Lumina tied for silver in the Best Non-Fiction category for Australia & New Zealand.

Lumina is published by the Australian Journal of Screen Arts and Business, and was edited by David Court, Sandra Levy, Karen Pearlman and yours truly.

The current issue focusing on ‘Screenwriting’ can be purchased from AFTRS online here.

Brought to you by the Australian Film Television and Radio School, this issue contains interviews from the past year including:

• screenwriters such as Justin Monjo, Jacquelin Perske, Andrew Knight and Alice Bell
• writer turned director Stuart Beattie (Tomorrow When the War Began)
• producers Sue Taylor (The Tree) and Emile Sherman (The King’s Speech)
• teams such as Claire McCarthy and Jamie Hilton (The Waiting City)
• writer/director/actor Brendan Cowell and online wunderkind Nicholas Carlton

Interviews and edit by yours truly over the course of many a Friday eve. That’s many a bier forgone at the Bavarian.

So get your holiday reading now here online.

Congratulations to DOP Judd Overton.

The film is a colourful mix of 16mm film, digital effects and hand-drawn 2D animation and will feature soon on the festival circuit.

The brainchild of the South Australian Film Corp, the TV Mini Lab will help up to ten TV projects reach pitch readiness, with the ultimate aim of stimulating local production for their new studios.

From the perspective of both a writer who developed a drama project with Southern Star and now a development exec helping the company shape drama projects for network pitching, I’ll be outlining various processes, models and creative approaches undertaken at Southern Star for making drama projects network friendly.

Applications close August 6 through the SAFC, so get yourself a form (and hopefully a South Australian based producer) and I hope to see you there.

Having finished its international festival run, it will now be screened on AFI TV online, as well as a inclusion in a programme of cutting edge short films at Red Hot Shorts on April 23!

Red Hot Shorts has now been upgraded to ACMI’s swish Cinema 1. Onwards and upwards! (and onwards, and onwards…)

Having co-produced, recorded and edited sample CDs with Norman Cook, Coldcut, Pascal Gabriel, Neil Conti (Prefab Sprout/David Bowie), Miles Bould (Sting/Robert Palmer), Dave Ruffy (Ruts/Sinead O’Connor), Danny Cummings (Dire Straits/George Michael) and personal sample library products with Vince Clarke and JJ Jeczalik from Art Of Noise, Groves’ sample sounds can be heard on albums from Mirwais (Madonna) to The Crystal Method, Yello through to the Matrix soundtrack, Gary Numan to the Batman Forever soundtrack.

For three years he worked with Mark “Spike” Stent at the MixSuite, Olympic Studios, with projects including tracks for Black Eyed Peas, Depeche Mode, Aqualung, Goldfrapp and forthcoming Radiohead tracks.

This gives but a hint of the man’s diverse talent. Dazzle him with your next film idea.

Contact: Level 7 Studios, Sydney
Email: lee.groves@mac.com

The findings were varied, so much so that aspirations for a 10-point plan at the beginning resulted in only two by the end – and one of those divided opinion.

But the resounding message, proposed by AFTRS’ Dr Karen Pearlman and discussed at length in the December issue of the film school’s journal Lumina, was that Australia needs to “stop telling its own stories” and start “making more myths”. Stories of scale, dynamism and, above all, inspiration.

In other words, it needs less slit-your-wrists a’capella style films and more anthems to rouse the masses. (Or, more’s the point, both. And everything in between.) Where is the We Will Rock You of Australian film? The Wonderwall? The FIFA World Cup playlist?

Then we might hear the stomp of many happy feet into our cinemas when the next Australian film is screening.

Other highlights of the night included:

• “It’s a fallacy that [Australia] has poor creativity. I read five scripts a week and most of them are crap. A good script is really, really difficult and we churn out about as many of them as you’d expect.” – Troy Lum, Hopscotch Entertainment

• “Remember what Hitchcock said: Film is life with the boring bits cut out.’ Well, we don’t cut the boring bits out!” – Tony Ginnane, http://www.spaa.org.au/

• “We need to get some perspective: these people [who don't watch Australian films] wouldn’t have seen Half Nelson either, or La Vie En Rose – and that was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film!” – Rachel Ward, director of Beautiful Kate

• “Think of the last ride in The Man From Snowy River. Australian audiences want that moment! They don’t mind the tough trip but they want that payoff.” – Margaret Pomeranz, At The Movies

• “Most of our successful films – Crocodile Dundee, Happy Feet, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert – have been hero stories… films that tell them we can endure things” – Garry Maddox, SMH

• “We need to invest in the foundation – time, money – not just in the infrastructure [of development process]” – Louisa Carlin, Australian Writers’ Guild

• “I disagree with paying ‘writers in rooms’.” – Dr Ruth Harley, Screen Australia

• “It’s not the number of drafts, it’s the idea behind it. Every writer should have 20 ideas. If one’s not right, stop peddling it around! Move on to another one… This is the business of ideas.” – Troy Lum

and…

• “These are good films. If Australian don’t want to see them, STUFF THEM! They’re bloody lazy!” – Margaret Pomeranz

To hear Troy Lum talk more about “the business of ideas” and his place in it, come to Friday On My Mind tonight, Friday Oct 23, at AFTRS.

In this outtake from my interview with him yesterday, we glean an anecdote about his friend Douglas Adams, the author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and renowned Apple advocate:

“Douglas was a great enthusiast about science and humour and satire. I was asked to design an early TV version of Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy that was never made. Douglas didn’t like the BBC version – though I liked it. Douglas and I hit it off immediately. But ultimately the ABC [American Broadcasting network] wanted to Americanise it too much. That was ultimately a disastrous idea and much to my relief it was cancelled.

“I can say I brought Douglas into the world of computers, which he satirized so much in Hitchhiker’s Guide. I said ‘they really are going to be marvelous, extraordinary things!’ I eventually talked him into getting a little Macintosh. He later traveled the world advocating Apple computers and knew far more about computers than I ever did! In his apartment in London he had a whole room stacked with old Macintoshes!”

– Douglas Adams was an Apple user until his death in 2001. Adams was made an “Apple Master”, one of several celebrities (including included John Cleese and Gregory Hines) whom Apple made into spokespeople for its products.

A full interview with Ron Cobb will be published in the December issue of Lumina.

And the Chauvel is bound to be full on October 22 when an industry forum is presented by Metro Screen (6.30pm–8.30pm) to discuss just this.

Why don’t the majority of Australian films attract Australian audiences? Why did Australian films represent only 3.8% of the total box office last year? What can be done about it?

All this and more at ‘OZ FILM VS. OZ AUDIENCE’. And only $5 a seat.

Moderator: Andrew Urban
Panelists:
Dr Ruth Harley – CEO Screen Australia
Troy Lum – managing director of Hopscotch Films
Margaret Pomeranz – At The Movies ABC
Garry Maddox – journalist, Sydney Morning Herald
Susan Hoerlein – publicity & promotions manager, Tsuki Marketing
Rachel Ward – actor/writer/director
Anthony I. Ginnane – SPAA

Book online here at Metro Screen.

From The Boys to The Bank to Three Dollars, Robert Connolly’s films have always had a political dimension. In Balibo, he turns his eye to the international arena with his depiction of the death of six journalists in events surrounding Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1975.

See my review of the film here.

Time: 5-6pm
Date: Friday, August 7
Venue: AFTRS Theatre, Fox Entertainment Quarter

Friday On My Mind is AFTRS‘ weekly event bringing you face to face with the industry’s brightest thinkers.

Free entry. Free 2-hr parking. All welcome.