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Workshops

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As we get closer to shooting, I have been spending more time with the actors workshopping and rehearsing scenes. This process has been incredibly productive and it's also a whole lot of fun. After working on the script for more than a year now, it's quite an amazing experience seeing it come to life in the actors' performances.



I plan to write much more extensively on my process working with actors (whenever I get a free moment). For now here are some photos from workshops with Nick Kato (who plays the protagonist Jamie), Christine Lui (who plays Chloe), and Kane Felsinger (who plays Craig):









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Piano Lessons with Nathan Liow

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From the beginning of Play It Safe's development the idea of authenticity has been really crucial, and so it's very important to me that we portray the events in the film as accurately and realistically as possible. In the film's second act, Jamie (the film's protagonist, played by the very talented Nick Kato) gets a job as a piano teacher and we spend quite a lot of time watching him work at the music school. I knew early on that this was something we had to get exactly right. I want all the musicians and music teachers out there to feel like we have done them justice and portrayed the realities of their day to day work accurately (and hopefully with pathos).

To help us out with this, Play It Safe's composer Nathan Liow (who also happens to work as a piano teacher) has been taking Nick and myself through some of the basics. We had our first lesson late last year, and we had our most recent one a couple of weeks ago.

These lessons are great fun (I usually get to pretend to be a 5 year old student), and it's been fascinating to learn more about teaching music to children.

One highlight of our last lesson was an impromptu piano solo from Nathan just before we finished for the evening. I feel really lucky to have witnessed such an intimate performance, and it made me more excited than ever about the performances that we are going to film for Play It Safe. Nathan will be playing a lot of the music in Play It Safe and, judging by what I heard then, he will be bringing something very very special to the table!

Here's some photos from our last lesson / catchup:

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Filmmaking Commandments: Four Simple Rules To Help You Write A Script

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In my last post, I talked about the main aim I had when I started this project. To put simply, I didn't have a particular vision or idea I want to realise. I just wanted to make a feature film! When Jack and I agreed to write the screenplay, we both knew that realising that (seemingly simple) and was going to be very challenging. Neither of us had written a feature length script before, and we both enjoyed procrastinating as much as the next writer. To combat this, we decided to set up a bunch of commandments or rules to help us along the way. We decided upon four main commandments to keep us on the straight and narrow, and then gradually added a bunch of other guidelines to help us with specific areas.

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Quick Update: Workshopping With Spencer & Script Draft Three

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Okay, just a quick update for today. (I'm trying to get into the habit of making short updates regularly instead of putting them off because they have to be long and detailed - we'll see how it goes.)

I just wrapped up a day of workshopping with Spencer that went really well. On the one hand, workshopping can be quite challenging - both for the actors, and for myself as the director. However, on the other hand, it's hard to call something that's this fun "work"...

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Listening, And Why It's Critical For Filmmakers

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Good listening skills are crucial in the film business. In my experience, a good director will spend most of their time listening. During a production you will be listening to questions and thoughts from every department. Good listening skills will not only help you to direct quickly and effectively, but will also enable you to maintain crew morale. It’s one thing to work for nothing because you believe in a project, but it’s another thing entirely to not be paid and then not even be listened to by a director or producer. If I wanted to put up with that then I would go back to working in retail (and then at least I would be getting paid).

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Filmmaking Ruined My Body

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I recently gave a talk to students at The MacRobertson Girls' High School. I’ve done a bunch of talks like this, so I knew what kind of lecture was expected. Generally, the aim is to try and get the students inspired and excited about filmmaking & other forms of multimedia. But as I prepared my materials for the lecture, I started to wonder if I could actually, in good conscience, recommend they take a similar career path to me. Sure, being a creative professional is exciting, inspiring, and incredibly rewarding. But it also has an incredibly significant downside. And I’m not even talking about the lack of stability, exhausting hours, general stress, or soul crushing rejection. I’m talking about simple heath and safety. To put it bluntly, my passion for film has ruined my body.

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The Importance Of Protocol

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I never went to film school, so I had to learn all the protocols of filmmaking on my own. I didn’t actually learn some of the basics until about three years into my career as an indie director. By this time I’d already won Best Australian Film at MIAF and been commissioned to direct a short docco for the BBC World Service. But still, I didn’t know the basic protocol of working on a film set. This was because of the way I’d come up - fiercely independent, making up the rules as I went. This approach got me some terrific results, but it also had its limitations.

Inevitably, my (lack of) knowledge was tested, and in quite an embarrassing way. Back in 2008 I had somehow managed to score a roll as First Assistant Director on my friend Alan Lam’s final honours film. I thought I knew enough about filmmaking, indie production, and visual storytelling to be of use, but it was a steep learning curve when it came to working with the crew.

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