Posts by: Matt

A very moderate workload.

After a extremely hectic period in the local film industry things quieted down somewhat, but when director Matt Saville brought his feature film A Month of Sundays to Adelaide I was invited to shoot stills for a couple of weeks. The dark comedy entered the world of real-estate agents, with Anthony Lapaglia and John Clarke doing a fine job in the lead roles. It was a fun project to be involved with, working again with close friends on the crew, and John Clarke and I had an instant connection over our fellow passion for bird photography.

Matt Saville, Anthony LaPaglia and John Clarke on the set of A Month of Sundys.

Matt Saville, Anthony LaPaglia and John Clarke on the set of A Month of Sundys.

I have been plugging away at my bird photography since moving to Kangaroo Island and could not have found myself living in a better place for such a pursuit. Baudin Beach is owned by the birds and I am slowly getting together some interesting images focusing on the way the diverse species interact with each other,

Oystercatchers, Terns and the endangered Hooded Plover hanging out together on Baudin Beach, Kangaroo Island

Oystercatchers, Terns and the endangered Hooded Plover hanging out together on Baudin Beach, Kangaroo Island

A very moderate work load suited me fine allowing me to get stuck into my personal projects and studies. In my mid 40’s yoga has become a huge part of my life, but with no suitable classes or teachers on the island, I am required to develop my practice with reading and  classes on DVD’s. My busking show is also getting a re-working over this period. The circus show, with juggling, uni-cycling and free standing ladder tricks was already challenging and scary enough, so I am not sure why I decided to try and do it all on a table! My band, with girlfriend Ky, is now called Kinyeri,  from the Ramindjeri word for the iconic Yacca plants that grow all over the island. We have been performing regularly and have just released our first recordings on BANDCAMP. Also challenging me and giving me a lot of fun, I bought a little Laser sailing boat. Having grown up on yachts, getting my skills back up whizzing around my bay, occasionally joined by a pod of dolphins, and regularly getting chucked in the ocean, is huge fun and makes me, and the occasional brave guest, feel completely alive.

Fire Tree performing at Penneshaw community market, Kangaroo Island

Kinyeri performing at Penneshaw community market, Kangaroo Island.

My basket weaving alter ego Basketboy had his big day in the sun over the Easter period. The annual Easter Art Competition in Penneshaw is a big deal on the island, with large cash prizes and most of the islands significant arts community getting involved. It was a huge surprise when I won my category with a selection of small baskets that represented the various places that I had lived on the island. I sold the work, had my photo in the local paper and got lots of respect and praise from my community. The win seemed to coincide with all of my baskets and rattles being sold in the islands major gallery KI Fine Arts. The gallery is now very keen for me to keep them stocked up with my weaving’s and I have even been invited to give a weaving demonstration at the upcoming Parndana Show. I hope they can handle the excitement.

Island Weavings. A series of baskets using the variety of natural materials that I have been working with on the island.

Island Weavings. A series of baskets using the variety of natural materials that I have been working with on the island.

It has been a couple of years since I was up in remote indigenous community Ramingining, in Australia’s Northern Territory, working on the film Charlies Country. The film was released over a year ago and was very well received, including getting a best actor award for David Gulpilil at Cannes. It was another remarkable achievement, working under extremely challenging circumstances, by my friend an long time collaborator Rolf de Heer. Whilst working on the film I divided my time shooting a documentary with Rolf’s partner Molly Reynolds. The results of this were 2 feature length documentaries and a stunning web site, Still Our Country. Whilst the more experimental documentary, also called Still Our Country, was selected to screen at last years Melbourne International Film Festival, the second project, Another Country has now been include in this year’s official program, and I have been invited to attend and take part in the Q&A. I am just so proud of this documentary, my first credit as a cinematographer, and it will be interesting to see what new challenges arise from its release.

Still Our Country website.

Still Our Country website.

An oyster farm and a cat skinner.

I settled into life on Kangaroo Islands remote south west coast, an indulgent and blissful period living close to nature. As money ran out, a television job in nearby Adelaide came up, so I commenced 9 weeks work on Deadline Gallipoli. Having recently worked on Anzac Girls, the Foxtel project put me back in World War 1, with some impressive actors in the leading and supporting roles. We shot through through a cold and rainy  South Australian winter. Fortunately I was amongst a great group of people, colleagues from countless productions, a hard working world class film crew. I was kept busy doing all my usual stills photography job as well as shooting all the hero photographs on behalf of the photographer lead character that feature throughout the show.
Sam Worthington as Phillip Schuler in Deadline Gallipoli

Sam Worthington as Phillip Schuler in Deadline Gallipoli

 
Back on the island, our family decided to pack up the log cabin on the stunning Stun Sail Boom River and prepared to move. Living on the enormous bush property, with its private river and secluded coastline, had been a beautiful time in our lives, and inspiring creatively. Ky has been the busy photographer in the family, her Yoni Landscape series  gets more stunning as she goes along. Such a multifaceted artist and human being, she has just launched her new website kyalecto.com and has started practicing her art therapy on the island.
yoniscape triptic

Yoniscape Tryptic by Ky Alecto

Our Kangaroo Island adventure continued with a house sit in town of American River. With an oyster farm and a cat skinner, a shop and post office, the little town has a diverse and interesting collection of people. It had dawned on me late to start taking photographs of my new friends on Kangaroo Island, so I wasted no time. Portraits and community photo essays have always been my thing and I am really enjoying this series, meeting up with some great people and  giving them the photos.
Lara and Jeanie

Lara, Jeanie and Rusty. From my Friends on the Island, so far-portrait project.

The movie Tracks opened in the US, and alongside the release a beautiful photography book was launched.  Rick Smolan, the actual National Geographic photographer on  Robyn Davidson’s epic camel journey  in the 1970’s, had done all the hard work, bringing his stunning old negatives to life with modern scanning technology and putting together the book. We met on set in Central Australia, had got along well and it had been great working with him over the project. Stills photographers dream that a making of book  comes out from all the films we work on, but these days they rarely happens, which makes it really exciting when it does. The large format, high quality interactive publication features a combination of Ricks original photos and my on-set portraits and stills, and Rick sent me with 45 copies of them!
Inside Tracks Rick Smo;ans book with lots of my stills in it.

Inside Tracks, Rick Smolans book with lots of my stills in it.

 Summer is the busy tourist season on Kangaroo Island, and Basketboy’s big time of the year. I have  started performing my busking show again and have been basket weaving  most days, making stock for my monthly market stall. The Rustic Blue Gallery and Kangaroo Island Fine Art Gallery have also started selling some of my woven creations and a friend ow sells them at a market stall on the mainland, the empire grows. For me, the woven baby rattle has been a calling, as well as a great weaving challenge. My own baby rattle, purchased somewhere in England in the 1960’s, was the inspiration, and after to weaving vast numbers of these traditional baby toys, most not suitable for children, I am finally getting close to mastering the Spiral Weave Rattle of my youth.
Untitled-3

Spiny Rush Spiral Weave Baby Rattles ready for market.

When our American River house-sit came to an end we needed somewhere new to live. A pretty beach house with lots of trees and a big shed came up for rent and we moved into the sleepy seaside town of Baudin Beach, Kangaroo Island. With a gorgeous private beach in our backyard and a staggering collection of local birds, the house was also  available for sale and after a short time it just seemed dumb not to buy it.
DSC_1805

Baudin Beach, my new backyard.

Autumn on the island

The autumn days on Kangaroo Island have been gorgeous, and it has also been one of the more interesting periods of my life. I launched my basket weaving business BASKETBOY at the islands Penneshaw community market, and actually sold a few baskets and rattles. It had been a long standing dream of mine to have a market stall, it was a really fun day and I met lots of great people from my new community.

With Ky Alecto, the BASKETBOY launch at Penneshaw Community Market.

With Ky Alecto, the BASKETBOY launch at Penneshaw Community Market.

At the same market I pulled off my first solo busking show, also under the name BASKETBOY. My circus show, featuring  uni cycling, juggling and free-standing ladder tricks, was well received by a small but enthusiastic crowd of locals tourists and dogs. Training hard in the lead up to this show, I finally achieved a 5 ball juggle, a serious challenge that had taken me almost a year of daily practice.

French Circus Ladder on grass at the community market in Penneshaw.

French Circus Ladder on grass at the community market in Penneshaw.

I was asked to play music at my favorite local restaurant, Yellow Ash and Chili in Kingscote, during the islands FEASTIVAL food event. It was my first solo gig as a piano player,  I enjoyed playing my songs for a couple hours, and my family and I were well fed. Definitely in no need of any further ego stroking, I then won first prize in the Kangaroo Island Bird Photography Competition, and even had my photo in The Islander newspaper. This beautiful place has been so good to me.

The-islander

Kangaroo Island supports a small endangered population of Glossy Black Cockatoos. In the 1990’s it was estimated that less than 200 birds existed, since then sustained monitoring and protection programs have seen this number increase to around 300. It is a slow process, the Glossies, that mate for life, only lay one egg that is always under threat by hungry possums or other birds competing for the nest hollow. With one of the better jobs that I have come a cross, Mike Barth monitors over a hundred nest sites around the island and records all the data. I joined him for a beautiful evening of nest watching.

Mike Barth in the field with female (left) and male Glossy Black Cockatoos.

Mike Barth in the field with female (left) and male Glossy Black Cockatoos.

It was exciting to have two films that I worked on selected to compete at this years Cannes Film Festival.The Rover and Charlies Country both got the nod and went quickly into publicity mode. It was interesting to see both films go with one my close up portraits as their poster, two of my favorites of recent years. The Rover has continued to drip release some beautiful stills in a very classy social media build up to the premiere.

1505576_794365300573870_9218285996061529652_n

Weaving and breathing

And so I moved to Kangaroo Island with my girlfriend Ky Alecto and her kid Yeshe and Joy the dog. The house we are renting sits on 3000 acres of beautiful Australian bushland, bursting with native animals. A beautiful river winds through the property to a secret beach on the islands rugged south west coast. It has been a very easy transition for me from a lifetime of city living to a remote country lifestyle. Each day is greeted with yoga and mediation, perhaps then a canoe or bike adventure, fishing, weaving baskets or just doing nothing. Always eating well.  Our possum and wallaby proof vegetable garden is starting to yield, and I have gone back into daily training with my circus skills.

Photo by Matt Nettheim

Kangaroo Flat, my back yard on the banks of the Stun Sail Boom River, Kangaroo Island.

 

This period has seen several of my recent film projects getting busy. The Rover released one still almost a year ago, with a huge public response. My web site, good for about 4 hits a day, hit over a thousand that day, largely thanks to Robert Pattinsons enormous fan base. There has been nothing else released for almost a year, and now a bunch of new stills and a trailer have sparked big interest. Its a really exciting film to  be involved with.

The Rover. Robert Pattinson.

The Rover. Robert Pattinson.

The movie Tracks had it international premiere at the Toronto International film festival and has re-branded the original book with one of my portraits as its cover. It was great to see the film go with a wide landscape still for their poster, one of the shots I took on film with my Hasselblad camera, an image that captures the beauty and journey of the film well.

9781408847145

I caught Tracks at a cast and crew screening in Adelaide. A personal highlight was seeing Mia Wasikowska weaving a little natural basket on screen. I had been giving her a couple of lessons on set and she just kept on going and worked it into the scene. I was delighted it made the cut.

Mia Wasikowska and Rolley Mintuma in Tracks. Mia holds the basket that she was working on that day.

Mia Wasikowska and Rolley Mintuma in Tracks. Mia holds the basket that she was working on that day.

The Babadook premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and this low budget horror film had a big impact on international critics and the festival audience. It had been an intense shoot, ridiculously ambitious for its tiny budget, but the passion and skills of the writer/director Jenifer Kent and the commitment and raw talent of her actors ,Essie Davis and 6 year old Noah Wiseman, seems to have achieved a great result.

The Babadook. Noah Wiseman and Essie Davis.

The Babadook. Noah Wiseman and Essie Davis.

A bunch of my stills will be featured in the WOW film Festival this month. The festival celebrates woman in film and my stills have been featured on the festival poster and the stills exhibition invite.

The WOW film festival and stills exhibition, featuring stills from Somersault and The Eye of the Storm.

The WOW film festival and stills exhibition, featuring stills from Somersault and The Eye of the Storm.

As a basket weaver it has taken a little while to get to know my new place; finding suitable weaving materials around the property and learning what they do. I have been working with long grass and a couple of varieties of reeds that grow along the river. Most days get a chance to head off and harvest materiels or to sit and weave at my special spot by the river. A collection of woven rocks, rattles and a variety of baskets are starting to come together. I sit on the threshold of launching my basket weaving label and products to the world at the Community Market in Penneshaw next month. I am really hoping for a little article in The Islander newspaper, and it would be great to get some of my work in one of the island’s galleries. Is the Kangaroo Island ready for Basketboy?

A woven rock (laterite), rattle and basket from my Stun Sail Boom River series.

A woven rock (laterite), rattle and basket from my Stun Sail Boom River series.

My first baby rattle

Good work in my home town Adelaide continued with Anzac Girls, a stylish period drama that depicts the real stories of Australian and New Zealand World War 1 nurses. With a cast of young talented actors, many big scenes and fantastic sets, the ABC TV financed production would be the first of several World War 1 projects kicking off in Australia as the centenary of the start of the conflict approaches. It was a visual treat for stills and fun to work on.

The cast of Anzac Girls.

The cast of Anzac Girls.

My oldest and closest friend Aidan Munn, has been a professional dancer his whole career, now doing more choreography, music and teaching. Aidan thought he had retired is tired body from the stage years ago, but his lifetime collaborator, choreographer Leigh Warren, polished him up for one more show, Not According to Plan, part of the OZASIA festival in Adelaide. It was great to see this him on the stage again, a unique and charismatic performer always.

Photo by Matt Nettheim

Not Acording to Plan – Dancers Aidan Munn, Bec Jones,Chien-Wei Wu and Yuan-Li Wang at the end of the show.

 

Aidan also recently qualified as my first close friend to become a grandfather. His son Aithlea and his partner Mimi had a beautiful girl Mira, who I met and held. The birth gave me an excuse to attempt to weave my first baby rattle. The baby rattle is a classic traditional weave with several variations. I have been weaving one a day to get my skills up, certain that I have finally found the key to my fortune.

Photo by Matt Nettheim

Early attempts at weaving baby rattles.

The State Theatre Company of South Australia kept me busy shooting head shots, their upcoming production Maggie Stone,  as well as their current production Vere (faith). Vere was great theatre, written by John Doyal, lead actor Paul Blackwell  supurb in the lead role. I bought tickets for all my friends to see it.

 Paul Blackwell in Vere ( faith).

Paul Blackwell in Vere ( faith).

 

The Adelaide Film Festival premiered 2 feature films that I had worked on. The festival opened with the Australian Premiere of TRACKS. The films real life subjects, adventurer and the original book’s writer Robyn Davidson and Photographer Rick Smolan were in town for the occasion. Rick and I met on the set of Tracks and connected well as friends and photographers. It was great to see him again, and exciting to discuss the possibility of doing a TRACKS book together.

Rick Smolan and myself on the set of Tracks.

Rick Smolan and myself on the set of Tracks.

 

Charlie’s Country also had is world premiere at Adelaide Film Festival, and this time I got an invitation to the opening. With all my colleagues and the cast in attendance, it was a great occasion. My amazing friend and collaborator Rolf de Heer once again creating a huge film making challenge for himself and pulling it off with stunning results. It was a great film and got voted Best of the Festival.

 Jennifer Budukpuduk, Peter Djigirr, Rolf de Heer and David Gulpillill recieve applause at the end of the premiere in Adelaide.

Jennifer Budukpuduk, Peter Djigirr, Rolf de Heer and David Gulpillill recieve applause at the end of the premiere in Adelaide.

 

I started shooting the  documentary,  Another Country, when I was on location on Charlies Country in Ramingining. The projects director, Molly Reynolds, had found the time to view and log the footage I shot on multiple cameras with dubious sound,  and it was time to head back up for a week of pickups.  A long day of hard four wheel driving from Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory, it was a pleasure to visit this remote and fascinating community once again and re-connect with some of the friends we had made. The shooting went well and the project now heads into the editing room, my first job as a Director of Photography.

Artist and musician Bobby Bununggurr talks to former Bulla Bulla Arts curator Djon Mundine, Raminginning.

Artist and musician Bobby Bununggurr talks to former Bulla Bulla Arts curator Djon Mundine, Raminginning.

 

 

2 of 6
123456