Super busy.
Cuban Fury was a great project to work on, despite the daily chaos of negotiating London Olympics traffic. Nick Frost’s months of intensive dance training paid off; the entire crew were highly impressed with his smooth moves and acrobatics. He was suburb in his first leading role and is just the nicest guy. London’s salsa dancing community were a huge asset to the production bringing lots of fun and great energy to the set, and they were extremely patient with the long technical days required to shoot dance sequences. As we wrapped in September, it was nice to be invited to jump straight onto Big Talk Productions next film, Edgar Wright’s The Worlds End, but after 9 weeks abroad I really needed to return to my own part of the world to my loved ones.
Satellite Boy, my favourite poster shot of the year
I arrived in Adelaide to find my local film industry the busiest I had ever seen it, and jumped straight on toThe Babadook. The first feature by writer/director Jennifer Kent, the script was intense and hugely ambitious for its super tight budget. A dark psychological horror film, the project had attracted the amazing Essie Davis to its leading role in what would be our fouth film together. In what must be a terrifying decisions for any director, 6 year old Noah Wiseman was cast to play her son in a physical and emotional role that would have tested any highly experienced actor. Noah was so amazing every day, helped enormously by patient and imaginative directing by Jennifer, and outstanding actress herself. I loved working on The Babadook, being close to home, amongst my film crew family, working hard as a team to make the project as good as possible.
The Babadook. Noah Wiseman and Essie Davis.
I have been a member of The Society of Motion Picture Stills Photographers for a year now and admit that I do like seeing SMPSP after my name on my film credits. The society is a fascinating collection of international colleagues practicing this specialised field of photography and we correspond occasionally, keeping an eye on each other’s projects and sharing technical information. In my first group exhibition with the society, The Directors, we were all invited to submit our favorite director stills.
My shot of Spike Jonze being used to publisise the exhibition.
This year The South Australian Film Corporation celebrate 40 years of outstanding contributions to Australia’s film history. As one of the countries smaller, less populated states many iconic and significant films have been made here, and SA continues to attract amazing projects and produce many of our most outstanding filmmakers and technicians. As one of only 2 stills photographers based in this town I was very over represented in the section looking at films from the last decade.
Some of my photographs in the Sunday To Far Away exhibition.
It was direct from dark, monochromatic world of The Babadook to the extremes of the Australian outback for the feature film Tracks. Based on Robyn Davidsons classic adventure book from the 1970′s, American John Curran is directing Mia Wasakowska, along with a dog and 4 camels, in what has been an amazing location shoot. Starting in South Australia’s Flinders Rangers the shoot will have me travelling to remote Coffin Bay and then to Central Australia, some of Australia’s most stunning environments. Director of photography Mandy Walker decided to shoot on film, so in keeping with this spirit I dusted off my Hasselblad and rounded up some 120mm film stock for the first time in years. The shoot will keep me busy until the end of the year with interesting follow up projects already falling into place that will keep me working in Australia until the middle of next year, unheard of.
On set on TRACKS, shooting film again on my beloved Hasselblad.