Tag: Filmmaking

Call Girls – A Conversation with Kelly Hodge and Lauren Harvey

Post author By Frazier Brockett
Post date February 8, 2024
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Call Girls is a play originally written by Lauren Harvey and Kelly Hodge. It is now premiering down at the Adelaide Fringe Festival after the success of the excellent web series. I have personally being following Lauren Harvey and Kelly Hodge ever since I first heard about Call Girls over a year ago. It is an extremely funny and original idea that has consistently being executed well in all mediums. Read on for my conversation with the creators.

The Play

Call girls has had a long journey with it starting off as a theatre show, then a web series and now taking it back on the road with the Adelaide fringe festival. I want to go back to the beginning where you two were both writing it. What did this look like, how do you two write together, what was your process creating the show?

“Lauren and I were both doing drama degrees at QUT. We were both working in call centres during COVID. I wasn’t doing any acting, but I was just writing down every single Call.” – Kelly

Lauren and Kelly on the web series.

“I was pretty much doing the same thing at a different call centre. I started working full time when COVID hit and it was awful. You literally couldn’t write some of the shit people say to you. We met and hit it off and we both started bitching about our jobs. I thought of the title and new it was a comedy play. I approached Big Fork for the Brisbane fringe festival about this idea and they said yes so we had to write a script and develop the play. We knew it was going to be a 55 minute play so we gave ourselves 10 scenes.” – Lauren

“We also used so much of our own experience in the play. We just wrote down every funny thing from our time in the Call Centre and compiled it into one document.” – Kelly

What were the core inspirations for the stage play?

“I love Working Dog productions and Rob Sitch. The real Australian sensibility and satirical nature. For the relationships of the girls definitely Broad City. Also, Sorry to Bother you for the web series.” – Lauren

“Definitely Utopia. Also, Gilmore Girls for the friendship between them. The way they can make mundane things really fun is what I got inspired from.” – Kelly

When you were on stage performing, what did this period of your life look like? The day in day out of it all.

“When the first play got put on, we were still writing it. Four days out from opening night we reworked the whole script and cut out half the play. We were also at acting school while doing it. I decided to join a Shakespeare school tour. So I was doing that during the days.” – Kelly

“The morning of opening night, I was listening to the voice recording on repeat trying to learn the lines. We had a “preview” and it was a shambles. It was the night before opening and when we finished performing the response was just silence.” – Lauren.

Did you have any funny moments on stage where things went wrong?

“I fully fucked the lines. But I ended up coming off good because I was improving the lines with the most conviction I could muster. Kelly’s lines were queued off my lines though…”- Lauren

“I had no idea where she was at in the script. My Mum later that night was like “did you forget a few lines there?” I also, spilt a slurpee all over myself. I was a hyper clean character, and I just left it there even though my character would clean it.”– Kelly

The Show

The process adapting it for the web series and working with the team?

“When we were doing Brisbane fringe, Maddy Leite was doing a lot of the tech stuff for the show. Her and Mack Struthers are a partnership and she started talking to him about the show. When we were approached to do the web series, we were both like yes!! Mack and Maddy just came off a web series and wanted to do another one and learn from it.” -Lauren

“Mack got really inspired by the characters and really saw them for what they were. He could see and understand the dynamic.” – Kelly

“So we did a bit of a writing retreat and had a big discussion about the themes and central meanings. It was basically creating a whole new web of interpersonal relationships and getting the story to play out over a longer time period.” – Lauren

“It was a tight turn around between the play and the web series. We finished the year of acting and the play. We then got straight into writing the web series and were filming in January. The big challenge was converting this 50minute play into a 5×5 web series.” – Kelly

Advice for filmmakers trying to get their scripts made or get things moving?

“Running with any idea at the start. I was working full time at a call centre, and I just had this gut instinct that it was a good idea. I didn’t have any resources, but I still put the energy into the idea. Being open at the beginning is pivotal. Also, community. Finding people to make things with.” – Kelly

“Pursuing connections that feel right. Also, you must express your own life because no one else can. You must have self-trust that you have something special to tell the world.” – Lauren

The Future

Now you are taking it to the fringe festival, how are you both feeling about such big event?

“I feel good. After the play, it felt like if we can do this we can do anything. Having worked together and having it written gives me confidence. However, I did sit down with myself and just remember that there is four weeks and still a lot to do. But because of all the work, I trust that it will be well received.” – Kelly

“After we finished the rewrite for Adelaide Fringe, we were just buzzing. We realised how well we knew the characters and the script. I just remember thinking, I just cannot fucking wait to perform this.” -Lauren

If you want to say, what is next for both of you? Are you writing a new show together or focused on performing call girls?

“We have a potential opportunity coming up that will take Call Girls to a whole new level. Personally, I am the lead in the new David Williamson play that’s premiering in Noosa. It’s my first gig outside of acting school so I am very excited. Also, I have a new literary agent as well and am doing a lot of writing in the pipeline.” – Lauren

“We have basically done 4 script rewrites for Call Girls. It’s just enough to keep us very busy for a while.” – Kelly

BUY TICKETS TO THE ADELAIDE FRINGE FESTIVAL BELOW!

https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/call-girls-af2024

WATCH THE WEB SERIES HERE!

Tags 44 Clovers, Brisbane Filmmakers, call girls, Filmmaking, interivew, Interview, kelly hodge, lauren harvey

Interview

A Conversation with Writer and Director Michael Shanks

Post author By Frazier Brockett
Post date September 21, 2022
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If you are talking sports, Michael Shanks is like a number one draft pick for the Australian Film scene. He is the writer and director of Time Trap, Rebooted and Wizards of Aus, has a YouTube channel with over 200k subscribers and his script – Hotel, Hotel, Hotel, Hotel – recently was selected for the BlackList (that’s a big deal). In the next 5 years, anyone interested in film will know his name (if you don’t already).

Guy Pearce and Michael Shanks on set of Storm Music Video

I was lucky enough to interview Michael last week. It is undoubtedly, one of the most motivating film conversations I have ever had. His commitment to the craft over the years has made me ready to work harder and excited for the future of Australian films. Read on for more.

INTRODUCTIONS

EXT. ZOOM – DAY

FRAZIER: So! Before we go into the proper filmmaking stuff, I just want to talk about the something stupid video with Nicole Kidman that you made…

MICHAEL: Oh God. That’s definitely a blast from the past…

FRAZIER: Well when I was 14 there was this big deal with ‘try not to laugh’ challenges and your video was in it. My friends and I had some type of forfeit that if you laughed you would have to get slapped. So your video would always make us crack up.

Is there any small part of you that wants to give up the filmmaking career and return to these types of videos?

MICHAEL: If it gets people slapped then I am happy about it. But no not really. Kind of the opposite. I have always wanted to make the next thing bigger then the last. But that video is like the first thing I ever did that got any attention.

FRAZIER: Well I didn’t know you even made it until like two months ago.

MICHAEL: “I used to get slapped because of it!”

Winning Flickerfest for Rebooted

THE PROCESS

FRAZIER: You started off with the Doomsday Arcade series for the Escapist Magazine, if I’m not mistaken?

MICHAEL: The first thing I made was a pilot for a web series when I was in year 12. I made it for a competition and won. The prize was that your entry was part of a 25-part series that you were paid to make. That was kind of how I jumped into filmmaking.

FRAZIER: Well I watched it the other day.

MICHAEL: Oh God…

FRAZIER: It has got some funny jokes and I was genuinely laughing. It’s got this kind of referential/ parody humour that is woven throughout everything you do. Is that where it started or have you always loved that style of writing.

MICHAEL: I was always into that stuff like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Spike Milligan’s Books and Monty Python. I always loved genre parody. But moving back to the show, I kind of used it to be able to jump into different genres that I loved.

FRAZIER: So after this show you didn’t go to film school?

MICHAEL: No, I think of Doomsday Arcade as my film school. Almost two years of straight shooting, writing and editing.

FRAZIER: I recently dropped out and I was thinking, did you have a period of people constantly telling you to go to film school or any self-doubt? Or did you know this was the path you wanted to take?

MICHAEL: Well since I had it as a job and had to do it, it gave me the confidence to just keep going. I know it sounds pretentious, but I think the best film school was watching films. When I started moving onto proper sets, I didn’t really know what second AC was… but that’s fine! You get told on the day and you work it out.

The short that launched Michael’s career.

FRAZIER: Following this, you had Time Trap released after the success of the George Lucas special edition trailer and that short film was only made with a budget of 6k?

MICHAEL: Yeah so that was just self-funded. It was 6k with people lending their time and borrowing a camera and just making it happen. And it was a huge amount of time – months of visual effects and composing. I then had this huge amount of traffic coming to my channel from this Star Wars parody I made. I just released the short film on that same day and it really caught fire. It got a lot of eyeballs on it, especially in LA. It was actually how I got my US reps because the short film went around Los Angeles. I was out there a few weeks later interviewing managers and agents.

Time Trap

FRAZIER: When this crazy period was happening what was your mindset like at the time?

MICHAEL: It was very exciting but I was weirdly hamstrung cause I just had signed onto do the web series the Wizards of Aus. I had these reps saying these are things we could go for but I had to go and spend 45 weeks making this web show.

FRAZIER: So with the Wizards of Aus, I saw something you said that you moved back into your Mum’s house for 36 weeks to edit the VFX straight?

MICHAEL: Yeah…

FRAZIER: How do you do that and maintain motivation because I would be drained?

MICHAEL: I do get pretty fixated on things… It’s really satisfying work as a day job. I find it akin to playing a puzzle video game. You have these certain tools to get from point A to point B. I am also just one of those people who is content to just sit in a chair for hours.

FRAZIER: When you are on set and working with comic actors like Aunty Donna, Nick Cody and Guy Pearce, do you like improvising?

MICHAEL: It was a mixture of both. Me and a guy called Nick Issel wrote the show. But when you have guys like Aunty Donna doing funnier stuff it’s pretty sweet. I love the idea of improv but sometimes you can tell they are just improving the whole thing and it feels kind of loose.

FRAZIER: Now onto Rebooted, a short film I have shown my friends and family like 20 times. I understand the budget was only $120,000. But if the budget was bigger, do you think it would have changed the film that much?

Rebooted Short Film

MICHAEL: I think probably not. It would have made some quality-of-life stuff easier like bigger offices and larger studios. The only thing that would be different was that because it is a mixture of genuine stop motion and live action, we weren’t able to move the camera in specific three-dimensional ways. If we had a bigger budget we would have been able to do motion control shots. But other than that, it turned out exactly how I wanted it.

FRAZIER: Now just onto your directing style. I have seen a lot of videos where you say you storyboard everything to a tee, is this linked with your love for visual storytelling?

MICHAEL: I just think it would be really hard to come up with that stuff on the day. By really storyboarding everything, I found more cohesion across everything I am trying to do. It’s just a way of me feeling like I have the shot exactly in my head.

Michael on set

FRAZIER: I saw on your Instagram that your script got selected for the Blacklist. Can you just talk about your process in writing an already successful script?

MICHAEL: I am not one of those people who writes a million ideas. I just want to make sure the idea is super unique. But once I have that 3 act structure, I will typically go away and find some AirBnb for like a week and beat out a draft. But I am really slow at editing. For me it’s just really premise heavy, once I find a sweet idea then that’s it.

TALKING MOVIES

FRAZIER: I know that the Lord of the Rings BTS, the Simpsons and Edgar Wright were big inspirations but was there any other films or creators that helped you?

MICHAEL: Definitely all of them. But for the last few years I have really been mainlining horror. Recently, I watched Incancation (2022). I was loving it but my girlfriend can’t watch scary movies. She had come out and I was at the end of the movie, watching it through the menu on the third of the screen that’s how scary it was. Horror films just always surprise me. They have a looseness to them and can introduce elements of surrealism without having to build a fantasy realm. Horror films can just be really unique.

FRAZIER: Do you have a current favourite horror director?

MICHAEL: I know these are mainstream choices, but I think Ari Aster is incredible. I think Hereditary is so so so good. It’s the sweet spot for me because it’s unique and I didn’t know where it was going but it was really exciting. Also Jordan Peele. Nope was awesome and I love his ability to make mimetic visuals.

FRAZIER: Now in the opposite direction, what is the most annoying thing people do at the cinema?

MICHAEL: The most annoying experience I had was in Sydney, I was by myself in this small cinema. 30 minutes into the film I hear this foil crinkle and they unwrap two big burritos and it’s just the smelliest food. This old woman several rows in front was looking around smelling… That and obviously just being on your phone.

FRAZIER: The other month I was seeing Doctor Strange 2 and this group of 12-year-old eshays came into the cinema. They were all vaping and all you could see was the vape smoke covering the screen. This guy told the manager and they came in and kicked out the wrong people so we had to get involved and tell the manager who it was… right in the middle of a big set piece.

THE FUTURE

FRAZIER: Where do you want to see the Australian film scene move in the next 5-10 years?

MICHAEL: I think we need to be making movies that people want to see. I think the movies we are making is ‘the whole small town has a secret’, which is fine but we are just making samey films that appeal to middle aged people. I would love to see us take more genre swings. When I tell my girlfriend a movie to watch and say it’s an Australian film she says “oh an Australian film…”

FRAZIER: I have interviewed a few people now and they all say that same thing.

MICHAEL: I am not saying they are bad, I just think they are a little safe. Maybe because a lot of stuff is based on state and government funding. But it is literally something everyone in the Australian film scene talks about and it never changes so I don’t know what the fuck is up with that.

FRAZIER: I just think doing the Wizards of Aus and Rebooted is the right direction but it’s like why is there not more of that…

MICHAEL: The people I know at Screen Australia are very cool and funny so I just don’t know how it works.

Motion capture…

FRAZIER: My last question… what is next for you?

MICHAEL: I want to always feel like the next thing is bigger and better. With that trajectory, hopefully the next things is bigger. Over the last few years, I have been putting my efforts into writing features for people and hopefully that’s the space I can work in.

Make sure to go and check out all of Michael’s work on Youtube because it is honestly some of the best Australian filmmaking I have seen.

Tags australian film, Filmmaking, interivew, Interview, michael shanks, screen australia, screen qld

Film Reviews

Three Thousand Years of Longing Review

Post author By Frazier Brockett
Post date September 14, 2022
No Comments on Three Thousand Years of Longing Review

George Miller is back with his third film in 10 years. Mad Max, Babe, Happy Feet – all critically and financially successful and yet we rarely see his name pop up in the credits. So something big had to be next for Miller. And that ambitious film was none other than Three Thousand Years of Longing. A film so unique and different that it makes complete sense for Miller to direct. But was this film worth his return to directing? Does it live up to the hype of his previous films?

Three Thousand Years of Longing is a romantic / fantasy film written and directed by George Miller. It sees a lonely scholar – Tilda Swinton – who is granted three wishes by a Djinn (Idris Elba).

Every time you go to the cinemas, you kind of know what you are already going to see. Between trailers and marketing, you have a pretty rough idea of what is coming. I was completely blindsided by this film. Three Thousand Years of Longing shocked me from beginning to end and that is for one core reason – the sound design.

I haven’t seen a movie as precise and careful with its use of music and sound in a long time (probably Mad Max actually). Each scene uses it so sparingly that it makes the audience glued to the world in front of them. Even the transitions between locations use natural sound to make the film flow. But what accentuates this creative choice is the writing.

George Miller and Augusta Gore have replaced music with a script that feels like a song. The dialogue has a perfect rhythm that makes this film flow. You almost forget the lack of music when the words spoken by Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba feel poetic. For a film about storytelling, Miller understands exactly what makes a story work. It is not about the visual elements but instead the spoken word and that is exactly why this narration works so well. And while these effects were striking, they were not what made me love this film. Instead, it was the movies core theme.

The emphasis on the importance of storytelling to humanity is a perfect golden thread and something that means a lot to me. Three Thousand Years of Longing not only reminds the audience on why we need stories to survive but also the different forms they can take. It accomplishes this through roughly 6 separate stories each more intriguing and different then the last. With different themes and messages, they will leave any audience wanting to spend more time in the mind of George Miller.

Like a song however, the film ebbs and flows. It did have moments where I lost interest and was not completely gripped by the story. I think it comes down to the run time. While an hour and 40 minutes is by no means a long film, I do think it could have been cut down. If this film was 15 minutes shorter, the pacing would have been fantastic. When so much time is spent in one location, it is pivotal that the audience is still hooked by the story and especially the actors.

(Spoilers)

Now I did like the performances of Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. In fact, I loved them. They both did an excellent job of displaying loneliness and how it affects people in different ways. Also, what stories can mean to people’s lives. Where their performances fell a little flat was in the chemistry. I never felt the love between them. While they bounce off each other well, the sudden turn in the story didn’t make sense for these characters. It felt like a sharp right turn in a direction I didn’t think these George Miller and these actors were going for.

Should you see this film?

Yes absolutely. It is a movie that will sit with you for days on end. Not only is it a completely original story but it is the craft of it that will keep you hooked. However, I do recommend going in expecting a slower pace and a different method to most Hollywood movies.