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).
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.
I believe that learning to work within limitations is an incredibly important part of being a filmmaker. On many (if not not all) projects it is simply a requirement. In addition to this, however, I believe that it can actually be a very big help to the creative process. This is something I learned early on in my film career and I still believe it today. Some of my best work has come out of the technical or logistical limitations I had to work with. So with every new project, instead of cursing the limitations and restrictions I face (even though sometimes it’s mighty tempting) I do my best to actually embrace them.
Yesterday we shot a bunch of stuff around Sandringham, Beaumaris, and Mentone for our video for “Going Away Song” by our good friends Watson/Liow. The clip stars AFI nominated actress Irene Chen and Megan Gigacz who both did an amazing job. Yesterday was our most physically challenging day of shooting so far. Many thanks to [...]
Today marks the launch of our first promo video for Missing Link Digital Media. This clip was directed by the one and only David Shiyang Liu, with production being undertaken by the entire KKP crew including Maia dancing as the skeleton (named “Skeletor the Grim Leaper”, just “Skeletor” to friends).If you like the clip, pass [...]
VIEW ALTERNATE: YOUTUBE / QUICKTIME / VIMEOARTIST: SPACECADET LULLABIESTRACK: TALI MEETS MR RICKETTS DIRECTED & EDITED BY: CHRIS PAHLOW & MAIA TARRELLPRODUCER: CHRIS PAHLOW DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY:JAQUE FISHER ART DIRECTORS: JENNIFER WONG & MAIA TARRELL POST-PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR: DAVID SHIYANG LIU FOCUS PULLER: MARCUS ALLEMAN CAMERA ASSISTANT / DOCUMENTARY: MICHAEL CIARLO CAMERA ASSISTANT: GUS GEORGE ART [...]
While we were on set shooting the new video for Spacecadet Lullabies our good friend Ryan Humphreys took a bunch of great stills, including these incredible soft focus ones. Enjoy:Thanks again to Ryan for his help on the day. Make sure you check out his other work here!
Here’s a bunch more photos from the Spacecadet Lullabies shoot we did a couple of weeks back. These lovely shots were taken by award winning photographer Ryan Humphreys. Many thanks to Ryan for helping us out. Click here to check out more of his work. And, just for fun, here’s a few extra shots taken [...]
Maia & I are currently in pre-production on the debut music video for Spacecadet Lullabies. The track is “Tali Meets Mr Ricketts”, from the soon to be released album, “Ghost Songs”. Here’s a little taste of what we’ve been working on so far… LOCATION SCOUTING Test shots taken by the one and only Jaque Fisher. [...]
