Production Design on show at ACMI

Anyone interested in Production Design should try and get themselves to Melbourne to see the Exhibition 'Setting the Scene'


Baz Luhrmann sets up home at ACMI

[Thu 30/10/2008 02:27:21]

[Press Release by ACMI]

Visitors to Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) will have a world exclusive opportunity to step onto the set of Baz Luhrmann’s soon-to-be-released feature film Australia when Setting the Scene: Film Design from Metropolis to Australia opens in Melbourne on December 4, 2008.

Setting the Scene: Film Design from Metropolis to Australia is an astonishing behind the scenes examination of filmmaking through production design. Devoted to the work of film production designers, set designers and film architects, the exhibition pays tribute to the artists behind seminal works of film covering almost a century.

ACMI has curated an exclusive showcase of the work of Academy Award winning Australian production designer, Catherine Martin, for the exhibition. It will feature design concepts, sketches, models and research material as well as the living room set of the Faraway Downs homestead featured in the film, providing visitors with a unique opportunity to have and immersive experience by stepping ‘on set’ of Australia.

ACMI Director Tony Sweeney today said featuring Australian production designers in the exhibition, including Catherine Martin, highlights the leading role Australians have played in the film industry on the global stage.

"The exhibition opening, coinciding with the release of Australia, presents an unmissable opportunity to showcase one of Australia’s most respected and successful production design talents in Catherine Martin, alongside a selection of her prominent Australian and international colleagues,’ he said. ‘We’re thrilled to have collaborated closely with Bazmark Inq and Fox Studios to create this exclusive behind the scenes access to Australia and to explore and celebrate the role production design plays in creating the on screen magic of cinema’.

Martin is one of Australia’s most successful and awarded film designers, working in production, costume, set and scenic design. Her lavish design is a trademark of the work of long-time collaborator Baz Luhrmann’s films; Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge! (2001). For Moulin Rouge! Martin was awarded the Academy Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical and Best Costume Design and an AFI Award for Best Achievement in Production Design. In 2003 she won the Tony Award for her Scenic Design on Luhrmann’s Broadway production of La Bohème.

Featuring more than 300 original sketches, storyboards and models behind some of the most recognisable cinematic worlds, Setting the Scene: Film Design from Metropolis to Australia explores how spaces are constructed, how production design influences the narrative, mood and atmosphere of a film.

Other films featured in the exhibition include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), Mon Oncle (1958), Dr. Strangelove (1964), The Apartment (1960), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Cabaret (1972), Alien (1979), The Shining (1980), Dark City (1998), The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003),The Cat in the Hat (2003), Ned Kelly (2003), Dogville (2003), The Bourne Supremacy (2004),The Terminal (2004), The Proposition (2005),The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and Speed Racer (2008).

Works of Australian production designers, including Chris Kennedy (The Proposition), George Liddle (Dark City), Owen Patterson (The Matrix trilogy and Speed Racer), Roger Ford (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), Stephen Curtis (beDevil and Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy) and Steven Jones-Evans (Ned Kelly) are also featured in the exhibition.

Setting the Scene: Film Design from Metropolis to Australia opens on Thursday 4 December 2008 until Sunday 19 April 2009. Baz Lurhman’s Australia, starring Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, opens nationally in cinemas on November 26.

For more information, please visit: www.acmi.net.au and www.australiamovie.com

The Ladies Have a league of their own.. W League

Its with great excitement that the official W-League is off the ground in Australia. For years the best Aussie women have headed to the USA and Europe to play football.
Now with the introduction of the W-League, our players will have the chance to display and hone their skills and inspire more young women to take up the game.
This is one league ill be keeping an eye on and it was a cracker of a weekend, unfortunately my Mariners went down to Victory and have another tough game against Perth Glory at Parramatta this Saturday.
This is certainly an exciting time in Australia for football and it can only get better.

Monkey Puzzle finally makes it....

Looks like the little Aussie film I worked as Standby on back in April 2006 has finally made it to the big screen. This was a crazy film to do and had plenty of funny moments. In the making of that is! Some great titles and some beautiful scenery in this.. the story, hmm well maybe lacking at times, but hey you gotta love the Indie flicks.

Here is what IF (Inside Film www.if.com.au) is saying about it, and they are promoting the trailer heavily too...

Link to Trailer; http://if.com.au/2008/09/29/article/Monkey-Puzzle-trailer/SIOPFFURXF.html
Link to official site; www.monkeypuzzle.com.au

"After impressing film festival audiences around the world, Monkey Puzzle will be screening as a limited national release from 23rd October. Opening nights in Sydney, Melbourne and Katoomba will be a special event not to be missed with writer/director Mark Forstmann in attendance for a Q&A session.

This feature film debut from Mark Forstmann is a beautiful and dramatic journey into the unforgiving landscape of the New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, following five friends on the search for one of the world’s rarest trees, the Wollemi Pine, often referred to as a ‘Monkey Puzzle’ tree.

Forstmann is a proactive spokesman for environmental issues, and is one of the original 80 presenters that include Cate Blanchett, for Al Gore’s climate change program, as organised through the Australian Conservation Foundation. Taking these credentials and an active relationship with the bush, Forstmann has created a haunting ‘landscape film’ that explores the effects on the human psyche from this sometimes inhospitable wilderness.

Five friends abseil down into a remote rainforest canyon, but a series of mishaps hamper their adventure. Tensions in the group quickly surface. As the friends become engulfed by the harsh terrain, they come face-to-face with their most personal secrets and fears on a journey which will test their perceptions of friendship, intimacy and the nature of their pasts.

The best of guerrilla filmmaking, Monkey Puzzle was shot on location in the canyons of the Blue Mountains, the first Australian feature film to do so, with cinematographer Justine Kerrigan shooting on Super16mm film and capturing the action with available light only. The cast and crew found themselves abseiling into remote locations to shoot the film, immersing themselves in the heartland of the bush and ‘living’ the experience of their characters.
Featuring some of Australia’s top young actors Monkey Puzzle stars Ryan Johnson (Out Of The Blue, Underbelly, All My Friends are Leaving Brisbane, Secret Life of Us), Ben Geurens (McLeod’s Daughters, Home & Away, Neighbours, The Man from Snowy River), Ella Scott Lynch (Charlotte’s Web, The Falls, All Saints), Billie Rose Prichard (Candy, The Silence) and Socratis Otto (Matrix Reloaded, The Rage in Placid Lake).

The Wollemi Pine is a prehistoric tree recently discovered in the Blue Mountains, which according to scientists, should have died out with the dinosaurs. Its location is shrouded in secrecy as a preservation measure, and has developed a reputation as a type of ‘Holy Grail’. Monkey Puzzle taps into that mystery, exploring the theme “be careful what you search for”.

But finding the tree, or not, is less important than the journey itself and the lessons learnt along the way."