Butch aka Travis

Well as of today, i am 24.

Its wierd, i never thought I would get this old.

I just got back from ole Brisbane town. I enjoyed myself, i saw 5 films i have been trying to see for ages.

I went out haunting all of my old video stores, even payed the fine at one of them, it was 4 years old. I swear to god, that little Video Ezy has a far superiour collection of films than my RMIT library, or any video store around here.

I saw 2 movies on cable, and 3 DVDS.

1. Bonnie and Clyde

Really good film. If i made a film like this, I would die a happy man. Excellent script, great acting, expecially by Faye Dunaway, female stars these days just dont have her quality, in looks, in performance, or in the way she carries herself

2. The Outlaw Josey Wales

The quintessential Mr Eastwood flick, I saw this film ages ago when I was a wee lad, and I finally saw it again. Eastwood is better than John Wayne there I said it.

3. Jules et Jim

A film by Mr Truffaut. When I watch a French New Wave film i just forget everything i know about films and just watch. If you try to watch this in the same way you would watch a Hollywood flick you would switch it off, or hate it and then tell your friends you like it in order to be Avant Garde. I didnt mind it, it is such a wandering storyline, you can never quite figure out exdactly what is going on, throw into that some very bizarre lines such as “I dont know if it raining or if this is a dream land” (?!)

But I do like how Goddard and Truffaut do things for the sake of doing them, such as, in this film, Truffaut decided to just freeze on a frame while the dialouge carries on, and he does this several times, it also happens in Breathless and aband a parte, where they play with the visual or the sound just for the hell of it.

The best part of this film is that the main character Jules is writing a story about his adventures with his best friend Jim, he called is Jack and Joe, which is very close to the title of another film I know of, and whats more is that its a complete coincidence.

4. Amadeus

This is one of these films I could never get a hold of. But I finally did, and perhaps i expected a little too much. I thought it was a good film, and the music was great (i have long been a Mozart fan) But they could have done so much more, I think if they had stayed truer to the life story of Mozart this would have been a superiour film.

Tom Hulce is alright in this role, but why oh why did they have to find an American with perhaps the whiniest voice in history and make him play Mozart? Surely there were better actors.

F. Murray Abraham is supurb as Salieri.

5. The Deer Hunter.

A 3 hour marathon by my M. Cimino. The first hour of this movie contains. SOme guys at work, they finish and then one of them is getting married so they go to his wedding which doubles as farewell to three of the boys (including the groom) who have been drafted to fight in Vietnam. It is a bit of a struggle to maintain interest. The scene then changes in a flash when you see the boys in Vietnam, they accidently meet up, they are then captured and are forced as POW’s to play Russian Roulette, it is morbidly fascinating to watch, all the while your palms sweat and your breathing get deeper. You may have a different reaction, but i dont think i blinked for about half an hour, it was really that compelling.

Christopher Walken was amazing as Nic.

So there you go. Make sure you see at least one of these movies this year.

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I don’t know exactly why, but I have a natural affliction for offending people.

I have always been that way. I admit I have calmed myself down in recent years, I am aware that as a moody teenager (which wasn’t long ago) I pissed off so many people, I had a longer list of enemies than friends.. But do I care? No

I bet you are asking (especially Elisa) “Travis, where are you going with this? This has nothing to do with film?” Well if you just wait for a moment, I will come to my point

My point is, I seem to offend people with my view on film making, some people aside, but for the most part, I get the feeling that people think I am an idiot because I feel independent and underground films are better than mainstream. Why do I feel like this? I love the ART involved in making films. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a fan of art house, not a fan at all, but there is something magical about a Stanley Kubrick stare in a beautifully composed shot, than in the explosion of a car. There is something infinitely beautiful in Richard E. Grant’s retelling of Hamlet at the end of Robinsons Withnail & I, than Harrison Ford once again having a run in with the President

Withnail & I - Bruce Robinson

I see art differently I guess. I see anything that is well made (I mean anything) as art. The new wave style of shooting employed by Goddard in Breathless, the amazing ranting and raving character of Madman Munt running down a burning hallway with a shotgun yelling out ‘I’ll show you the life of the mind!!!’ in the Coen Bros. sublime Barton Fink, or a 318 Hemi Engine dropped into a 1970 model Valiant VF Coupe…. that is art to me.

Barton Fink - Ethan and Joel Coen

Changing topic, I have of late spent some time amongst the blogs of my fellow finishing Masters students, and there are things I read I strongly agree with and then there is some stuff that just doesn’t register in my brain.

JONI
Joni and I, despite being expatriates from the ‘Republic’, are from different schools of thought.

This from her blog

When a person says the reason they love the entertainment industry is because they want to be a storyteller, I think, how clichéd! It is such a stock answer I wonder if they even know what they are truly saying. Narrator, teller of tales, recounter, is this what they mean? If this is their best answer I think they have chosen the wrong profession.

This is bad news for yours truly. This is what I always say. I want to tell stories, no doubt about it, I never got in this purely on the basis I want money (don’t get me wrong, I want the money, I want it all) but film making is as much about the business as it is for the story telling

I doubt if you asked a color grader why they enjoyed the entertainment industry they would say because of story telling.

Hence the reason I am no colour grader. But surely the same above statement would never apply to a writer? Or a Director?

OVEN

Oyvind and are alike and different at the same time. Oven wrote

I keep hearing that if I want to be successful in the media industry, I have to have a story that I want to tell, and that I have to be pastionate about my storytelling.

I don’t know who told you that. As Joni has already pointed out, I doubt a colour gradist perfected his craft for the story. He takes as much satisfaction from doing his job well as I would putting together nicely flowing dialogue.

The Long Goodbye - Robert Altman

But enough of my negativity, I have had much discussion time with Rups, Jennie and my folks on this topic the last few weeks, but all are happy that it is evident the passion is there in the first place. The thing is, I know what I want, and it’s just a matter of going out and getting it.

This masters has been a very long journey for me, and I can honestly say, I don’t think I learn much at all, until I took Elisa’s class that is, but that aside, I felt so idle (and I hate feeling idle) that I had to go and do something, to alleviate the boredom, and I fell in love with film making all over again.

We have also have a lot of guest speakers, and I have been asked to do a little blog concerning all of them, but some I found a little in effective. I have previously explained about Paul from MadMan, but to be blatantly and brutally honest, the best Speaker I have had in this entire degree was Elisa Tranter. Why? Because she has actually helped me, instead of being negative, she was positive, something I was beginning to forget about. Where others told me I was mad to do this, or mad to do that, Elisa just nodded her head and said “great”.

Bande a part - Jean Luc Goddard

I know I sound like a suck, but I mean every word. Rups was also a good help, it was nice to find someone else who is completely engrossed in the art of film making, but it was Elisa that kept me nailed to the floor.

Which leads me to ask, why is she any different from any other lecturer? The answer is, experience, and know how, and that fact that she has earnt her way up, rather than sitting on her ass and blaming everyone else for keeping he down, an affliction which I have to shake.

My greatest fear for her is that she will continue to lecture!! Mainly because lecturers seem to get stuck in a comfortable situation, and don’t like to move.

In closing, if this doesn’t pass as a blog, I don’t care, it is something I have long known and feel better for saying it.

This will be my last MMP related blog, and so I sign out.

I will keep up the blogging though so please drop by.

TS

I quite liked Ewan. He came in and gave us a talk about this and that (i dont recall what he actually said) but he was very interesting to listen to.

To just listen to him you would think he were sitting in a gutter begging for banana peels, yet in the same sentance will casually mention he is going to Cannes next week to go to a meet market!

Ewan has a lot of similar traits to my ole man, the main one being that they were both born in the same town. The second being they are modest acheivers, and I love that. He lets his actions do the talking, rather then telling everyone how good he is, or who he knows, or how he is a successful producer in a country where production companies are a dime a dozen and make very little money, or impact.

Ewan targeted a specific market and went for it (Childrens programming), maybe a little more financially orientated than my style, but who the hell am I to critisize?

If Australia, had more effective people like Ewan, especially in the beaurocratic positions down at your local govt. funding body. The industry here would not be in such dire straits, if it is infact in dire straits.

Ewan also mentioned that he blew his one chance to make a feature film, and now he will never make it. I hope that ain’t the case. I would love to see it one day

Not so long ago we all went down to Digital Picture in South Melbourne for a field trip.

It was once again an eye opening experience. Equipment i couldnt imagine getting my hands on in a million years. Things that seem so out of my reach; that sometimes they appear as illusionary, came to life at the (seemingly) simple twist a knob, or the slap of a button. Here I am in the Masters suite trying my best to best to belt out a passable colour grade, and there at Digital Pictures is a guy who can make the most amazing colour grade in the blink of an eye.

There were some promising things that were said. One was that HDV is apparently the next big thing, comforting to hear knowing that Rups and I just shot our feature on that respective medium.

There were a few things that kinda got under my skin though.

The operator of this huge colour grading machine made jokes about how bad his job is, how he has put in long hours, and sometimes its not rewarding enough. I felt like walking up to him andd saying “Oh you poor man, you work in an industry that i will more likely than not waste my life trying to crack, how about we trade? Ill do your job and you can make coffee for Toorak socialites and take their remarks and cynysisms with good nature, since you are in such a bad position, I will take your burden”

If he hates it, all he has to do is get up and get out and let someone else walk into his position, there is only 1 million people who would love to do what he is doing, regardless of how arbatory (and I admit, after 30 years, it easily could become that)

The second strange, and a little heart wrenching aspect of DP workers, is they spend all their creative juices and all their time, taking directions from apparently horrible advertising executives. None of those guys could ever convince me they are living the dream. Surely they must want to create? Maybe not, maybe they are different to me….

It takes all sorts i s’pose.