you to discuss your feature film project with a team of experienced script editors, writers, directors, agency readers and general project trouble shooters.
• There are also a number of Pitching Opportunities, such as a closed-door pitch with Disney, the Holding Redlich Pitching Competition, 360 Market (an opportunity to meet executives who are active in the digital space) and Ready Steady Pitch (which allows you to pitch your project to a network executive in 5 minutes with feedback given afterwards).

My first Breakout Session was Rockstars of the Internet. Basically it was a “meet the filmmakers” sessions with three inspiring filmmakers who have made their mark on the Internet.

For anyone who knows anything about YouTube, Natalie Tran really needs no introduction.

As of March 2011, Tran has 273 videos available on her YouTube channel and is the most-subscribed user of all time in Australia, the 26th most subscribed of all time on YouTube, and the 7th-most subscribed director worldwide. She also manages the 58th most viewed channel on YouTube of all time. Tran has more than 920,000 subscribers and more than 350 million views. Needless to say – her videos are extremely popular, and she’s making quite a nice living off doing something that she just honestly really loves. She basically does everything in her videos herself – she acts in them, films them, edits them as posts them. The production quality isn’t great – but audiences just love her humour and her clever skits.

After giving us a summary of what she does, and what she’s all about she did give some words of wisdom:

• Having a loyal audience is incredibly important, because it means if you start a new venture, you don’t have to start from scratch – the audience will follow you.
• You can accumulate views over time. Don’t worry too much if you don’t start with a bang, as consistency is much more important.
• Respect your audience! Don’t treat them like idiots, don’t try to trick them.
• You must build a relationship with your audience – but it needs to be a legitimate and honest relationship. Just having a Facebook page and Twitter feed is not enough. You need to start a conversation with your fans – but don’t start that conversation for no reason. Noise is bad.
• Familiarity is the most important thing for people like Natalie. What she does is basically the same as FM radio. Despite the fact that there are several drive time radio shows that all basically have the same format – they each have their own style, which attracts different audience members. In the online world – this is exactly the same. You need to be unique, and create a platform that people want to connect with.

Natalie was a great speaker, with a really great sense of humour. She’s a dork – but she loves what she does, and has made a really great place for herself. Given that her videos don’t cost a cent to make – the fact that she’s pulling in way over $100,000 a year in advertising revenue really says something.

Dario Russo was one of the creators of the incredibly funny, and massively successful Italian Spiderman, a film parody of Italian action–adventure films of the 60s and 70s.

The project began as a trailer for a non-existent film, produced as a student film at Flinders University by Dario for his final year Screen Production project. The “trailer” was shot, over the course of one day, on 16 mm film using an older style camera to achieve an authentic look for the films of that era.

Publicized as an actual lost Italian action film from the late 1960s, the film was later uploaded onto YouTube on 8 November 2007 where it has gained a massive cult following with over 3.2 million hits as of August 2010. With some of mainstream media taking interest in the film, this led to the South Australian Film Corporation giving the filmmakers funding for ten more short films. The first installment of the “feature film” premiered across the Internet on 22 May 2008, and further installments followed on a weekly basis. The series was well-received, but ended on a cliffhanger. And then, like so many projects – it all fell to shit, for reasons Dario couldn’t go into – but reading between the lines, basically he had a massive falling out with other members of his team.

But despite the fact that they basically had to abandon Italian Spiderman, and were never able to make any money off the film, SBS were still very interested in investing in the filmmakers – and so three years after the Italian Spiderman debacle, a new company Dinosaur, and new project, Danger 5 evolved. Set in a bizarre 1960′s inspired version of World War II, this action comedy series follows a team of five spies on a mission to kill Hitler. The concept will start as a 5 part web-series, and then continue on as a 6 part television show on SBS.

Dario is a character – and I have to say his talk was probably the most entertaining and funniest of the conference. He’s words of wisdom? Just keep at it. Despite the stuff-up that his first project brought with it – he just kept bashing along, and now Danger 5 looks to be another cult classic.

Joe Brumm has 14 years experience as a director and animator and a passion for making things move around the screen. A strong background in traditional animation informs all his work and his love of translating complex ideas into pictures is the driving force behind his directorial roles. He has done stints on many successful children’s series, including the multiple Bafta winning Charlie And Lola, Little Kingdom, Little Princess, I Am Not An Animal and Tinga Tinga Tales. His independent shorts have screened at numerous international animation festivals, including Annecy, the New York Animation Festival, and Animadrid, and his more offbeat creations have a spread around the Internet like a virus.

His latest venture is called Dan The Man – which is taking the Internet by storm, already, despite the fact that he hasn’t actually launched the web-series yet. Joe has always had a great love for computer games – so when he had a great idea for a web-series based on computer game characters, he just knew he had to make it. After approaching various people, and getting rejected, he decided to do it himself, with all his good friends from his hometown of Brisbane. When he released the first episode on YouTube, within one month the video got a million hits – so he knew he was on to something. But it wasn’t an instant success. You can’t just upload something and instantly receive a million hits. What he did was post his video around on other sites – such as animation sites, and spread the word that way. Once the animation and gaming community found out about the short – word spread fast – very fast!

Now that he had some street cred, after discussions with a Brisbane-based game developer – finally he had the backing to turn his idea into a full-blown series.

Founded in 2001, Halfbrick has been on the forefront of the Australian game development industry for many years. Recently, after many years of developing licensed titles for platforms such as GBA, DS and PSP, Halfbrick has begun expanding its portfolio with a range of independently released games for downloadable platforms. With the success of Fruit Ninja on iPhone and iPad, Halfbrick has catapulted to become one of the most well known indie developers in the world, proving that a little dev down under has the world class skills needed to make a big splash on the global market.

Joe and Halfbrick decided that Dan The Man needed to be made, and so the game developer funded the project, and they have just finished production of seven episodes, which will be released in January next year. However, the twist is, that the last episode of the web series will be a cliff-hanger, and you won’t be able to find out what happens without downloading a iPhone app, which will allow you to “play out” the ending. Given the success of Fruit Ninja – it’s safe to assume that Dan The Man is going to kick some serious butt as well. The iPhone game will be released in February after the end of the web-series.

What advice does Joe have?  You need to have a hook – something that instantly grabs the audiences attention. For Joe it was having a show that looks and SOUNDS like the old 8-bit games that a lot of people grew up with. Audiences have an INCREDIBLY short attention span on the Internet – so you really need to grab their attention straight away. The first few seconds of your video are VITAL to really grab your viewers attention.

The final speaker of the day was Richard North from YouTube. Everyone knows what YouTube is, how popular it is, and most people understand the partnership arrangement. However, here are some tips he shared that may be of some interest:

• Understand your audience and where they hang out.
• Beware of online habits.
• Connect with your community – make them feel empowered.
• Understand all the different ways to monetise. Don’t just rely on YouTube – there are plenty of other services out there that may compliment YouTube’s offerings.
• Don’t be naive! Work hard!
• The first 15sec of your video is absolutely vital to get right. Get straight into your content – don’t have a boring introductory video or anything.
• Make your content discoverable. Use sensible naming and tagging.
• Work hard to give users what they want.

By this time, I was getting hungry – so luckily it was time to eat! Over lunch was the Holding Redlich Pitching competition held by Rhys Muldoon. The three finalists were:

Claire Evans and her project Crime Plays – an locative game.

Claire Marshall and her project, Book Jumpers – a children/teen adventure TV series.

Marisa Martin and her project, The Della Morte Sisters – a young adult TV series.

Then after a delicious lunch it was back to another breakout session.

The next session I went to was It’s All Foreign to Me: Casting Across Borders. Although an extremely interesting, entertaining and intense session – rather than recreating the wheel, I recommend that you check out the summary on Screen Hub for all the details, as they have done a much better summary of the event than what I could have. The generally summary though is that producers are VERY unhappy with the MEAA, and the fact that no one from the MEAA wanted to come along to SPAA just threw more fuel on the fire.

After morning tea, all the emerging producers had a up-close-and-personal presentation from the Screen Australia marketing team. Here are some highlights of some of the things that were discussed:

• There will be a co-production deal with India in 2012 and a deal with Korea to happen in the not-so-distant future.
• Check out the new Screen Australia campaign – Celebrate Australian Stories.
• Screen Australia has released a whole collection of extremely useful Marketing Guides.
• “Australia is the New China” according to Charlotte Mickie.
• What’s Selling:
• Romantic Comedies
• Cast Driven Projects
• Genre Films with a Twist
• Exceptional Drama
• Docos with Universal Appeal
• Sales commissions are generally 15-25% in Australia
• Marketing Material should be idiot proof.
• Things to think about in regards to your project:
• Audience?
• Purpose?
• Budget?
• Local Plans?
• International Strategy?
• Animal Kingdom and Mary & Max made the most money in France.

After that it was up to the Grand Ballroom again for two Plenary talks – The Future is Digital & The Future is Now, and Politics, Policy & Profit: The 3 P’s of Convergence. Austin Bryan talked about the changing consumer habits and the explosion of digital devices and platforms, and how they have affected the way we all consume content. You can download the complete speech here.

Next up Stephen Carter spoke about our industry from the perspective of someone who runs one of the world’s largest telecommunications systems and solutions providers.

With all the formal talks out of the way – the night brought with it the SPAA Conference Dinner & Independent Producers Awards at Doltone House on Jones Bay Wharf – which we travelled to and fro via bus from The Hilton. It was a really great night with fantastic food – a few funny speeches, and lots of great people to chat to. You can find a list of all the winners of the Independent Producers Awards here. We were extremely happy to see Enzo Tedeschi up there collecting his award for the work done on The Tunnel Movie – as we are massive fans of everything they’ve done. After a really great night, it was time to go to bed and get some well deserved rest!

Day Two opened with a really fantastic Plenary talk with Gareth Neame in the Grand Ballroom. Gareth is Managing Director of NBCUniversal’s TV production in the UK, expanding on his previous role as Managing Director of Carnival Films, the independent production company Neame sold to NBCUniversal in 2008. He now oversees all UK television production initiatives in Drama, Comedy and Entertainment. He is tasked with increasing NBCUniversal’s presence in the UK, building on the significant success of Carnival. Again, you can read all about the conversation on Screen Hub. One thing worth mentioning though, is that the BBC normally spends 12 days per episode for something like Spooks at around 3/4 million per episode – which seems like a lot compared to the shoot schedules in Australia!

After morning tea in the Digital Pictures Lounge Ballroom Lobby (on a side note the talented fokes at DP did all the amazing SPAA artwork and animations – great work!), it was off to another 360 breakout session – first up Your Underground Audience.

Moderated by Lori Flekser, the managing director fo the Motion Pictures Distributors Association of Australia (MPDA) – this session focussed primarily on piracy. The speakers were Neil Gane, from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), Mark Lazarus, Producer of The Loved Ones, and Anton Andreacchio, from Convergen - which offer a pipeline of services to try and prevent online piracy, as well as provide extensive tracking services. This was a really interesting session – as it very much seemed to be the audience (i.e. producers) against the panel (or at least against the views of AFACT). Again, Screen Hub have done a great job of covering this session, so check there write-up out, as well as this article on The Slap. One thing though that I found really funny, was Lori’s closing remarks – “It’s better to download than buy Plastic”. Another useful fact was that in Australia 49% of all cinemas are now Digital.

During lunch, all the emerging producers split up into their various states, and members of their state funding bodies sat at their tables. For us, we had one lady from Film Victoria – who gave us some information and advice on the various functions and services they can provide. To be perfectly honest – I was a little disappointed. I would have loved to have more than one person from the funding body at the table, as there were six emerging producers from our state. Also, there are very little services and support for EMERGING producers when interacting with Film Victoria. All feature film funding requires an ESTABLISHED director or producer attached to the project – which is very annoying, for us, as we would much prefer to tackle the project ourselves, with the ASSISTANCE of Film Victoria. However, despite my person complaints about the way Film Victoria operates (especially compared to other State funding bodies) – lunch was great, and the woman on our table was very nice and supportive.

After lunch, it was over to my most anticipated session – Sharing The Distribution Love. For those that have been following our Twitter feed for a while, you would have noticed that we are massive fans of The Tunnel Movie, so I was personally really excited to see what Enzo and Julian had to say about distribution. Moderated by Seph McKenna (the head of Australia Production at Roadshow Films), also on the panel was Bart Walker one of the founders of Cinetic Media in the US, and Daniel Dubiecki, one of the producers of Juno, and Thank You For Smoking. As usual, Screen Hub have done some great coverage of this session – so it’s well worth checking out. However, here are some notes:

• The six major US studios are only making tent-pole films
• There are lots of opportunities for mid-level films, as studios aren’t making them
• Iron Sky is a great example of using crowd sourcing to fund your movie. We have already signed up for the Sneak Peak feature – and we highly recommend you do the same. There’s some great content in there!
• Juno did 300 college screenings prior to it’s official release to create buzz, as well as releasing a collection of funny animations based on the script – but released them as fan-artwork (not even the filmmakers knew that they were created as a publicity stunt!)
• The challenge with independent films is always MARKETING
• The Tunnel Movie used the yet-to-be-released MoFix to power their iPad App. The exact figures haven’t been released yet – but it’s estimated to cost around $5-6 grand to build your own iPad App for your film using their service (as opposed to $20-30K for a custom built iPad App)
• It’s sometimes better to aim for a small audience in LOTS of different places, as opposed to just focussing on one screening point
• The 135K brand is something that The Tunnel guys plan to use again for another film
• Check out The Audience Republic - it has some really great resources for filmmakers looking to move into the digital world

After that fantastic session I went to a round table discussion with Wynston Alberts from Google/YouTube. I basically just asked a whole lot of specific questions that about the Partnership program – so you can find out more about the YouTube Partnership program here. One of the big questions from the other people on the table was about the new 100 funded channels program that is happening in the US – so it’s worth reading this as well. And after a few casual drinks at the very expensive bar – it was another day wrapped!

Almost as quick as it all began – it was already the last day of the conference. First up in the Grand Ballroom, was the Plenary – Working Like a Dog to be King of the Castle. We were fortunate enough to have two of the biggest names in Australian producing at the conference, Emile Sherman (producer of The Kings Speech), and Nelson Woss (producer of Red Dog).

Moderated by Sandy George from Screendaily.com, this was an absolutely fantastic talk discussing how both films came to be, the troubles they faced, the lessons learnt and what’s planned for the future. You can read a great article about the talk on Inside Film. Here are some random points I picked up:

• Despite the fact that it was always planned as a commercial studio film – Red Dog has had a really great festival run
• Make a pre-sellable film – that way you can return money to investors on pre-sales
• Film Nation was the sales agent for The Kings Speech
• Red Dog took 8 years to make, and was a follow up to Ned Kelly
• None of the originally planned Cast in Red Dog ended up in the final film
• Nelson was on a “mission from dog”
• It costs between $20-40 million for P+A in the US for release
• Red Dog had no target audience – because 7 to 70 year olds all loved it!
• One of the big investors on The Kings Speech (a bank) feel through a week before shooting
• Emile is a big fan of the “French system” – where every dollar from your box office goes towards your next film.
• The Red Dog crew had to have random drug tests throughout the whole shoot, given that they were shooting on a mining operation
• Emile aims to make 1-2 feature films a year with his company See-Saw-Films.

Koko was up on stage as well – and I have to say, he was a very well behaved dog!

Next up was a breakout session titled – Don’t be a Bull in the China Shop – which focussed on the new co-production treaty between Australia and China. As usual, Screen Hub did a great job of covering it – so I highly recommend you go and have a read of their views. Personally, I don’t plan to do a co-production with China anytime in the immediate future – however this was an incredibly interesting discussion, especially I was in China only last year. Here are some notes that I took away:

• Check out the China Law Blog
• Unlike the West, contracts are only the STARTING POINT for negotiations, and are not considered binding.
• China made 600 films this year, up 526 from last year
• There are 8819 screen in China – 7411 are Digital, 4751 are 3D and there are 50 IMAX screens
• China allows 20 films per year to be imported into their country (co-productions are not included)
• There is a 13:87 revenue share (vs 40:60)
• Co-Production Rules:
• 1/3 Cast Must be Chinese
• 50% of the crew must be Chinese
• There are strict censors and regulators on both the Script & Finished Film
• Karate Kid:
• $358 million box office world wide
• $7 million box office in China
• $40 million dollar budget
• Challenges with Co-Productions:
• Application process is extremely slow, and not transparent
• Script approvals are highly subjective
• China/Australia Co-Productions:
• 33 Post Cards
• The Dragon Pearl
• Co-Production Tip: Commit to the budget and story – but develop the actual script in China to avoid major re-writes and approvals nightmares in the pre-production stages. You can ONLY obtain a filming permit once you’re in pre-production.
• In China, Co-productions ARE Joint Ventures as far as the Chinese Government is concerned.
• There are no collection agencies or managers in China
• There is a lack of clarity in accounting
• You need to satisfy multiple levels of approval:
• Chinese Government
• Australian Government
• Chinese Market
• Australian Market
• International Market

The general outcome from the discussion was that doing an co-production with China is not easy, and there are a lot of cultural differences – HOWEVER, the benefits can be fantastic.

During another wonderful lunch – we were shown a film as part of the Showtime Movie Channels Talent Assist Scheme, called Peek-a-boo, a short film written and directed by Damien Power produced by Joe Weatherstone. It was an extremely powerful, and if you get a chance to watch it at festivals, I highly recommend it.

And almost as quickly as it began, it was time for the last breakout session of the conference – The Yellow Brick Road. Moderated by the inspiring and passionate Jennifer Wilson from The Project Factory - this was the perfect end to the conference.

Sam Smith from Red Lever spoke about his company, and the kinds of projects he does, like The Green Way Up. Quite controversially he stated that the “creative agency is a dying breed”.

Ricky Sutton, the head of video at Fairfax Digital spoke about their online media offerings, such as smh.tv. They offer a 50/50 revenue share with all content providers, on a non-exclusive deal. There are two pre-roll ads, and an ad break every 8 minutes – so the longer your content, the better. These guys are really thinking outside the box – and when they first started, they trawled through Bit Torrent to find what content audiences are looking for, bought licenses to that content, offered it on their own site, then advertised their offerings on Bit Torrent! Now that’s clever thinking from an older style media company! There have been 23 years worth of video watched on the site since it’s launch four months ago – which is quite impressive!

David MacDonald from YouTube spoke about their offerings. It’s worth checking out their new Lean Back service – which looks great on a TV screen. Although he couldn’t release exact figures, it’s estimated that a million views = about $1000 in revenue.

Nick Love from Shine 360 spoke about his company as an “integrated brand business” and explained that a lot of brands are now going direct to his company, as opposed to through a traditional agency.

I think it’s safe to say that digital media is going to play a massive role in the future of our industry, so it was great to get an update on what all the different “players” are doing.

And with the last session of the conference complete, it was off to the Zeta Bar for some final networking, goodbye’s and a conference wrap. All the emerging producers had a group hug – which was a great way to end the conference.

Overall, my experience at the conference was amazing. I had such a great time – and it was such an honour to be able to “hang out” with so many amazing emerging and established producers. Not only did I learn a huge amount – but I have also walked away with a new collection of like-minded friends, who just really want to make films – which is very exciting.

Once again, a MASSIVE thank you to Melanie, John and Katie for all their hard work and support.

If you ever need mentoring or consultant producing services – please get in touch with Optimism! Melanie is an absolutely wonderful human being – with such much incredible knowledge of our industry, and how to make films happen. She’s experienced – but most importantly – she’s really honest and open. She doesn’t bullshit you – she gives you advice that’s relevant, and actually helpful to achieving your goals. Have a look at her credit list, then have a chat to her on the phone, and I guarantee you’ll be sold.

The SPAA experience was wonderful. I can’t wait to do it all again next year – as an EMERGED producer!

Onwards & Upwards!

Best Regards, Chris!

For those that don’t know us – for the past three years we have entered into the 48 Hour Film Project competition in Melbourne. We absolutely love it – because it forces you to “bash out” a film over a weekend, with no excuses. You can’t delay things, you can’t reschedule, you just need to make it happen – which is what we’re really all about.

The incredible Mr. Thom Holt originally introduced us to the competition, wanting to team up to create what would become, Handle With Care. Thom’s team actually won the International Competition the year before, so although we didn’t quite match their track record, we were still fortunate enough to win Best Script and Best Character at the Melbourne awards. It was an amazingly fun weekend. Thom, Nick and the cast wrote up a script on the Friday night, then we shot it on Saturday and edited on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Although the pressure was intense (we were exporting in the car on the way to the Federation Square drop-off point!) – it was such an enjoyable experience, and we certainly learnt a lot from the whole process. We had a small crew, shot on a HVX, and just made the most of what we had. I’m incredibly proud of our little film – but we all knew we could create something even more magical if we put more prep work in.

The next year, we decided to step it up a notch, and enlisted a much bigger cast and crew of people we’ve worked with lots of times before. When we received the genre of thriller/suspense, Nick and Thom made a judgement call to shoot at my parents property in the Dandenong Ranges at night, because we could make it look dark and scary, and they would come up with a script on the one hour car ride there. Luckily for us, they came up with some really good ideas, and when they arrived at Olinda, they pitched their ideas to the cast, and let them start thinking about dialogue and blocking. Like the previous year, it was very much run and gun, and “make it up as you go along” – but this time we had a much bigger crew, and more gear to throw at problems. We shot all night Friday night, all day Saturday, and then started post production on Saturday night. This time we shot on a Canon 1D MK4 with beautiful Compact prime lenses. All the hard work certainly paid off, as we won Best Directing, Best Sound Design, Best Musical Score and Best Overall Film, which allowed us to head over to Miami for the International competition.

Going to Miami was an absolute highlight – as not only did we get to watch our film up there on the big screen, but we got to really experience what a big International Film Festival has to offer. Although we didn’t come close to winning the International Competition – we discovered just how good the competition was.

And so, this year, we decided to throw everything we had at the comp! We called up everyone we normally work with, and told them that we were going to shoot something bold and almost impossible. We rounded up car rigs, underwater cameras, dolly’s, jib’s, smoke machines – everything we could get our hands on (even a Muppet). Instead of shooting on a Digital SLR, we decided to shoot on a RED ONE MX. Although you can’t write a script before the weekend of craziness – we did as much prep work as we possibly could. We went location scouting, and tried to find as many different options as possible, so that regardless of what genre we were given, or what the character was – we would have options. We even organised a old car, that we were planning to blow up (which unfortunately we never were able to – as we just didn’t have the time to do it safely).

The shoot was epic to say the least. Multiple locations, lots of actors, a huge amount of complex setups, special effects make-up, underwater rigs, car mounts – even a horse (which as you can guess, decided it didn’t really want to be filmed, and got quite upset when we pointed a camera at his direction).

Post Production was equally insane – as we had massive 4K files to process, and a handful of visual effects shots that needed to be completed.

However – we made it, and although the film is absolutely insane – the judges must have been on our wavelength, as we picked up an unprecedented amount of awards - Best Script, Best Director, Best Sound Design, Best Editing and Best Overall Film. To be completely honest – we never expected this to happen. We knew we were doing something big, something to push all boundaries – but we never though the concept was good enough to push us across the line. You can throw as many tricks at a film – but without a good story, it’s nothing. Luckily for us – it seems the judges though our script wasn’t too shabby after all.

Although there have been some amazing films over the last two years in the competition – this year was a certain standout. The top twelve films were all fantastic. Although there were one or two I didn’t like – I can’t argue that they didn’t have been fixed to the big screen. Each and every film DEMANDED your attention. Personally, “Gore Street” and “Like Me” (the two films that opened the awards night) were my favourites, and it’s such an honor to be up against such tough competition.

And now.. we need to start planning to head to New Mexico for the International Competition, which is very exciting!

However, that’s not all that’s happening. As you would have noticed, we have just re-vamped our website. This is our first major overhaul since we set up the site many years ago – and we still have a lot to do on it, but by putting the blog and main site on the one easy to navigate place, we think you’ll find it a lot better.

And… in a few hours I need to head across to the opening night of the SPAA Conference. I was lucky enough to obtain a “Emerging Producers” grant to attend the festival, which is very exciting.

So, as usual – it’s all happening at LateNite HQ! Now that we have restructured the layout of the website, we will be in a much better position to post more detailed blogs and news – so definitely stay tuned for updates.

Onwards & Upwards!

Best Regards, Chris!

Last night was the official awards night for the 48 Hour Film Project International Competition – strangely named Filmapalooza - in which our film, Fallout was competing. Although we didn’t exactly have the most enjoyable experience on the night, as both our film and ironically the Sydney team’s film experienced several technical hiccups and false starts (which was slightly nerve-racking as you can imagine!) – both films eventually screened perfectly in front of a very excited and packed audience at the final awards screening. It was great to be amongst so many talented like-minded film-makers! There were so many amazing films on display, from cities all over the world.

Unfortunately we didn’t pick up any International awards at the competition – but it was definitely worth the long trip, as we had such a fantastic time at the Miami International Film Festival. A massive thank you to Danette Wolpert, Carol Coombes and the rest of the festival team for making our stay so enjoyable! We have seen so many fantastic films over the last few weeks (as documented on this blog), and have met with so many talented film-makers and industry supporters. If you ever get a chance to come along to the festival – we HIGHLY recommend it. Miami is a great city, and we have made a lot of friends here, which is really what it’s all about. We even had the pleasure of talking at the Miami Dade College, about independent film-making in Australia which was a lot of fun. Thank you to Student Government President, Jennifer Sotolongo for organising the talk.

We would also like to offer a massive congratulations to our friends, Tim, Joseph and the rest of the London team for their incredible film, “The Girl Is Mime”. Staring the amazing UK screen legend, Martin Freeman – the film both looked beautiful and was hilariously funny. It also couldn’t have been won by a nicer bunch of guys! We highly recommend that you check out their behind the scenes video and photo gallery. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more “Far From Home Films” in the future, after they showcase their film at Cannes later in the year. Make sure you support their film if you come across it!

Also, well done to the runners up from the LA team for their film “Casting Call” and the Denver team for their film “46 Miles”.

The best films of the 2010 competition included:

We would also like to single out some great films that didn’t make the official top list – we were massive fans of the Albuquerque film “Camber Number 6″, the Granada entry Granagedon (which was hilarious!), the Miami film Palindrome, the Utrecht entry Onder Water and the Pittsburgh film Ali_N vs Predator. Well done to all the members of their teams, and also to everyone else who made the effort to travel to Miami for the competition!

Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last few months – and helped us raise enough money to get over to Miami to support our film. Although we’re not coming back with any big awards in our suitcases (apart from the Melbourne trophy), we now have a really good idea of what the competition is like on an International level, and will continue to push the boundaries when we compete again later this year in the 2011 competition. Onwards and upwards, as they say!

• Working with the talented team at 16th Street Acting Studios, we put together two teasers for the feature films, Cloudland & Wrong Girl directed by screen legend Nicholas Hammond.
• Jacqui became a movie star in China! Whilst filming footage for her TOPtoTOP documentary in Switzerland, Jacqui actually became one of the subjects of another film called Green Extreme.You can watch some of the episodes here.
• Last year has been the year of the Digital SLR (for better and for worse!). We now own both Canon 5Ds and 7Ds, as well as all the little extra’s that go with them! We also shot Fallout on a Canon 1D. At the rate our inventory is growing, we’re going to need a factory very soon!
• She had only been back down under a little while, but Jacqui was back on the road again, this time she travelled to Switzerland as part of her ongoingTOPtoTOP documentary. As part of the TOPtoTOP Global Climate Solution Contest for 2010, so was filming a team of talented winning participants from around the world with a mission to solve the issues of Climate Change! Trekking up mountains, battling glaciers, and meeting up with lots of talented filmmakers from all over the world – this whole trip was certainly a non-stop adventure!
• Jacqui also climbed up Mount Everest with the TOPtoTOP team, shot a wedding in Bali, dodged riots in Nepal and also shot some corporate jobs in Delhi. Yikes! Bring on the frequent flyer points!
• We helped Nicholas Carlton with his VCA short film, Transmission, and alsoSleight directed by Shaun Crawford. We LOVE the new VCA Red Kits!
• No sooner was Jacqui back in Melbourne, she was soon off again, this time to TIMOR LESTE to get coverage of the TOUR DE TIMOR! This is an amazing event with over 350 cyclists from around the world. Jacqui was invited to come and film by a team from Singapore, who are raising money for an NGO called TIMOR AID!
• We produced a spec commercial Smitten Kitten (a lingerie clothing line) titled ”Dangerously Sexy”, directed by Nicholas Carlton. We got hammered onCampaign Brief but TubeFilter News wrote a really nice article. We also live stream this whole shoot on the Internet for anyone to tune in and have a unique insight behind the scenes.
• We helped friend of LateNite Films Michael Lutman raise funds for his documentary, “Plastic or Plastic”. He was amongst a crew of 9 people on a sail boat taking part on one of the very first voyages to scientifically document and study the plastic pollution in the South Atlantic Ocean. He was sea sick for the first ten days, but lived to tell the tale!
• On Sunday 17th October from 6:00pm to 9:00pm (Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time) we streamed the SHOTGUN! feature film script reading session on the Internet for anyone to access free of charge.
• We have been flat out putting together the SHOTGUN Website & Blog. Both these sites are iPhone and iPad friendly.
• We teamed up with director/editor David Cleeve and his talented team at True Ride Productions to produce a video clip for Melbourne band, Kingswood. The video clip for their hit song, “She’s My Baby” was shot at The Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda on a mixture of Canon 5D and 7Ds under the instruction of Director of Photography James Ballard.
• We continued working with the amazingly talented Jaime Snyder and Joel Sharpe on their short film adaptation of the children’s well-loved book, There’s a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake. The film is finally complete, and we are all very happy with the end result!
• We shot a feature film in three days – Hannah & The Hasbian!
• We tackled the 48 Hour Film Festival Competition once again with the same talented team and picked up a whole pile of awards as explained above!
• Jacqui popped over to Singapore for the Premiere Screening of her Spinning Dreams documentary.
• No sooner was she back, but she was off to the airport again this time heading back to Timor to film footage for a World Vision Campaign.
• …and no doubt we did lots of other things that we’ve long since forgotten about!

We have decided to put our latest August 2010 Reel online for everybody to see! Normally, we only share the reel with potential clients and friends via DVDs, but this time round, we’re going the polar opposite and are releasing it for all to see on YouTube.

The reel was cut together by our very own Jacqui Hocking, and features footage from a range of our previous productions – from Happy Sundaes to Superb Menura, SAKOOZ to SHOTGUN!, the TOPtoTOP documentary to some of the 3D work we’ve done. It really showcases the mix of productions we work on!

The soundtrack was provided to us by the AMAZINGLY talented Lovers Electric. If you have never heard of them, we highly recommend you take a look at their website and have a listen. They are currently working on a new album, which should be out very soon.

We hope you enjoy the reel – and please, leave any comments, suggestions, etc. on our YouTube page! We can’t wait to hear what you think…

It gives me great pleasure to announce that we officially have a new logo for LateNite Films (as we have also decided to write “LateNite Films” instead of “latenite films” as a tribute to Peter Jackson’s WingNet Films).

We have been trying to come up with a new logo that really reflects what we stand for, for months now. We tried doing it ourselves – but just never really came up with anything solid. After officially giving up, we decided to post something on Twitter. Within minutes, we suddenly started receiving emails, Facebook messages  and Twitter DMs and Replies from all over the world. After looking through all the messages, we eventually came across a reply from an amazingly talented UK-based Graphic Designer René Ellis. She had a really solid range of work behind her – but more importantly, even though we only communicated via email and Twitter, I must say, she was an absolute joy to work with. She was fast, incredibly inspiring and creative, and made the whole process a lot of fun, as we tried out various styles and formatting until we came up with something we actually all agreed on. If you ever need a Graphic Designer for any project – I highly recommend getting in touch with her! You might as well add her on Twitter – just for future reference!

If we take a trip down memory lane, the first ever LateNite logo was put together by the amazingly talented Eloise Loxton (one of the founding members of the LateNite team – but has since moved away from production to the magical world of film make-up!) in the labs of Swinburne University late at night during the post production of Happy Sundaes. Hand drawn and then brought into Photoshop, it was quick, simple, but incredibly effective. It was black and white – only because it was mainly going to be used for the closing credits of Happy Sundaes, and we wanted something simple. However, in retrospect, although the hand-drawn moon does represent us very well (i.e. we love to get down and dirty, and just make films with our own two hands!), the font choice wasn’t ideal and the lack of colour made it a tad boring.

Our next revision of the LateNite logo was put together by Isaac Egan (another LateNite founder, but has since moved on to other things), for the credits of Superb Menura (a documentary we shot whilst still at Swinburne). It was thrown together in Macromedia Flash, and animated to have the eye blinking. It was the perfect fit for our documentary (as the whole film was about looking into someone else’s world), however as a company logo, it just never really fitted. Lots of people had trouble working out if it was a face or the front of a Knight in Shining Armour! Again, although this abstract quality was great for an art-house company, it didn’t really suit us.

Then for the pre-production of the SAKOOZ promotional teaser/trailer, Isaac went back to the drawing board, and came up with something new. Sticking with the the black and white eye theme, he developed another logo that could be easily animated to have the eye blinking. Slick, sharp and with nice text, we actually all really liked this logo. It looked great on printed documents, and was really bold and impressive, but at the end of the day – it didn’t really have the LateNite spirit.

And so, we went back to the drawing board for SHOTGUN! With Alistair A E Marks potentially joining the LateNite team as a partner, we initially thought of changing the whole company name entirely! However, this was short lived – as after consulting many friends and expects, it was clear that we shouldn’t throw away all the hard work we have put into getting the LateNite brand up and running. However, for your viewing pleasure, below are some of the research notes we came up with. I must say, it’s INCREDIBLY hard to come up with a new name – all the good ones have already been taken! So if you like any of the names that are listed as free below – I recommend you jump on to the MD Webhosting site (our recommended host), and grab some domains!

• The Mutineers – Free (mutineerfilms.com)
• Sortie Films (army term – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortie) – Free (sortiefilms.com)
• Rebel Arts & Technology (one of George Lucas’ ideas for ILM) – Free
• Filmsiege – Free (filmsiege.com)
• Skirmish Films – Free (skirmishfilms.com)
• Rebelart Films – Free
• Rebel Backlot – Free
• Rushing Rebels – Free
• Rebelat (.com taken but others free)
• Backlot Rebels – Taken
• Pocketfilms – Taken
• Phalanx Films (an army formation term) – Taken (http://www.phalanxfilms.com/)
• Rebel Attack – Taken
• Kasplat – Taken
• Kaboom – Taken
• Riot Films – Taken (http://riotfilms.com/) – In fact every variation of Riot is taken! Riot Cinema, etc.
• Dissent Films – Taken (http://www.dissentfilms.com/)
• Radical Films – Taken (http://www.radical-films.com/ and http://radicalfilms.co.uk/)
• Rad Films – (Taken http://www.radfilms.com/)
• Insurgent Films – Taken
• Insurgency Films – Taken
• The Insurgents – Taken
• Revolutionary Productions – Taken
• The Revolution – Taken
• Revolution Productions – Taken
• Revolution Films – Taken (Has an AWESOME website photo – http://www.revolutionfilms.net/)
• Advant Films – Taken
• Leading Edge Films- Taken
• Cutting Edge Films – Taken
• Cinematrix (what George Lucas wanted to call Pixar originally) – Taken
• Landmark Films – Taken (http://www.landmarkfilms.com/)
• The Skeleton Crew – Taken
• Half Track – Taken
• Film Bomb – Taken
• Groundsmash Films – Pretty crap…

After deciding to stick with LateNite Films, we jumped into Photoshop and started experimenting. We also looked at what other film companies have got, and came up with a list of our favourite websites (and believe me – we looked at hundreds of sites and wrote extensive notes on all of them – but we’re not going to post that here, as sometimes we didn’t say very nice things):

• Launch Pictures
• Roar Film
• Goalpost Pictures
• Exit Films
• Couch Media
• In Pictures
• Matchbox Pictures
• December Films
• Revolution Productions
• Rebel Films Australia
• Rebel Films Facilities
• Riot Cinema

After much mucking around, here is my favourite concept I came up with. I still like it – but it’s just a bit too childish and comic-book like to be our official company logo!

We also tried all kinds of fonts, text layouts, and trying to get a light bulb in there!

Eloise also came up with some cool ideas – but none of them really stuck unfortunately. Here are some of them below:

We needed something that was “us”. We’re a group of young independent filmmakers. We love movies. We love making films. We love to blow stuff up. We love pushing boundaries. We are fearless. We are regarded as “rebel” or “guerrilla filmmakers”, as we make stuff that has low budgets, utilises skeleton crews, shoot at whatever locations we can find and use simple props using whatever is available. We respect filmmakers like Spike Lee, Robert Rodriguez, Darren Aronofsky, Peter Jackson and George Lucas. Our attitude to filmmaking is tough, exciting and unique – our productions are slick, compelling and innovative, and we needed a logo to reflect this. We think our logo should look a little high-tech, have elements of war/military in it (to suit the rebel/guerrilla theme), and at the same time has a slight professional edge.

When we gave this pitch to René she addressed this straight away with a range of options. To be perfectly honest, all the logos she came up with were amazing. I would have been quite happy to use any of them for our logo. But in the end, we almost did a complete circle, and decided on a logo that was basically an extension of Eloise’s first creation – the hand drawn moon. Although René gave us options that perfectly matched our pitch (i.e. rebel but professional), in the end the hand drawn moon just felt the most LateNite. And so, we stuck with it, and we’re all very happy with the decision!

So now, we have quickly thrown the new logo into our blog and website – however, we are planning to revamp both sites very soon! We still really love the look of of our main site – so it probably won’t be a complete redesign, but there are a few things that we think we can improve upon, and we are even considering merging the content from the Melbourne Rebels site into the main site just to keep everything centralised. We may even consider bringing the blog into the main site as well. Time will tell – but at the moment we’re concentrating all our web design efforts on getting the SHOTGUN! site and blog up and running! We should be making it public VERY soon, so stay tuned!

As I always say… exciting times certainly lay ahead! It’s already been a big year – but the best is yet to come!

Onward & Upward!

Chris!

Well, as per usual, we’ve been busy. Very busy!

On top of all the exciting projects we have in development, we’ve been working with Pocketbonfire Production’s in both the production and post production stages of their short film, “There’s a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake”. Jaime Snyder, who wrote and directed the film is currently “stuck in the edit suite” cutting away.

We’ve also shot a Tropfest short film entry called “One Flew North”, on the Canon 5DMKII, which we are going to start editing within the next few weeks. It was written and directed by Nick Colla. We were lucky enough to score Benjamin Hidalgo on board as director of photography and the footage looks amazing! Stay tuned for more details on this film!

Jacqui Hocking has also been very busy jet-setting around the world capturing amazing footage on her TOPtoTOP adventure. She arrives back in Melbourne on Sunday for a brief period, then she’s off again.

We also recently worked alongside Draught Films to put together an entry for the Melbourne 48hour Film Competition, which was directed by extremely talented Thom Holt. Despite the tight deadline, we are EXTREMELY happy with the results of the film. We shot it on a HVX202. We’ve already made it into the top 12 and will find out whether or not we pick up any awards in the competition before the end of the month.

Both Nick Colla and myself have also been working closely on several other major concepts. More details to follow soon!

So yes, I know this blog post is a bit all over the place. But rest assured, the reason we’ve been a bit slow on update the site is not because we’re lazy – it’s because we’re busy what we do best – making films!

So stay tuned… Lots of exciting things still in store before the end of the year!

Happy film-making!

Best Regards, Chris!

You can watch Happy Sundaes here:

http://tr.im/happysundaes

You can watch the SAKOOZ Teaser/Trailer here:

http://tr.im/sakooz

As Happy Sundaes has been around for a while now, and has gone past it’s festival life, we have been considering for a while the best place for it to live online. After reviewing a few different options we ended up settling on IMDB (at least for now). The reason? IMDB is a very professional site with a great reputation. It’s also got an amazing resume database. As Happy Sundaes is now just a showcase tool for us, by putting it up on IMDB after people watch it they can then follow links to the IMDB pages of all the cast and crew. The hope is that if people like Happy Sundaes, they’ll click the link to our actors, and then get in touch with their agents.

SAKOOZ on the other hand is a bit different. We just want as many people to watch it as possible – hence the reason we decided to go with YouTube. Originally we intended to launch the SAKOOZ Teaser/Trailer to the web at the same time as the official SAKOOZ website, but that’s just taking far too long. So instead, we are going to put it up on YouTube exclusively for a bit and just see what happens. Hopefully we get a few hits. Then later this year we will launch the SAKOOZ website which will allow you to edit your own version of the trailer using the raw rushes. Hopefully that also attracts some attention! Again, it’s all about promotional and awareness – but for slightly different reasons.

We really hope you enjoy both Happy Sundaes and the SAKOOZ Teaser/Trailer!

Until next time…