Being away from the physical space has probably allowed some form of rest from the routine, but no doubt everybody’s minds have still been churning away towards their next move, their next decision, their next development. I guess there are no real “breaks” during FilmLab but it is nice to know you can get out of the playpen from time to time.

That being said, turning Monday into a Saturday definitely demonstrates the amazing power of the program to make us think outside the square.

This leads me to propose that the world adopt a new calendar, where a week lasts five days, and a work week is 3 days (a much more balanced ratio of week day to weekend I think). We can completely dispose of Monday, and perhaps combine Tuesday and Wednesday to a much more fun sounding “Tunesday”. Furthermore this means that we’ll have exactly 73 weeks in a year and none of this silly 52.17 weeks…. I think I am on to something here…

This morning’s warm up session began with some very simple yet difficult sequential word sharing exercises (proving that we are all completely hopeless at rhythm and lack basic motor skills – thanks Paddy!). I then had the opportunity to contribute my own slice of Romanian dance to Paddy’s tongue twisting folk song, complete with sporadic cheering and a colourful headscarf. I hope everyone remembers the steps for tomorrow!

Following the ever progressing David Bowie song/NASA sound FX experiment, the Labbers retreated to the secret art den with Peter for more creative exercises.

Today’s lecture on the Lo-Bo writer’s toolbox proved to be informative (if there’s one thing the world needs, it’s more tools!), and following another scrumptious lunch the Labbers retreated to their various creative spaces to continue development in their teams. Stephen, Paddy and Peter float around to provide support to the development process, and thus the well oiled machine continues to chug along.

Happy Tunesday everyone!

Following our therapeutic unravelling, the official part of the morning began with a little Bowie, Paddy Cunneen style (is there a better way to begin a day?) before continuing back in the art room for some more life lessons, I mean art class, with Peter.

After a speedy break the Labbers headed into the mixing theatre with Stephen Cleary, for the first of many presentations to happen over the next few weeks. Todays topic was Introduction To Low Budget and looked at the nature of low budget filmmaking.

Intro To Low Budget Lecture 1 – Stephen Cleary

After another delicious lunch from the awesome Sonya, the Labbers got comfy in the darkened cinema and watched the low budget feature Butterfly Kiss, a film that answers one of the workshops most asked questions: Why is this film better because it was made for a low budget?

After the teams first presentations yesterday, Stephens parting words were “This is the end of the beginning, the gloves are off” so after being briefed about the next presentation, scheduled to happen in only two days time, the Labbers quickly disappeared into various nooks and crannies of the SAFC to plan and prepare.

Good Luck!

For those of you reading now who weren’t familiar with the SAFC FilmLab blog last June, welcome. For those of you that have returned for more, welcome back!

FilmLab 2010 has kicked off with 6 teams of new participants, and once again this blog will be giving you a few daily snippets of activities and experiences over the 3 week intensive workshop.

The 6 teams are comprised of the following people, filled with nervous excitement and hopefully inspiration (or maybe that will develop over the three weeks):

• Kate Croser, Hugh Sullivan & Sandy Cameron
• Shane McNeil & Sean Dooley
• Dave Ngo, Nick Matthews & Craig Behenna
• Vicki Sugars & Christopher Houghton
• Lindy Taylor & Ursula Dabrowsky

• Julie Byrne, Fiona Sprott & Jason Sweeney (observer team)

Congratulations everyone!

The dream team of Stephen Cleary, Paddy Cunneen and Peter Speyer have returned to offer a feast of brain mashing, soul tingling activities for our lab participants (or Labbers/Labsters as they have been affectionately called in the past), and the SAFC FilmLab coordinating team is back, with a vengeance!

Day 1 of the lab was a whole lot of introductions, as “Day 1”s tend to be. The Laberinos settled into some creativity stimulating bean bags and sofas – a definite improvement on last year’s lecture style set up – and each shared a story for a few minutes, a piece of music, a childhood memory; surely the journey of discovery starts with the people around you…

Day one rounded out with some presentations and discussions – everyone has now laid their project ideas out on the table as it were, and this is the native state from which they will grow and evolve. Every team will be keeping their own blog too, so please click on the right to explore some of the new pages and posts in the blog roll, or even check out some of the blogs from last year’s participants if you are feeling a bit nostalgic. We’re still ironing out a few preliminary tech issues, so if you don’t see 6 new blogs on the right don’t worry, they’ll be there soon!

As for the question of lunch – yes the catering is amazing once again, and for those of you that sat through many a description of rhubarb tart and mushroom risotto, I promise that this will not descend into a food blog again. I may even post up pictures of things that AREN’T food. That would be relief to us all.

And of course, you can always find information about FilmLab on the dedicated website: http://www.safilmlab.com.au or check out the SAFC website for further information http://www.safilm.com.au

The question is will I come up with a new term of endearment for our participants? Feel free to suggest a few to get us started, and happy reading over the next few weeks!

AT

At the moment were getting onto cranking out the FilmLab website, so consider this a lull period and we’ll return to your regular transmission soon.

As for a Lab update, following from their attendance at the FilmLab workshop earlier this year, Eddie, Hugh, Julie, Matt, Ashlee, Sonya, Sophie, Bryan and Matt will be undertaking a six-day intensive script development workshop.

Run by the South Australian Film Corporation and facilitated by Stephen Cleary, the workshop will include a series of lectures and one-on-ones to fast track the script writing process. Now that the teams have the ideas we’re going to push through what Low Budget is all about – momentum!

For people interested in participating in this innovative low budget filmmaking initiative, a FilmLab side door will be available – this is for teams who may already have a script that’s ready to go, and need the funding to make it happen. Guidelines to the side door will be released in late February 2010, followed by an application deadline in May. How exciting!

Applications for the second round of the FilmLab intensive workshop and production funds of up to $350,000 is expected to be in September 2010, followed by the workshop in early 2011.

For more information about FilmLab, visit http://www.safilm.com.au/Content.aspx?p=161

See you soon!

AT

It’s been quite a while since the last blog post. The first official intensive is now far behind us and the Labsters have been squirrelling away in development with the occasional word for the past couple of months.

A few things have happened recently that you could call highlights!

Firstly, you may or may not have noticed the FilmLab logo popping up here and thereon the SAFC website and perhaps even on this user profile. It will be appearing more and more so keep an eye out for it. We personally think it’s a bit of alright, but would love to know your thoughts!

Secondly, we’re madly working undercover to get resources from FilmLab together for the industry – in a format to be released  soon. I was thinking we could do video holograms of lectures, to be beamed direct to your frontal lobes – but was told that this wasn’t in keeping with the “Lo Budget” mentality. Oh well, one can dream. Stay posted.

Thirdly, we brought the labsters back together for a half day seminar presented by one refreshed Stephen Cleary, and each team got to sit down for an hour to discuss the next stage of their project. As we predicted, some teams are raring to go knocking on production’s door, while others are keen to explore their stories in development and let them ripen into something fabulous. We also had a chance to chat to the Labsters in retrospect and ask them what they thought of the process and what they learnt about Low Budget film making through the Lab. Their answers were very interesting, and we’ll share them soon.

That’s it from me for the moment, but I’ll be sure to keep upating as often as I can, and see if I can get you guys back here regularly.

Unfortunately no pictures of food or otherwise for today’s post, but I do care to mention a rather delicious curry I had for lunch if anyone needs something to visualise.

AT

So we’ve reached the first peak. (And although I write about it 2 weeks later it’s still as though it was just yesterday)

The first ever intensive workshop for FilmLab has finished. Survivor, eat your heart out! Biggest Loser, they’ve gained a lot more than you’ll ever lose! But to put aside any more references to reality television, the final day of the workshop certainly didn’t fizzle, and everyone was already a winner. (But we knew that before we started)

Following the previous day’s presentations to an industry market panel for feedback, there was a big general sigh of relief. The scariest part was over, and we could all come back into the safe circle of trust that has been one of the driving forces of encouragment in the workshop.

But first, an early start. “Meet 9am at the op-shop on O’Connell street!” Paddy says.
Sorry Sophie, contrary to your suggestion op-shopping was not on the agenda – instead, it was time to show the world (the world being the 3 people at St. Pauls Cathedral) just what we’d been learning to do with our voices. So much pressure, and what a room to fill! After a few warm up excercises the group realised how much difference there is between the terribly echoey kookaburra cafe, and the wonderfully vast ceilings of the cathedral. With the instruction to “fill the space with sound until you can hear it come back to you”, we certainly noticed a lack of Sonya’s strong soprano contribution.

We spent enough time on Somewhere Over the Rainbow to give Dorothy a thousand trips to Oz and back. The guys certainly had it tough, considering the higher the pitch, the easier it was to make the sound resonate. In any case, 45 minutes of “singing to the window” proved successful in an explosive rendition of Life on Mars, complete with big finish, followed by 90 seconds of Bach – entry music for the churchgoers arriving for their 10am service (after which we promptly vacated, lest they ask us to join in some hymns and discover we can only really sing 3 songs!)

Back at base, the Labsters finally had an opportunity to reveal their final presentations to the other teams, for feedback and discussion. This revealed that we have some very varied projects on our hands, which will certainly all take different amounts of time to complete. The next few years will certainly be interesting to watch.

Our final delicious lunch together made us realise that from now on, we’d have to cook for ourselves again, and the reality of leaving the lab began to set in. Still, with so much to go on with, a well deserved break has definitely been earned – and there’s plenty of homework assigned, no doubt about that. Unfortunately everyone declined my suggestion of staging a scene resembling “The Last Supper” with Stephen at the centre after lunch. We got a good group photo later on, but still… Next time gadget…

The teams then got a few final hours of project time, during which Paddy recorded Matt’s song – and to redeem ourselves for the morning’s performance, we all got a session with the headphones and microphone, to add a bit of something extra to the song. Kudos to Russell for putting it all together in one day. Masterful!

As we neared the end of the “official” day, it was time for the producers to show us their masterpieces. Each compiled a 90 second clip of what FilmLab has been for them, and amidst excuses of “I’m a producer, not a cinematographer or editor!” (like we didn’t know), every clip was actually pretty fun – except of course Bryan’s, who (being a cinematographer AND editor) really showed us what a fish eye lens and time lapse can say in 90 seconds. These are intended to be posted on the FilmLab website as soon as it goes live, and you’ll definitely hear about it on here!

A final supper of dips, crackers and cheese made us late for our own end of workshop celebration, but as soon as we arrived no fun was spared. The best part was that we got through to the end, alive, in one piece mentally and physically, with no major dramas.*

*In actual fact what we ended up with is more like a comedy, a doco, a docu/sortof/drama/something/maybe, and a non-threatening skeleton that will be fleshed out in due course

Although the first workshop is over, alas, I can not excape so easily. This blog will continue to be updated periodically with information about all things FilmLab – so be sure to stop by every now and again and grace my pages with your gaze.

It’s been fun for me, and I hope reading it has been the same!

AT

This picture can tell its own thousand words.

“Alright divas now don’t mess up my harmony and make me look bad…” directs Sarah.

I think this was healthy as well as being delicious, although I still have no idea what to call it.

Good luck all!

Today was the pinnacle moment of the week’s preparation. After a few quick tech checks the the Labsters were thrust in front of a Market panel comprised of Nick Batsias, Rachel Okine, Antonia Barnard, Michael Favelle and Katrina Sedgwick. This complex blend of distrubutor, producer, sales agent and festival programmer extraordinaire were to hear a presentation from each team, outlining the project they had chosen to pull out of the other side of the lab and produce through the scheme.

Once major difference that marked this presentation was that none of the other teams were going to be in the room to hear it – the focus was completely on engaging the market panel and getting their honest feedback. This meant that in comparison to previous spiels, the projects were being introduced to an entirely new audience of people who had not gone through the whole process. They would not have read the very first concept documents, they would not have seen the creative exploration to find the heart of the story, or the genesis of the characters. The Labsters had a challenge of condensing all of the past 3 weeks into 10 minutes, clearly, with a point, and some indication of the film that would be made from it.

Fortunately for me, most teams decided to keep it simple technically, which gave way to honest, engaging and concise delivery. First up was Matt C, Sophie and Bryan, who stimulated much discussion and questioning from the panel (maybe a little too much because we seemed to run out of time too quickly). Next, Matt B and Julie sandwiched their presentation between some effectively cut imagery, eliciting a number of laughs from the panel (which they may have regretted later). Ashlee and Sonya then stepped in, armed only with their voices, their facial expressions, and most importantly a great story. Matt and Sarah turned things around with a DVD representation of the presentation (what a mouthful) of a few days earlier, giving a great sense of atmophere and the next step in their low budget feature journey. Finally, Hugh and Eddie treated the panel to a change of location (and a cushier chair) in the mixing theatre, for some live demonstration of bear development.

Overall the panel were impressed with the process, and are interested to see the next stage of each film as it develops. Granted, they recognised that some projects had been created 2 years ago, and others only 2 days ago, so the veritable fruit salad offered was always going to be diverse – and they were very open to that.

In the evening, we dragged the panel to the Mercury Cinema, where they bestowed some wisdom on the local industry about marketing, distribution, sales, and what film makers should be thinking about and when. The venue was packed with film makers of all levels, which was great to see. We really should have panels like this more often!

After a gruelling and informative 2 hours, we released our guests back into the wild, and set off home, to get some rest for the 15th and final day of this FilmLab intensive work shop. Not the End, nor the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning of the beginning… or something to do with spanners…

It’s been quite a ride.

AT

Our guests have a chuckle (which we hope was the intended outcome of this particular presentation)

Julie rejoices – whether because of the beer, Michael Favelle’s presence, or the fact the presentations are over I’m still not sure about.

Sweet relief, bitter brew, and something about a film.

Information in people form.

It seems somewhat ironic that I would choose such a title for this post, considering that last night was one of the coldest so far this season, and tonight looks like it might be even colder! Although the building here may experience that cold from time to time, the Labster’s are certainly feeling the heat with only one more night before they have to present their chosen project to the panel of guests.

Ready and raring as they were to start brainstorming and writing, the morning would not be complete without a musical warm up. I must admit that I did miss today’s singing session, as I was running around like a headless chicken picking up equipment, but I hear that the Bach is coming along nicely, and everyone is slipping into the German lyrics with a bit of encouragement. I think tomorrow I may hand out moustache growing kits just to get everyone into the spirit, and follow this with 1L Oktoberfest steins if they still need assistance in feeling the mood (they’ll have to supply their own beer though). Later in the day I heard people humming along to an African song Paddy taught us early last week, so I can only assume that formed a part of this morning’s session too.

The focus of today’s lecture was exploring tools to sum down all of the essential elements and add any important points that must be included, then cram that all into an engaging 5-7 minute presentation that says all the things you need to say, but not too much about plot, and make the audience want to see the film you haven’t yet made. EASY!

Thus the task for the day was set. Bellies full of lunch (not photographed today but can be described as a vision of risotto, shepherds pie, stuffed capsicums and raspberry and pear crumble of delight!) the Labsters scurried off to begin drafting their presentations. They then proceeded to meet with Stephen, Paddy and Peter for a practice run, some feedback, and then back to the drawing board towards perfection.

Fortunately we’ve managed to convince the market panel to stay on after the FilmLab presentations, and they will be presenting a discussion chaired by SAFC CEO Richard Harris (senor tenor extraordinaire) at the Mercury cinema tomorrow night at 6pm. They will be discussing the all important (but often overlooked) aspects of marketing film, and it should be an informative event for everyone who attends – and everyone is invited so no excuses! More details are on the SAFC website, just click the link on the right.

Technically speaking, no one has asked me to build any rocket ships or program any androids, so tomorrow should go fairly smoothly from that point of view. This is just as well, as I discovered my motor skills had somewhat diminished at 5am this morning as I struggled to assemble a kinder surprise toy. One wonders why I was assembling children’s toys, eating chocolate, or even awake at all at that time of morning… but the three elements seemed to play together nicely, even if it took me longer than usual to construct the plastic character I have now nicknamed “Paddy Note-head”. Paddy Cunneen was introduced to his mini-me at lunch today and I’m sure he’s now gone to a loving home. (The plastic toy, not the ACTUAL Paddy)

Wishing good luck to the Labster teams for tomorrow, I’ll leave you with some images of the new additions to the family.
AT

Paddy Note-head, who has now been dubbed “Crotchet Head” by the REAL Paddy, composes scores for us to sing in weird languages…

Crotchet Head’s distant cousin Stephen Opaquey. Mr. Opaquey did not require any assembly so was therefore not as entertaining at 5am. Sorry Stephen!

“And then you make them go WOOP WOOP! – Don’t you see Eddie? It’s just genius!”

There’s no escaping this all seeing eye! Extreme wide angle of the “fishy” kind courtesy of B Mason. (Let’s name him Lord Sauron…)

Following yesterday’s epic punctuality fail, I was determined to get to the SAFC on time this morning and not miss out on the vocal warm up. I seemed set to acheive my goal until I was rudely interrupted by a series of police cars on Port Road doing some random drug and alcohol tests. Foiled again! I thought, resisting the urge to ask my allocated policeman if his moustache was real or if it was some kind of motorcycle cop fashion statement. “I swear, this wide eyed look of inspiration on my face is not drug induced… come join us for some singing officer!”

I finally arrived during the last repetition of Life on Mars, just in time to move on to the Bach. The basses and tenors were taught the final phrase of the song, and we were ready to combine all of the glorious elements – the only one we weren’t expecting was to try to sing it all in German. I have to say the overall sound was quite impressive, even if the language suddenly turned our chorus of “oooos” into a phlegm-fest. I’m still struggling to read a squiggly “B” as an “s” sound, and with only 3 days to really perfect it we’d better lift our game. Still, with Eddie now returned from the land of the germ infested, we don’t have to reach so far.

The songfest was wrapped up by Peter who assumed Paddy’s position behind the keyboard (but to our disappointment didn’t use the thing), directing the Labsters into pairs for some conversation and story telling. I’m sure many people discovered some interesting new things about others that they didn’t know before.

Stephen’s lecture today (recorded of course!) began with a group activity. The Labsters were to construct the main elements of a horror/slasher film, starting with establishing the characters in the film, the order in which we meet them, and then plot events that lead to the death of most of them. Made me think twice about going to my grandmother’s dilapidated log cabin any time soon…

Each team was then instructed to write up a log line for their project and present it to the group. They were then asked to further abstract the information in those paragraphs and present a simple 3 or so sentence outline of the essence of the project as it were. There has been a lot of creativity distilled in the past 2 weeks, and now it is time to compile all of the information into the necessary documents. Ashlee seems thrilled that she is no longer confined to the art room, and the embargo on her writing has been lifted. The teams then spent the rest of the afternoon fleshing out their story ideas, in preparation for the final presentation to the market representative panel on Tuesday.

There were a lot of locked office doors while the Labsters pondered their latest offering. I’m glad the only major decision for me today was at lunch time, leaving me to decide whether to fondue or “fonDON’T”.

AT

Bryan explains his feelings on the moment he discovered he was half man-half tiger.

“Give me some characters for this story so we can kill them off in interesting, exciting and generic ways.”

“Sure you can take my photo… Then leave me alone so I can get back to work!”  – One wonders what kind of work involves a roll of toilet paper Sarah…

No soup for you! (Because we ate it all… delicious!)

I wandered into this morning’s singing session 10 minutes late, and found to my dismay that all of those silly sounding vocal warm ups actually make a massive difference. So, while trying to find the right key, I amused myself by failing to take photographs of an elusive Matt Bate, who kept hiding behind his sheet music. In the end I gave up and decided that the sheet music should get the spotlight instead (photo below).

We do seem to be doing a lot of work on perfecting these harmonies however, and I’m beginning to wonder what we’ll all do once we have mastered it. Will the Labsters get together once a week to make sure we still got it? Hope so. It puts everyone in a great frame of mind each morning.

Today’s singing was wrapped up with a bit of a wild card from Peter, who unwound all of our sweet choir style rehearsal with some yodelling and cow herding practice. Great fun. Good thing it is really Saturday and there is no one else in the building… Makes me wonder if we’ll be manoeuvering cows through the offices in the next few days… Anything is possible.

Stephen then rounded the troops into the lecture theatre for a detailed breakdown of story elements, and what the Labsters should be thinking about for the coming week. They were recently informed that this coming Tuesday would bring their final presentation – but the catch?…

…The usual team spectators will be replaced by a panel of Market Representatives and SAFC staff! These same people will be presenting a panel on Tuesday night at the Mercury Cinema, “Beyond Production: Getting Your Film to Market” (more info is on the SAFC website – see the link to the right so you don’t miss it!) The pressure is on the Labsters to present their ideas to highly experienced industry members, who haven’t been around to witness the creative process of development. It is time to break down the project presentations to the usable elements, and put them together for a new audience.

We figure that this would be yet another engaging challenge. But if the Labsters can get into their own locked offices without keys (no names) sheerly on the basis of desire, then I daresay there will be a lot of socks hanging from the ceiling fans in the presentation room*.

*Here I wish to note that I have been making many references to socks and ceiling fans within the SAFC building. However to my knowledge I have not seen any ceiling fans since I have worked here. Consider this an effective visual metaphor and please do not make a note of bringing it to my attention. For those of you that were considering it… well done, aren’t you clever, let’s move on now.

With only four more days to go and the pressure mounting, my premonition is that the Labsters will finish this process energised and inspired, rather than exhausted, which is great footing for the next step in FilmLab.

AT

I can’t make neither head nor tail of it. I just watch Paddy’s eyebrows go up and down indicating which note comes next…

Julie knows when she’s hit the note she wants.

Paddy tells us we need to do it again, this time, WITH FEELING!

Matt misinterprets Paddy’s instructions above and feels himself. Ashlee hopes she isn’t next…

“Just a couple of complex points to remember off the top of your heads guys. No need to write them down.”