This review is written by Geoff.
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Many viewers will probably leave with their stomach churned after watching the film Snowtown for it’s dark and graphic portrayals of murder, pedophilia and rape. All showcased in one of this years best Australian films.
First time director Justin Kurzel delves viewers into a gritty, stylized view of lower class suburbia that will chill the audience and have them gripped to the screen every minute. Read more…
Note: this article is not meant to be taken entirely seriously. It’s party written and organised for some comedic value.
Also apologies to Peter Jackson, who I highly respect.
Welcome to ALARMING TRENDS, where every week or so we will look at what I think to be an alarming trend in Australian Cinema.
I do not judge a movie because a director is good looking or not. I don’t care about that stuff personally. After all I am the ugliest guy I know. It is ridiculous to judge a film or a person in general by appearance alone, but it isn’t that harsh to judge the judgemental people is it? Another note I want to make is that it is just a reality that there are very few Indigenous, Ethnic and Female directors in Australia. I tried to include them, but they were limited. I had the same issue with the American section. This is not a purposeful exclusion; I believe that there are no boundaries and races – we are all together as the human race.
Saying that, It is ridiculous how there are not that many Indigenous, Ethnic and Female directors – I hope this changes soon!
Anyway onto the looks, of who I like to call: ‘The Australian Photogencia’.
Over the last week, I stumbled across quite too many coincidences whilst compiling a list of Australian Film-makers….and I found them really interesting. I began to wonder if there is was a connection between good looks and movie directing in Australia. The questions that come up are many: Is this country really superficial? Are the people who greenlight movies really superficial? Do better looking people have better chance pitching movies? Are they trusted more? Do they have better chances getting money? Why in this country? Why is it that internationally the COMPLETE OPPOSITE occurs?!?
Questions, Questions, Questions. I wouldn’t normally put too much though towards these ideas, but when taking into account the ‘Stereotypical’ film-makers appearance and comparing it to the appearance of an Aussie Film-maker, these questions do come up.
Lastly before we get into it, I just want to add that I only see connections…This article is playing the Devils Advocate: I do not necessarily believe this to be true for all Australians.
I have prepared some cheat sheets to illustrate this phenomenon.
First up: THE AUSSIES:
We even get painted:
Next up:
INTERNATIONAL (Mostly American – I used a ‘most famous’ sort of barometer).
Here is a bonus sheet that Illustrates how incredibly backwards the international seems. And look it DIRECTLY affects the movies:
Thats it for now folks.
What do you think?
Come back next week for the second ‘Alarming Trends’ in which we look at ‘The killing of Dogs in Australian Cinema’
- By David.
UPDATE: I have made a couple of errors in the review. I attributed the song ‘Not Pretty Enough’ to Missy Higgins instead of Kasey Chambers; based on the comments I have been receiving over this, can I just make it clear that I have no problems with the song, only how it was used. I also said that Brent listens to Metal Music, apparently this is specifically called Hardcore/Metal. Apologies to anybody I offended. I don’t claim to know music – this is a movie site after all! Enjoy the review, it is a bit harsh this one!
‘The Loved Ones’ is a new Australian film which will be released on November 4th. Critics have been calling it both: the dating movie of the year and the horror movie of the year.
How wrong they are…
In general I try hard not to be the person who gets their expectations up on a movie based on the hype or a great trailer; but since ‘The Loved Ones’ was a movie that I looked forward to I can’t help but feel polarized now that I’ve seen it. I love genre flicks – especially horror – and Australia almost never makes them – and when we do i.e ‘Wolf Creek’ they come out great and better than others. Like Leigh Whannel and James Wan with ‘Saw’ and Greg Maclean with ‘Wolf Creek’…We can come up with great original ideas and execute them brilliantly. We can bring the new, and its that freshness that is the difference in what makes a good horror flick as opposed to the tired and formulaic American trash like the recent ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ and ‘Friday The 13th’ remakes. If all you ever do is rip off prior existing movies and go full steam ahead; charged solely on cliches and cheap manipulation tricks all you end up with is movies like ‘The Loved Ones.’
Because of marketing tricks that are just as cheap and manipulative as the filmic techniques used in the final movie – the film you end up seeing is nothing like the advertised. The storyline concerns itself with 17-year old Brent (played by Xavier Samuel), who becomes wracked with guilt after his fathers death, and thus descends into a life of weed smoking, metal music and well, more weed smoking. Brent is asked out to the prom by Lola Stone (Robin McLeavey), and he rejects her. With the help of her daddy she kidnaps Brent and basically tortures him for our own enjoyment and to presumably for the film-makers to showcase a immense hatred of women.
‘The Loved Ones’ is one of the most misogynistic movies I’ve seen in recent times. I found it even more so than Lars Von Triers’ ‘AntiChrist’. This is a particularly worrying trend in recent horror cinema, and ‘The Loved Ones’ is on a level higher than say ‘Hostel Part 2’, because at least the director of that movie Eli Roth bothered to portray a strong sincere female character – In ‘The Loved Ones’ the key problem is not that Lola Stone is the main villain, or the ‘torturer’ (this is part of it – but more on that later); the problem is that the writer/director Sean Byrne overloads the film with subplots and characters that feature not a single strong female to balance things out. Everything seems to go out of its way to put down women.
Let me explain:
There are four plots running at once during ‘The Loved Ones’:
1)The main arc: Brent gets tortured by Lola and her sick family.
2)Brent’s drug addicted and on-welfare mother sits at home waiting for Brent to arrive home. She teams up with Brent’s girlfriend Holly (Victoria Thaine) to look for him – the furthest they get is the help of the:
3)Police Officer, who looks for Brent. Inexplicably a huge part of the movie is the:
4)Police Officer’s drugged out/ metal head daughter on a date to the dance with a bumbling teenager; who is also a pothead – the connection that this half an hour of the movie section has with the rest in so minuscule and tiny that at one point I thought it may have been a short film made prior to the feature just inserted into expand the screen-time.
The running theme between all these stories is that women are either psychotic and want to kill men. Or that women are useless and want nothing but to submit to a man, preferably one with drugs, one who has a car, one who is a police officer, one who is a father. Etc. None of the female characters in the movie are stable and none of them are independent. ‘The Loved Ones’ seems to go out of its way to bring this across.
Xavier Samuel, just like the ‘Twilight’ character he portrays; displays not a single interesting aspect, or for that matter a recognizable human emotion (besides extreme pain). Fair enough that the guilt of his fathers death has affected his life so much, but if I truly believed the movie to be sincere I would not have an issue with this. The character reacts to their fathers death like a ‘movie character’ – not how a real person would.
A plot development like the father dying and the main character taking the blame – is not full characterization. Thats a singular fact in the characters backstory. Not an objective, not a through-line, not an interesting aspect of an individual. If the point is to make the character 100% entirely passive, then they succeeded, but this is what makes the film of poor construction. How do you make a film whose main character is a cliche and does nothing to further the plot anyway interesting? Well I guess you surround that character with many, many, many other characters and make them more interesting than the protagonist. Here Byrne does this with both the hero and the villain characters.
The hero and protagonist Brent, is monotone, boring and completely unsympathetic – he fu*ks over his loving girlfriend and spends his entire days smoking copious amounts of weed and rocking out to metal music- If he is not doing that, then he is inexplicably scaling huge cliff faces- sigh – if you met this character in real life; firstly you wouldn’t because no-one like this exists- and secondly, if you did, you would not possibly be able to relate to him. It’s not a real character and as its the protagonist the movie simply cannot support itself structurally. If the main character is not somewhat engaging with the story and/or is actively moving the plot along it ceases to be relatable.
I found a section in the press release that concerned itself with the creation of the character of Brent: ‘Byrne describes how the character of Brent first appeared to him as a single image of a bloodied teenager in a tuxedo tied to chair in the middle of a balloon littered floor. After the image came to him Byrne started to ask: “Who is this kid, how did he get there? And if he’s going to be our hero?… What does his makeup have to be like?”’.
You connect with a character through their relatability. For a film to be relatable, you have to recognize some truth in it. To see that truth the director/writer has to be coming from a real place. And that place is usually of some thematic interest to the director/writer. This is how you distinguish cliche from originality. No matter how tried and true a story is, if it is coming from the direct emotional experience/response of the film-makers; then it becomes original – because Nobody Else on the planet has that same emotional viewpoint. Its almost a voyeurism thing – you see the world through somebody’s else eyes – and you want to relate to that vision.
Thats how a film will work. AND IN HORROR its imperative. A horror film’s entire construction – especially a torture film like this ones – is predicated entirely on whether or not you care for the victim/hero. Since Byrne seems overly concerned with visuals, and petty things like make up instead of an emotional connection to the material is worrying.
The very way in which Lola is dealt with, is even worse. The point seems to be that women are crazy, and women will go to crazy lengths to get men to do what they want – but at the end of the day men will always win no matter what women do…but it can’t even stick to this point because it favors shock value. See it is kind of interesting to see Lola having sexual tension with her father in one scene, but it is not there for a build up, and it goes nowhere – you just realize its there purely for shock value.
Thats what a lot of ‘The Loved Ones’ is; pure shock value. There are no characters. There is no story, and even if there was; they insert so much random shock value into it – that if you stop to think about it for one second it a)makes zero sense and b) starts disintegrating the movie from within.
It winds up incredibly inconsistent with theme and plot.
A storyline like this could have dealt with all the insecurities of teenage dating and romance instead of glamorizing drugs, sex, metal music and violence. At one point in the movie Lola seems to embody every teenager who had a crush and who feels insecure because of that crush. It is incredibly relatable- but then you realize that the film is doing nothing else but play the Missy Higgins song ‘Not Pretty Enough’. I’m sorry but this isn’t film-making. All of the emotional power is many scenes is directly derived from that song – it’s cheap and it’s a gimmick. It’s Michael Moore levels of manipulation. ‘Pretty in Pink’ this ain’t.
They are selling the movie as a John Hughes movie mixed with a torture porn movie. This is wrong on so many levels. Firstly, it barely scratches the surface of teenage love, in fact I would go as far as saying it says nothing more than “teenagers like sex and drugs”. Secondly, the torture elements are completely weak-sauce. It isn’t particularly gory (well this depends on your exposure – if you have seen a ‘Saw’ movie for example, then you’ve seen MUCH MUCH worse then what is shown here. The furthest this movie ever goes is salt being poured directly onto a wound. It does not deserve to be touted and praised for its torture elements. They are tame and they are not creative, nor are they particularly well done. When you also take into consideration that the victim is incredibly unsympathetic and the awful portrayal of female characters; you end up with a terrible experience.
If a film only tries to be like other films; it will fail. A horror film cannot ever be fully ‘realistic’ because a film writer or director hasn’t ever been tortured (in most cases) to the point of nearly dying. In order to make a successful horror film a film-maker needs to understand this limitation. It’s for this reason why characterization of the victims is so important – because nobody can relate to having a drill in their forehead, but they can to being rejected by their crush. Torture porn films can’t really fully work anyway.
And the problem is you.
See, as a viewer you are paying to see this. Ask yourself why? Why are you paying to see a poor young man being tortured? Why are you watching this? Do you have a problem? Do you enjoy seeing pain? No of course you don’t. In fact every time you leave a horror film you say how scary it is, how horrible it was. But you wouldn’t put yourself in that situation in real life would you? You want to see pain to be entertained. And thats your problem. Thats my problem, we enjoy this kind of thing.
The issue at hand is that film-makers like Greg Maclean (‘Wolf Creek’) and the ‘Saw’ guys, and Eli Roth (‘Hostel’ series) – And even film-makers who deal with violence in general like Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher etc. They all understand this in someway or another. The violence has to either be as real or possible so people can witness and relate to the horror of it. Or it has to be so ridiculous and hilariously over the top that people can laugh at it and be entertained. Its called ‘The Responsibility Of A Writer’ – You have to either provide truth or entertainment. There is no middle ground that works. The only way a film arrives at a middle ground is if it tries so hard to please an audience instead of sorting out its own structural/thematic problems.
You don’t get to the treasure without once looking at the map.
If this movie is a map; the only thing that helps us get anywhere is some of the acting. Whilst the script and dialogue are partly to blame; the acting is still pretty uniformly bad. Robin McLeavy as Lola, and John Brumpton as the dad, are sufficiently creepy and sadistic. McLeavy, however, is the star of the show, and whilst some of her delivery is overdone, she works. And if she was given a proper storyline I think she could have knocked it out of the park.
Problems like that really showcase how much the crappy structure affects the rest of the film, right down to the performances and the tone. See the pacing of a thriller/horror is really important and ‘The Loved Ones’ constantly jumps from subplot to subplot muddling everything up. Since all the minuscule amounts of character information are repeated during the torture scenes they should have taken those moments and expanded them out to the whole feature. It would have been a much more torturous experience and much more thrilling. Simple things like cutting outside the torture room to a police officer sleeping in bed slow down the pacing, and hence remove any tension – because now you know that the cop will have to be involved later on, otherwise why did they bother showing you that? The movie subplot juggles all the time and it’s really ineffective and I cannot stress how irritating it is.
There is a entire subplot (running around a half hour) that consists entirely of a couple of teenagers on a date to the prom. They take drugs in the car; they drink in the car; they fu*k in the car. It all seems mostly irrelevant until something so minor; (that it screamed ‘FILLER!!’ so loud it hurt my ears) is revealed as the connection of this subplot to the main plot.
If you were to take the meat of ‘The Loved Ones’,( i.e what would be considered: plot, theme and story) the running time would be around a half an hour.
The other extremely annoying thing is that ‘plot, theme and story’ derive from Lola and how interesting she is. Thats why I bet you were interested in seeing the movie, that’s why I was. The movie is interesting because of that character, but It’s all mangled and chopped up. The only important/interesting bits comprise a half hour of an already extremely short 84 minutes. It’s pretentiously made also – with long close ups of eyes, and long shots of nothingness – even the violence is shot so weakly, and you don’t see anything at all. Its not really confronting. From a cinematography viewpoint and in terms of a standard horror film; it looks pretty good.
Actually the cinematography in the film by Simon Chapman (2011’s ‘Griff The Invisible’ – Which on a quick note: I have been lucky enough to attend a test screening of, and I can say that it is one of the most awesome Australian flicks in a long time) is quite nice: but it was the directorial decisions that were the issue. Lola wears a pink dress, and its the only pink color in the movie. This is Freud 101 right here, and its execution was not subtle. At one point you watch a chicken drumstick get wielded like a penis.
At multiple points you see dead animals. Come to think about it the violence towards animals thing occurs constantly in Australian Cinema, we even saw it in our best film this year: ‘Animal Kingdom’. And its always violence towards dogs. Its an easy thing to do: Lets harm an animal in our movie, because everyone loves animals and they will feel sad. It is one of the cheapest manipulations possible in cinema.
Manipulations like this appear all through-out ‘The Loved Ones’. And because they rely on shock value so much the structure winds up all over the place. Its like if the Olympic games decided to combine a marathon race with the hurdles, having to make the marathon athletes jump every 200 meters they run. It’s exhausting to go from an intense scene to a quiet scene, to a slow scene etc. And when you compound this with subplots that are seemingly unrelated to the main story – it just becomes an epic slog.
Every trick in the book is here.
Lets take the sick family members that sit around the dinner table – A stolen element of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. Then there’s the torture elements of ‘Saw’, ‘Hostel’, and ‘Wolf Creek’, lets take their graphic gore, their cheeky comedy elements. etc etc. Hell, at one point Brent escapes, (and it’s like 20 minutes into the movie) -only if you were a moron would you think that the movie would be now start rolling its end credits – and that he wont get recaptured. This is just an example of the lazy story conventions.
That’s one thing that pissed me off about this film above others; was how lazy and uninspired it was. There were at least ten moments I counted during the second half where they could have easily taken the horror conventions and flipped them on their head. There were so many moments of the movie that were so cliche and horrid, that whilst they are happening you think that Sean Byrne is going to find a way to flip them. Alas no they just exist as they do in every other movie.
Point: If you guess the ending of ‘The Loved Ones’ within 20 minutes; why should you bother staying in the theater? Well, maybe because the characters are interesting? Nope they aren’t. Maybe you might be of that awful mindset: ‘Oh look dudes getting fu*king tortured by a crazy bitch, and there’s sex and weed smoking! This is so fu*king cool!’…well, if thats you then I can’t argue with that – you would be the target audience.
‘The Loved Ones’ tries so hard to please a specific audience. It tries so very hard to be like other movies – that it ultimately becomes nothing itself. It becomes nothing but a weak-sauce, unoriginal and tiresome experience.
If this movie solely consisted of cheap gimmicks and gore that you’ve seen before; then I would have normally given the movie a pass as just a ‘bad’ film, but because of the rampant anti women themes and the severe lack of attention to the story and character I hate this movie. The only decent thing in the movie is Robin McLeavy.
I think it is ironic that so many reviewers are calling the most anti-women film I’ve seen in a while; the very best date movie of the year.
Shame.
2/10.
A Frame-By-Frame Look at the Life of a Cinema Projectionist
Chapter 4: “Group Bookings”
Written and lived by Sean Lander:
A few years ago, before I moved to the city, I didn’t know that there was such a thing as bookings for a cinema. I didn’t know that people could book cinemas out and watch movies for themselves or companies or anything. So it sure and hell came as a shock when I moved and found that the cinema I was working at was one of the premier cinemas in Australia. That said, I didn’t have much choice but to work with it.
But of course, people couldn’t just rock up and own a cinema; this is where an events manager comes into play. And of course, projectionists have problems with people who try and change up their sessions. Events managers are no exception. That said, I got along really well with the events manager at the cinema I was working at.
You see, an events manager requests that bookings get made 30 days in advance, but people don’t always abide this, and this is when our problems arose. If I had a dollar for every-time someone changed their booking or event I would be a very rich person.
But this wasn’t good for us. I realize now that I bitch a lot in these. I apologize for that. That’s really not what I’m trying to do here. I’m just attempting to give you guys an insight into what we do as projectionists.
Anyway, we tend to get rather annoyed at this as it would mess up our programming which would mean moving sessions; which would mean moving prints and just causing us dramas.
But this wasn’t what gave us the sh*ts… What pissed us off the most was the fact that every-time we would run a session for people who had booked something with us; was that without fail, they would find something to complain about. “The sound was too low” “the movie was out of focus” “it was too cold/hot in the cinema”. “FU*K OFF!!!”
Anyway. I have a couple of stories to share with you. My favorite one was during a screening of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”. We had a full house for a screening with people from a bank – I can’t remember ‘which bank’ but it was a big one. The film started and ran without a hitch. They had asked to have cokes and popcorns and other assorted candy bar items delivered to them for the screening – not that this was my problem but somehow I still was forced to hear that this was happening.
No complaints there. Then the film screened. During this point in time my cinema was running a massive trial of digital projector and as such, there was no 35mm, which meant no scratches, no out of focus, no out of frames and next to no sound issues. But this didn’t matter to our wonderful audience.
Two or three days later our events manager received an email regarding the screening. It went along the lines of this:-
“Dear Events Manager,
We recently attended a screening at your cinema of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” We found the cinema and the service to be very pleasant and appealing, but the film itself was not so. It appeared to be a damaged copy of the film, with poor sound and… blah blah blah.”
Needless to say, I copped it. And also needless to say, I told them that it was all horsesh*t. These guys had picked out every possible problem that you can only have with 35mm prints – not possible with digital.
So I argued and bickered and defended not only myself but the team. The events manager (as well as the location manager) begged to differ. But I didn’t back down. The thing is, these people had paid upwards of $4000 just to watch this film. So any way that they can save/make up some money come tax return is great for them. So they complained, in my opinion just trying to get money back.
Any-who, as I said; I argued and fought the managers down and in the end showed them the “print” and that stopped them in their tirade. Needless to say we didn’t hear from that group again.
Another classic was much more recently. At the second cinema I went to in the city all the group bookings came through a person who worked in the head office. Said person I got along with rather well, but they had their issues. Often times the people/businesses who were making the bookings would neglect to mention some of the things that were required to make their booking run smoothly.
These were all stupid things like microphones or spotlights. But after a while I began to get fed up with this crap. So I made up a check sheet for the events manager to give to clients. This caused dramas. Said manager blew the roof. Told me that I didn’t know what I was doing and had a go at me for “demeaning them when I was just a projectionist.” Me being me didn’t take to this to kindly and let lose back. But I won’t mention that.
But here is where the problem lies. They don’t understand us or what we have to do to accommodate their bookings. But at the same time, we don’t completely understand their position or job. So even though me as a projectionist, might crack the shi*s because they don’t conform to my standards, I’m man enough to admit that I don’t really understand how stressful their position at the company is.
These cinemas are not small. They have dozen’s of sites all around the country and this keeps them busy. They could have 20 or 30 bookings come through in a day and so by rights it should be understandable that they don’t always ask if a microphone is required. That said; it doesn’t mean I have to like them.
I know this isn’t as exciting as previous blogs but I promise the next one will be more so. I just had to get this out. Tune in next week for a look at some of the funnest times that I’ve ever had as a projectionist; from watching movies after hours to just causing mischief on shift.
As always, until then keep looking through the widescreen.
Written and lived by Sean Lander.
Chapter 3: “…Can I Have An Exception For That…”
“Come in projection!”, “Go Ahead?”, “Cinema one’s screen just went black!” ,”Are you fu*king kidding me!!!”.
That is how it happens; every time something goes wrong in a cinema; those five little words are the most used words for us as projectionists.
Now I know what you may think, they may seem a little camp, but we have adopted it and accepted it as our own, and it has become a bit of a lifesaver. It centers us in times of great distress.
This week we are looking at a couple of worst case scenarios that projectionists may face. People tend to think we have a very lazy job; that we sit upstairs all day and night, drinking and punching cones and playing Solitaire on the computer, but in actual fact we don’t do either of the first two and the games are blocked on the computer so that means we have to work, or read a book… but we’re too lazy to read so we work.
We bust our humps to ensure that the cinema is in tip top shape (or as much as possible). This, like I said in chapter one; can include fixing a broken popcorn kettle, or gaffer taping the floor together, but it also includes dealing with any and every mechanical problem that arises in the bio boxes (projection rooms).
This may be as simple as a loose gate (on the projector) or as major as an exploding lamp, but either way, it’s our job to fix it, and when it happens; to stay level headed and just be cool about it.
Here are a few fun stories that I have either been involved in over the years, or have heard about through the grapevine.
Let’s start with a mild one; a few years ago one of my former co-workers, Jack, went in to start up a projector at our old country cinema. All was good. He went to the distribution board and switched on some breakers. Then he went to the projector and turned it on. All good. He started a run down on the projector (where you just run the motor), then he reached up to switch the lamp on.
Jack describes what happens next as if it’s all in slow motion. He flicked on the switch and then everything went still for a moment… then bright white light; then the noise came: bbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrtttttttt – and then all of a sudden: BANG! And for a moment everything stopped, then Jack describes it as if a “shockwave” hit him and all he heard was tinktinktinktinktink all in very quick succession. This incident was loud enough to be heard all over the floor: “Come in projection? What was that noise?” “Er… I think the lamp exploded…”
This, my friends, is not the worst thing that can happen. It’s not great for the accountant or the financiers, considering to express post a lamp costs around $4000, but it’s not the worst thing in the world.
What happened in the above was that the rectifier (which gives power to the lamp) had been turned up way too high – don’t ask why or who, we don’t know who did it- and when Jack had struck the lamp the massive surge of power had been too much for the poor little lamp and BANG it went.
The biggest problem about these lamps is that they are all highly pressurized. So when they explode, my god they really explode. Even to this day, they are still picking pieces of that lamp out of the projector housing.
Lesson to be learnt: don’t let idiots play with things they shouldn’t play with (ie: inexperienced projectionists + rectifier = lots of damages).
Another worst case scenario is when a film takes a mind of its own, and decides that it would rather fly away than stay where it is. Unfortunately I don’t have a specific instance that I can use for this because it has happened to me too many times to remember each one but I will tell a story that features a lot of them…
A few years ago I was doing a print check (A watch of the movie before the release to ensure it is presentable to the public i.e. no scratches etc) of a ‘big’ film. It was all running fine and dandy until about two thirds of the way through the flick. Suddenly the image went of screen (are you fu*king kidding me) and I ran into the bio. I found that the print had snapped completely, and this was due to the remainder of it being on the ground, next to the platter.
I’m not entirely sure as to how it had happened but my guess is that it had wrapped quite badly, and as a result had launched itself off its platter and onto the ground. Happy days! Now, the drama of this is that when the print ends up on the ground, it is loose and generally by this stage all over the place. It’s a complete mess of tangled film. Picture a really really ridiculously messed up extension lead, and times in by ten, add 5 then multiply by 57. And you will be close.
So my co-worker and I picked up the print and put it back onto the platter. Then we set about untangling it. What followed was a good hour of labour to work out what went where and how to get it there. It ended with a lot of new splices in the print and an abundance of scratches in our palms. But hey, it’s not entirely our fault.
Lesson to be learnt: be very cautious whenever a Daniel Day-Lewis film comes out.
But the worst case scenario of the lot is a mistake that no projectionist should ever make, and if they do make it they can never be forgiven.
Please note: the following has been edited to ensure the privacy of the person(s) involved with the incident.
A number of years ago, there was the final installment of a massive franchise film coming out. It was being given a midnight screening and there were a lot of fans coming to watch it… many of whom where in costume (I’m sure you can work it out. There were three good movies, three sh*t ones and some ewoks).
Anyway, the film print had been made up by the day projectionist. It was brand new, straight from the printing lab. But, there was a problem. The print was not labeled correctly. Now, just to clarify, when the term “the print is incorrectly labeled” it means that the individual spools are labeled wrong. generally the wrong numbers and/or direction. (A film gets delivered in sections, which are called spools. The projectionist has to stick them together – interestingly a movie like the one above will be delivered in a staggered fashion to increase security, e.g. part 3, 7, and 9 on wednesday, and the rest on the day of release or something like that.)
So, our projectionist has made up the print and of course they haven’t checked the spools to see if they are correct, assuming (and that itself is a fatal mistake in this field: considering that when you ‘assume’ you make an ass out of yourself and others)…so assuming that just because it was a new print didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a problem…To him there wasn’t.
Its Midnight, the film starts. The audience cheers and swing their lightsabers around in the air. Two spools into the movie (Each spool runs for around 20 minutes on average) everything is great (except for the movie in my opinion), when suddenly, the last spool of the film has accidentally been placed in where the third spool should have gone, and the big reveal of the movie (which we all knew was coming anyway) was forty minutes in, instead of at two and a half hours.
Oops.
Well, needless to say there were some… unhappy customers. But that, trust me, is by far the worst case scenario of the lot when it comes to projection.
We have a lot of mishaps. Often times this comes down to equipment issues. When you’re working with machines that are all run by cogs and belts, these things do tend to happen. Computers don’t operate everything just yet.
But from time to time, some people, more than others, do stupid stuff which causes big dramas. But at the end of the day, we are human and we all make mistakes. We learn from these and move on and don’t make them again.
But there’s always the exception reports to forever remind us of the stuff ups we have made. Check back next week for an insight into the life on an events manager at a cinema, and how they have to deal with projectionists. Until then, keep looking through the widescreen.
- Sean
Chapter 2:
Setting up the Candy Bar.
When I first started out in cinema, I was working between projection and floor. Floor are the people who clean the cinemas’ between sessions. The more I worked, I started to also do box office and candy bar shifts. These shifts were the shifts that I dreaded. I’m not the biggest people-person; and as such, that is why I never took a job in a retail position. But it could have been mush worse I guess. Anyway, this was back in the days when I was working out at my country cinema. As I said last chapter, a lot of the time there would be issues that would stop the films from playing. And of course, when you’re a projectionist you’re in the bio and you don’t have to deal with pissed off customers. But as floor/candy bar/box office staff you have to. And trust me there were some characters in these instances…
One time I remember very well; was when a projector decided to wrap really badly and eat up a large section of the film. (This by the way was when I was working in Sydney, just to clarify.) We had to cancel the session and me, as I was the floor staff member; had to announce to the patrons in the session that we were cancelling the film due to a “technical malfunction”. 99% of the patrons had no problems with this. The film hadn’t actually started yet and we comped all the patrons and offered for them to watch another film if they wished to. But there was this one patron who just couldn’t leave ‘well enough’ alone. He arced up at me. It started out okay. They were calm, but unhappy: “I have travelled from Parramatta to see this movie (My thoughts are in brackets, my speech is in single quotation marks.) (There’s a cinema in Parramatta, why not go there?) And I think that you should be compensating me for my travel expenses” ‘I’m very sorry sir, but we can’t compensate you for your travel. You can go and watch another film if you wish’ “I don’t want to watch another film, I want to watch this one” (well you can’t) ‘I’m very sorry sir but we have had an issue without the projector and the film cannot be run at all’ “I don’t care. I want to see the damn movie!” (Fu*k off wanker) ‘I’m sorry sir but here are some comps. You are welcome to watch any other session if you wish?’ “Screw that. I’m going to go to the paper, 60 minutes…” I can’t quite remember what was said after that, but that was the general gist of the argument.
But back at the country, most people had no issue with the cancellation of a session. I did get yelled at a few times, one guy even threatened to sue me, but most of the time it was okay. The Film Society in my town were the worst. They would come in, thinking they owned the place, and carry on like absolute morons. They would set up their stupid little tressel tables and demand anything and everything. One day we started the film 1 minute late and we got screamed at by the idiot organiser.
But my favourite occurrence with the Film Society was this. The trailers in the film they were watching were a tad bit out of focus. I was doing projection that day, but I had been asked to cover the Candy Bar whilst the manager was helping an elderly person on the wheelchair lift. The organiser (we shall call him Richard) came down and complained – his face like a tomato with a vein pumping in his neck – about the focus issue. So I went up to the bio to fix it. And Richard the word that rhymes with click followed me up the stairs; into the bio and over to the projector and watched over my shoulder as I adjusted the focus. I turned around and there he was. He scared the sh*t out of me and I was in such shock that I just couldn’t say anything. When I told the manager, my god, the sh*t hit the fan let me tell you! Let’s just say he never did that again.
But it wasn’t always the customers that caused drama for general cinema workers. The managers could be the worst (and still can). The majority of people who are floor/candy bar/box office staff are school kids who are just wanting a job and choose a cinema because it’s cool. Not to say this is a bad thing, but it’s just the way it is. Not everyone who works at a cinema is as film obsessed as myself and Dave.
But this is also where the problem lies. They really don’t seem to care. Some of them even seem to think that it is the hardest job they will ever have to do. Why? Is it because cleaning a popper and mopping the floor is as hard as laying concrete? I’ve done both and I can tell you that laying concrete is a hell of a lot harder. Anyway, they tend not to care too much and as such they don’t do to much work. Then management take this as their given right to treat the staff like pieces of sh*t. They make them do some really dumb stuff.
One example is from when I first moved to Sydney and was working at my first corporate cinema. I took some floor shifts to make some extra cash when I was in a bit of a sticky spot. The majority of staff at this cinema were backpackers and travellers – they were cheap and would do pretty much anything. One manager asked of the floor staff to clean the managers office…Not vacuum the floor, but tidy the whole office and wipe the benches and everything. Now you may not think it is that bad to ask them to do that, but it’s what the manager did during this time that makes it so bad. The manager in question sat at his computer and watched YouTube, and when the poor kid got within two meters of him, he would bark at the floor kid and tell them to stay away whilst he “worked”. Anyway, I was finishing my shift so I walked into the office and saw this happening. Suffice to say I wasn’t happy, I spoke to some people and this manager didn’t work there for much longer.
But I guess that’s just how it is in those positions: You are the grunts; the faces of the cinema. Patrons look at you as God (and Satan) of the cinema. You are turned to for any and every issue and treated as such depending on the situation. As such, I like projection. I am up in my little box, I am away from the snarling snouts of unhappy customers, and best of all; I control their moods whilst they are there. But don’t worry, I only piss off the people I don’t like, so watch out!
Next week we will dive into the dark side of cinema and take a look at some of the worst case scenarios of being a projectionist. Until then, keep looking through the widescreen.
- Sean
Here is a new weekly blog for www.damngoodcup.com, a look into the life of a sydney projectionist.
Written by Sean Lander:
A Frame-by-Frame Look at the Life of a Cinema Projectionist
Chapter 1:
The Widescreen
Its now coming up on five years since i started working as a projectionist. Its funny to think in that short amount of time how jaded you can become towards working at a cinema, and don’t get me wrong I love film and everything about it, i want to make films, and I want them to make it to the theater, but five years ago I looked at things completely differently.
I thought that working in a cinema would really assist and drive me to make films, but – not that it’s turned me off making them – its just made me not want to be anywhere near a cinema. I still love the cinema. I’ve had many, many great times there and many cherished memories but it has also made me quite cynical towards the place.
I come from the country. Out there i worked as a projectionist in a small independent cinema, but when I moved to Sydney, and took a position at a big corporate place my views began to change quickly. At first I was really excited but as all things evil tend to do, they quickly ripped that excitement out from under me.
So I went back to a small independent Sydney cinema, but somehow bullsh*t politics still applied there. So I figured if I can’t escape it, I might as well face it head on, and I went to the other big corporate cinema in Sydney.
Now, before we go to far I’m not going to name names in this article. I’m not here to slag the places I worked at, but rather just to share some of my experiences and stories I have of these mystical places.
Going back to my roots in the country, we were a small five screen cinema. There’s no such thing as a “complex” out there. It’s just the “picture theatre” as the locals call it. And being a small independent cinema, we didn’t have the budgets like they do down here. So we had to make do with old, han-me-down equipment. This wasn’t a bad thing, it just meant that we tended to have problems more than most city cinemas do.
This would cause all kinds of entertainment. Most days a film would either not have sound or picture on screen and in a lot of cases just not run at all (please note that occasionally this just came down to us just being lazy). And then there were the cases where the projectors would get hungry and decide to eat a film print.
I feel like I should explain something right about now. 99% of Australian cinemas run 35mm film. This film is made up as a complete print and runs from a platter system, through a series of pulleys and over to the projector, where the film passes through the projector “head” and a very, very powerful light puts the image on the screen. For those of you playing at home, film runs at 24 frames per second. 90 feet of film passes through the projector per minute and most films average a length of around 10,000-12,000 feet (between 1 hour 50 minutes and 2 hours 10 minutes).
So, now that the boring exposition is out of the way, on with the stories.
I never really had anything good (or that I should publicly speak about) from back home. Where the story gets interesting is from when I came to the big smoke.
Here is the most disastrous story of what happened to me personally. It was July 2008. The Dark Knight was two weeks from release and at my cinema we had a massive early screening of the film for critics and celebrities and the like to watch and get the word out there.
I was working that night, and the cinema I was at was performing a massive digital cinema trial (for those playing at home, digital cinema, or D-Cinema is what will replace 35mm film one day (soon). It basically means that a large digital projector is set up, and a digital server plays the films. The films come in on a Hard Disk Drive and these are “ingested” into the server. The films, rather than being a film print, are all binary, 1’s and 0’s.)
I happened to be walking past the cinema that held the majority of people (822 of them) when the projector shat itself. It decided that it would just stop playing the film, put the lights up and shut off the sound. I reacted the way I had been taught. I immediately put the lights back down, hit play on the server and set the sound back to the correct setting.
What followed is where the story gains motion.
Because this was The Dark Fu*king Knight, and all the big names in town from both TV and Film, critics and even the head of the company I worked for were in the cinema, I had the finger pointed at me. A massive inquest was launched into and I thought I was done for. All I had done was happened to be walking past the projector when it died. So I had stopped it on purpose? Well this was the general consensus anyway.
I had to have meetings and talks and interviews, you name it i copped it. Until I thought about it. I looked back at all the issues we had had with these type of projectors and discovered a trend. It wasn’t my fault at all. It was a bug in the servers which caused a fire trip and shut it down. Lucky me, I was saved by a fu*k up on the manufacturers behalf. But this is what I mean by bullsh*t politics. It seemed to go like this from here on.
Not a week would go by whilst I was working there where something would happen and someone would be blamed. It was never a machines fault but always a person. Yet as soon as someone with half a brain (ie projectionists) would look into it suddenly there was a bug.
I think that these companies just have a perverse fixation with blaming people. Maybe it’s little man syndrome or something but we always copped the blame. That’s why I left that place.
So I went to another independent cinema and I thought that this would change. Nope. Same sh*t, different people. So I gave up on that and as I said earlier, thought I would just face it head on. So I took a job at a cinema just around the corner from me and quickly wriggled my way to a high position. 2IC projectionist. Not something you would brag about at a reunion but enough to have some say around the place, which sure as sh*t helped.
In began introducing things I had learned from being at independent cinemas. Such as treating staff like your mates not as grunts and other little things which assisted in day-to-day operations.
But this still didn’t stop the scrutiny on me, and my staff. Projectionist get treated the worst of the lot. It’s kind of funny considering that a cinema can now run completely functionally without candy bar, box office and floor staff. Hell, it’s can run without managers if you train the projectionists in the ways of management. But you can’t, I repeat. You CAN NOT run a cinema without projectionists.
There was a day when the projectionist was treated like royalty. It was an art form to be a projy. To lace the films perfectly and give flawless presentation. But now we are the cinemas plumber, electrician, carpenter, cleaner, gaffer tapeist and any other stupid handyman job that is required. I seem to spend less time in the projection room than I do in there.
But now, we aren’t royalty. We aren’t even projectionists really. We’re just the guys who you call when you have a problem with the popcorn popper. And it’s really sad. But that’s the way these corporate places work.
I remember, even a couple of years ago, when I could say I was a projectionist and people would say “wow, that’s so cool.” But now I say it and all people have to say is “do you get to watch all the movies for free?” I don’t feel like I did about it four years ago. I don’t feel like it’s a special job. It’s still a trade. A skill that not everyone can master. I have trained numerous people who have failed miserably at the art. But people don’t see it as anything special. And that makes me so sad.
I do love the fact that I get to be around films all the time, but it doesn’t hold the same perks as what it used to, and that’s what causes the cynicism towards cinema for me. I know that I will continue doing the job for now. Because I’d rather be a projectionist than work in a bar or a cafe or god forbid a clothing shop. Not to say those things are bad but I’m not suited for those things.
I love the cinema. I love the feel and the atmosphere of the auditorium. When the lights go down and the big screen comes to life, that’s called the magic of the movies. But I don’t feel that in the cinemas I work at. If you want to experience a cinema experience, go to a small theatre. With a small number of seats and people who smile at you when you come in. A place where people have all gone there for the same reason, because they love the cinema experience.
As for me being jaded, there will be more to come in following articles. But to go with what i’ve said above, it’s not what I thought it would be. It’s not how it seems on the outside. So beware. I’ve seen all the levels and types of cinemas in Australia and I can say that it is different once you’re in the belly of the beast. But don’t stop going to the cinema, please. It is a wonderful place, but it’s not the same place it was when I first went there.
Next week, keep an eye out. I will go into what it is like to be a lower class member of the cinema society. Many more stories to come. Keep looking through the widescreen.
- Sean
NOTE TO READERS: I did not see the finished version. So if you are one of those people that isn’t interested in hearing about an unfinished film, I would avoid this review.
I was lucky enough to attend a test screening of Stuart Beattie’s upcoming epic Australian movie Tomorrow When The War Began based on the best selling novel of the same name by author John Marsden.
The version of the film I saw was “in early days”, but it didn’t look that far from complete. It had a temp musical score and soundtrack and some unfinished computer effects, the movie however, seemed to have a focus on practical effects, so it didn’t really matter.
It had a running time of about 2 hours. It felt like it should have been longer.
The story is about a group of teenagers who go out into the wild on a camping trip, to a beautiful clearing in the middle of nowhere ironically named “hell”. When they return they find their town; Wirrawee, in ruin after a full scale invasion, the place is infested with the enemy- whom we never know, with all their parents being held hostage, and strike bombings and whatnot…it is intense.
The film was excellent, but flawed. With a bit of tweaking here and there it could very well be an Australian classic and…a franchise! This review will have spoilers soon, so If you are not interested in spoilers then I’ll give you a really brief rundown of my thoughts:
For the most part I loved Tomorrow, when the war began… it is well written, very well shot, and Caitlin Stasey in the lead as Ellie was excellent. There is a bit of mis-casting and bad acting from the others, and the beginning and end scenes and others felt rushed (the 20 minutes of ‘Hell’- what they name the place they go camping- was awful)…but… they could still change all of these before the film is out, and it will be great.
The action scenes in the movie are the best to come out of Australia for a while and rival any Hollywood film of late. It feels epic in scope, and technically it was wonderful.
So the following will be spoiler filled! You have been warned…
I was incredibly surprised by the film. I had read the book back in the day for school and liked it quite a bit, I didn’t continue to read the rest of the series though, but I did remember the book fairly well and the film seemed to stay true to the novel.
From my memory of the book, it felt like a page by page retelling.
The only major difference was one I could understand: Instead of Ellie narrating the story through a diary, she does so through a video camera. A clever decision that lets you know from the opening of the movie that Stuart Beattie’s adaptation of the book was going to be a visual one. And it is, very much so.
The only other change is that they do not return to Hell to hide out after the excavator scene. They instead hide out inside Chris Lang’s house – A section/character that isn’t in book one – but I’m told it is from the second book. All the Ellie and Lee stuff takes place at the Chris home instead.
The film opened very quickly, giving us a quick little set of scenes to set up everybody’s character and off they go to camp in hell. The version of the film I saw rushed the introduction of all the characters, and didn’t really give you the immediate sense of them that you would have liked, but overall it was fresh and speedy and got them on the way to ‘Hell’ quickly. They soundtrack we heard was temp but it would be great if they were able to keep ACDC ‘Highway to Hell’ in this spot. As on the nose it was It kind of worked.
So it’s really enjoyable up to this point, even if it could be longer. Then ‘Hell’ happens. 10-20 or so minutes were spent in hell and it felt too long. The cast doesn’t really have a good chemistry when they are all together so it felt awkward and staged. I didn’t buy them as friends. Here the film stoops to slow motion bikinis, and wet bodies and football and blah. Felt forced and stilted. The parts here were just awful, the Lee and Ellie stuff being incredibly bad.
So here is where you start to get an idea of the cast and how good they are/ are going to be. I’m just going to break them down briefly:
Caitlin Stassey: plays lead role Ellie Linton. Thought she was excellent. Fantastic actually. (except for when with Lee – but more on that later).
Phoebe Tonkin: plays Fiona Maxwell. Thought she was good. She exists as the perve factor but played the role well regardless.
Lincoln Lewis: plays Kevin Holmes: Was not good, overacts and doesn’t suit the character at all. He had a lot of screen-time, and was just plain bad.
Rachel Hurd-Wood: plays Corrie. Good, not outstanding or memorable though. The thing with the movie is that it has a lot of characters it needs to juggle and some just don’t get the attention they deserve. Corrie is one of them. It could all change if they extend the movie though. She and Kevin don’t really share any chemistry. She is the most well known of the cast (for her role in Perfume, and especially as Wendy in the 2003 Peter Pan). She is a promising young actress.
Ashleigh Cummings: plays Robyn. Was excellent, the only problem is that she is about a foot shorter than the rest of the cast, and looks several years younger. It constantly destroys the believability of the movie – she was very good though – just unfortunately not suited for this film, as good as she is in it.
Chris Pang: plays Lee, Ellie’s Love interest. Now Pang is horrible in this film. He plays the love interest of Ellie, and is integral to the plot. Every line sounds like it is being read out loud and he and Stassey share no chemistry what so ever.
So much of the film is built around this chemistry/ relationship and it is just not there. Horrible casting here, and it ruins the entire ‘emotional’ arc of the story- I’m afraid no amount of editing is going to fix this. They should just delete the subplot entirely – and they might. Their scene together in Hell where they kiss is just awful in how forced it is. Another scene in the house of Chris, is awful as well. They need to be cut down significantly – they are literally the only holes in the movie that I feel can’t be fixed in the final version.
Deniz Akdeniz: plays Homer. Look I’m unsure about Homer. I found him to be incredibly annoying, but that might be what they were going for with the character. He gets more tolerable as the film goes on, but then again as you know, he ends up becoming the leader character, and it makes a lot of sense to have him annoying at that start so that you see that change.
But holy crap, he was annoying. I suppose he is there for the female audience to fawn over. Just like his love interest Fiona is meant to for the men. These two have great chemistry – and they get a fair share of screen time.
Andrew Ryan: plays Chris Lang. Chris was a character I loved. Ryan is excellent in the role, and is hilarious. He can also play the intense stuff. He had what felt the perfect amount of screen time. He has a great confrontational scene with Stassey that was electric and was definitely the high point of the film for me.
Overall the cast is very hit and miss. When it works; it works incredibly well. Colin Friels shows up at one point as a dentist, and is excellent with his incredibly short cameo, but when the casting in the movie fails it does so badly. Ultimately the majority of the movie is so good that these few casting decisions could either be fixed in the final version, or wind up as just minor setbacks.
Now lets talk about Stuart Beattie, the writer and director of the movie. Beattie, just seems to get it. For me he is the real star of the movie. Beattie taking all the knowledge he learned from being the screenwriter of Pirates of the Caribbean, Collateral, and Australia to name a few, nails the movie.
Outside of the twenty minutes of Hell, Beattie works magic. The film is epic in scale, and to be truthful, if the film didn’t have Australian accents you would not be able to tell the difference between this and an American film. It is pristinely shot, and Beattie moves the camera with energy. There are vistas of destruction, and beauty. The moment where the group look over at night and see the invasion in process is just beautiful.
A lot needs to be said about the action. It’s so visceral and engaging. It rivals Hollywood in it’s balls. The scene where some of the group transport the injured Lee in the catcher of a construction excavator truck, whilst being chased by the enemy, is thrilling. And its all done real.
The other action highlight is Ellie with the ride on lawnmower, which was exactly how you would picture it in the novel. EXACTLY. Also when they are in (Homer’s I think) house, and there are bombers out and about searching for survivors to capture, and they see the light from inside. And of course the big bridge scene at the end (this felt a bit rushed – but I’m sure they will fix this up with the final version).
There is a lot of action, and it’s pretty much excellent and thrilling the whole time. Beattie doesn’t step a foot wrong with this aspect. And it’s saying a lot too, when the film can actually slow down for huge chunks of screen time and not feel boring. Beattie juggles the character and action very well. He has taken his great screenwriting talent, and written a really solid adaptation that only falters because of some of the casting. The script itself is fine, and I bet thats because by know he knows in and out what the audience of this big blockbuster responds to. It’s a story that requires a real balance of tone to get it right, and Beattie has something – if the film gets a really good musical score, issues I had with the movie could almost be soiled over.
The only other issue I had with the movie was it had an incredibly rushed ending. It was unbelievably anti-climactic and weak. They blow up the bridge. Kevin goes off to drive Corrie to hospital. Then the other characters ride off into the next movie on motor bikes. End. And it literally is as quick as it takes to read that. Hopefully they draw out the climax a bit, because it felt a little too quick and rushed.
Other than those small nitpicks, and bad castings, Tomorrow When The War Began is a very solid film, and does service to the novel – It’s thrilling, well shot, and has a really strong lead performance from Caitlin Stassey. Paramount Studios have a huge hit on their hands, that should also do well over seas.
I hope the best for the film and it would be great to see Australia have it’s own franchise film. Even though the Ellie and Lee stuff is the only really Horrible parts, everything is is really, really solid, and could be fixed up due to the results of the test screening. If the movie stays the same as it was when I saw it I would rate it a 7 out of 10.
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