For Kriv and I, the trailer was the key element of the publicity materials for “Lucky Country” – it was the one tool we had that would have the broadest reach. More importantly, it was the first point of contact that most of our audience would have with the film – so we knew we had better make a good initial impression!
Both of us love watching trailers on the internet. To us, great trailers don’t tell you the whole plot of the film or reveal all the best jokes and set pieces. They make you desperately want to see the film and talk it up in anticipation of its release.
Some of my favourite trailers over the years have stayed with me, despite the hundreds and hundreds of trailers I watch. One of the best trailers I have seen is for Brian de Palma’s “Femme Fatale” – a film that is definitely for fans of de Palma’s style-over-substance thrillers, but very much one of my guilty pleasures. The trailer itself is a work of genius – check it out here:
There are other trailers that just perfectly captured the tone and mood of the film and watching the trailer again, can stir up the emotions you had watching the film itself. The best example I have for these types of trailers is the “Magnolia” trailer – I imagine this was a difficult job for the trailer editor to encapsulate 9 interweaving stories and multiple characters. I re-visit this trailer a lot – I am very time-poor now with twins, so watching the 2 minutes trailer is quicker than watching the whole 3 hour movie, but I can still get my PT Anderson fix. Here is the trailer:
Finally, there are these great Public Service Announcements that David Fincher made as teasers for “Fight Club”.
When we were considering the trailer for “Lucky Country”, we thought about a lot of recent trailers for westerns and thrillers, such as:
“No Country for Old Men” – although not a period film, I think that they had a similar issue of selling a dark film (albeit with stars and the Coen Brothers).
“There Will be Blood” - both teaser and full trailer – I really love how both these trailers use speeches from the film over imagery.
“The Proposition” - I thought this one started well and built to a good action montage from the film, which we could use to highlight the thriller aspects of our film.
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” - this is a very lyrical, beautiful period film, great use of slow motion to set the trailer up initially and I love the fades to black to set up the pacing of the trailer.
Looking at the various examples Kriv felt the more action, or rather “tension” based, and less lyrically structured trailers were perhaps a good direction to follow. We agreed that we didn’t want people to think this is an Aussie “Jesse James” – a beautifully shot tone poem.
We wanted our audience to think that “Lucky Country” is a thrilling ride filled with suspense and tension and was a bold, unashamedly, entertaining “genre” film – it’s a modern Western and a Thriller. Kriv was really insistent that we use these two “Tags” to our advantage, because no other Australian film this year will or can.
Kriv also liked the trailers that use speeches from the film have a tonal potency that really grabs your attention. Both of us wanted to avoid the use (or over-use in a lot of recent examples that we could cite) of captions explaining the film. To us, it was better that the characters spoke rather than using pithy caption clichés.
We worked with The Solid State on the concept and design of the trailers and I think that the final trailer speaks for itself – they have done a fantastic job! Check out their website for other examples of their work – www.thesolidstate.com.au. Also, have a look at their most recent trailer for “Balibo” which just looks amazing.
Whether we succeeded or not is up to the audience. But we have been getting some great feedback on sites like Quiet Earth and TwitchFilm!
They all thought Nat Doole, the idealistic farmer in Lucky Country, was mad. He was also English, out of his depth, and come from a long tradition of dreamers and pioneers – people who either didn’t look before they leapt or had a very different take on life in the first place.
When most sensible people would cross the Sahara in a fully equipped four-wheel drive stocked with refrigerated beer, an Englishman would rather give it a go with a wheelbarrow full of water and an umbrella. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
Doomed enterprises and ill-conceived plans, you can always guarantee some daft bugger’s going to put their hand up while all around shake their heads. The following is a list of the five craziest mad dogs of all time.
1. Douglas ‘Wrong Way’ Corrigan
On 17 July 1938, 31-year-old aviation pioneer Douglas ‘Wrong Way’ Corrigan took off from an airfield in Brooklyn, New York, cheered on as he bravely headed for California. Strapped into a modified Curtiss Robin, he carried two chocolate bars, two boxes of fig bars, a quart of water and most importantly a map with his route from New York to California marked out.
It was a foggy morning. Corrigan flew into the haze and disappeared. Twenty-eight hours later he landed in Dublin.
2. General John Sedgwick
A case of hubris if ever there was one.
Sedgwick fell at the beginning of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, on May 9, 1864. His corps was probing skirmish lines ahead of the left flank of Confederate defenses and he was directing artillery placements. Notorious for being a kind of ‘Colonel Kilgore’ figure who simply believed he would not die, he famously strutted around battlegrounds oblivious to the whizzing of shells and bullets around him.
Confederate sharpshooters were about 1,000 yards away and their shots caused members of his staff and artillerymen to duck for cover. Sedgwick strode around in the open berating his men and was quoted as saying, ‘What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!’
Seconds later he keeled over with a bullet hole below his left eye.
3. Sir George Sitwell
Now here was a spree of madness. A keen gardener, after becoming annoyed by the wasps in his garden Sitwell invented a pistol for shooting them.
He also came up with the novel idea of paying his son an allowance based on the amount paid by one of his forebears to his son during the Black Death, and then trying to pay his son’s Eton school fees with produce from his garden, presumably without wasps attached, or if they were they were riddled with bullet wounds.
Sir George then had all the cows on his estate stenciled in blue and white in order to make them look better and hung a notice on the gate of his manor declaring: “I must ask anyone entering the house never to contradict me or differ from me in any way, as it interferes with the functioning of my gastric juices and prevents my sleeping at night.”
4. Jemmy Hirst (1738 – 1829)
James ‘Jemmy’ Hirst was so famous an eccentric in his own time that King ‘Mad George’ III summoned him to tea. When he received the invitation Hirst declined. stating that he was training an otter to fish.
Jemmy loved animals. While at school he kept a pet Jackdaw and trained a hedgehog to follow him around. He later trained his bull to behave like a horse. Jupiter the Bull would draw his carriage about the village and Hirst even rode him in foxhunts, using pigs that he had trained as hunt dogs. He regularly blew a horn to invite the poor to his home for free food, which was served out of a coffin, and when he finally died he requested twelve old maids to follow his coffin to the grave, as well as a bagpiper and a fiddler to play happy music.
5. Larry Lawnchair Walters
Larry’s Walters’ boyhood dream was to fly, but fate conspired to keep him from his dream. He joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight disqualified him from the job of pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he sat in his backyard watching jets fly overhead.
Disgruntled, he purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair and filled the 4′ diameter balloons with helium. Then he strapped himself in with some sandwiches, cans of Miller Lite, and a pellet gun.
Larry’s plan was to sever the anchor and lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard, where he would enjoy a few hours of flight before coming back down. But things didn’t work out quite as Larry planned.
When his friends cut the cord anchoring the lawnchair to his Jeep, he did not float lazily up to 30 feet. Instead, he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon, pulled by the lift of 42 helium balloons holding 33 cubic feet of helium each. He didn’t level off at 100 feet, nor did he level off at 1000 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 16,000 feet.
At that height he felt he couldn’t risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting cold and frightened with his beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. He crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX, where Trans World Airlines and Delta Airlines pilots radioed in reports of the strange sight.
Eventually he gathered the nerve to shoot a few balloons, and slowly descended. The hanging tethers tangled and caught in a power line, blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood for 20 minutes.
Larry climbed to safety, where he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked him why he had done it. Larry replied nonchalantly, ‘A man can’t just sit around’.
Here are five great Australian films that inspired both the writing and making of Lucky Country. If you haven’t already seen them, check them out on dvd. Great films all :
5. The Chant Of Jimmy Blacksmith (1978) Dir : Fred Schepsi
I saw this recently after shooting Lucky Country and hadn’t seen it since I was a teenager. I was amazed by how much it had actually influenced me even after all this time. This is an incredible film and hasn’t dated a day since it was made. Powerful, incendiary and masterully directed. One of, if not THE greatest Australian films ever made in my books. Click here for the trailer.
4. Mad Dog Morgan (1976) Dir : Philippe Mora
Apart from the “hook-on” beards this is still an extraordinarily vivid, bizzare and bold film. Dennis Hopper is inspired casting and is truly mad as Mad Dog Morgan. This is the seminal Australian bushranger movie and I think still gives all the Ned Kelly movies a run for their money. Click here for the trailer.
3. Vigil (1984) Dir : Vincent Ward
Okay…this is a New Zealand film, but I’m a huge Vincent Ward fan and this film was produced by our executive producer, John Maynard. It’s uses the landscape to create an incredible cinematic mood. It shows the bush in such a beautifully dark and gothic way and the performance from child actor, Penelope Stewart is extraordinary. Click here for trailer.
2. Wake In Fright (1971) Dir : Ted Kotcheff
I guess this is the movie that has always inspired me. I first saw it on TV in the 80s and then again on a VHS copy that was dubbed from the Bill Collins movie show. I think that VHS did the rounds as until recently it was the only way you could see the film. It’s wonderful that it’s been rediscovered and is now going to find a new audience. Andy and I were both really affected by this film’s brutal honesty and it’s harsh, uncompromised view of Australians trapped, both physically and mentally inside a huge, enveloping landscape. Click here for the trailer.
1. Breaker Morant (1980) Dir : Bruce Beresford
As far as I know this is one of the only Australian films that deals with and examines the Boer War. It was made in South Australia at a time when the local film industry was in it’s infancy, and really put Australian movies on the world map. I think Bruce Beresford pulled off the impossible here and made an ambitious, and spectacular peroid war movie for something like only $ AUS 300, 000. He only had thirty extras to stage the battle scenes, but it feels like 300. We used this film as an example of what you can achieve when you have no money, but a great story and an open and lateral attitude to solving creative problems. Click here for trailer.
We’re really excited to confirm that Hanna Mangan-Lawrence will be joining director Kriv Stenders and Aden Young at next Wednesday’s Q&A in Sydney.
The session starts at 6.30pm and will be hosted by Rachael Turk.
Tickets are just $15 or $12 concession. They’re selling fast and only a small allocation will be available on the door. Don’t miss out!
Have you every helped a stranger out, offered them a ride or invited them into your home? Thought you were being charitable, kind and giving? Well think again. Here are 8 strangers you should think twice about before lending a helping hand or even asking for help!
Retired to Spain, criminal ‘Gal’ (Ray Winston) receives an unexpected visit from Don (Ben Kingsly), a psychotic gangster determined to pull Gal out of retirement to do one last job. Don, who only stays for a short while, is a bitter, twisted maniac with no moral compass and is probably the last person you want in your home – or anywhere near you for that matter. Watch the classic airport scene.
There’s nothing better for a man to do than to take his best friend and head out into the American wilderness. It’s only great if you are NOT followed by two inbred hillbillies who ambush you, then rape your friend and force you to watch. So next the time you go camping make sure you go in numbers and stay the hell away from hillbillies. Here’s the scene when they first meet the hillbillies.
Ed Gein, a real murderer, inspired the movie. He was reknowned for cutting out a woman’s face and wearing it. Not because he had a deformed face (like in the movie) but because of his desire to be a woman. He was suspected of several murders, one of which where he gutted a woman like he would have gutted a deer and removed her head as a trophy. Here’s the trailer for the original film.
A couple head out to the open waters to help them get over their dead son while another ship not too far away is sinking. The survivor of the sinking ship, who also got food poisoning, floats off in a lifeboat, where he’s picked up by the couple who start caring for him. Of course the guy they save is a homicidal killer! Never pick up strangers in open waters. Here’s the trailer.
Two girls and a guy take a road trip to the Australian outback. Their car breaks down in the desert where an old and seemingly harmless man decides to help them free of charge. They get their car towed to a remote and distant town where all hell breaks loose. Sounds like something that could happen? Well yes, because it’s based on true events. Here’s the trailer.
Living in a haunted hotel can really play tricks on your mind. Especially if people were murdered there – like the creepy twin girls who were killed by their father, the butler, before he also killed their mother and took his own life. After that incident the hotel was never the same. The family haunts the hotel together with a guy in the bear suit with the buttocks removed. Check out this scene.
Imagine yourself deserted after a car crash and the only person around to save you was your number one fan who’s stalking you. Now imagine a crazy person like Annie Wilkes who saves you from harm’s way and takes you into her home. She heals and nurtures you, then tells you that you can never leave. And on top of that she knocks of your feet with a sledgehammer! Here’s a scene.
In Funny Games, Paul and Peter show up at the front door of a holiday cabin where a family of three are staying. Posing as neighbours they ask to borrow some eggs. While inside the house they force the family to play sadistic games with each other while they watch. Check out the trailer.
Kriv will be chatting to Rachael Turk this Friday night as a part of AFTRS Friday On My Mind sessions.
He’ll be talking about his first two features Blacktown and Boxing Day and of course Lucky Country. Plus there will be a sneak preview screening of the film after the Q&A.
It’s totally FREE and there is no need to register – you can just show up. Session starts at 5pm.
AFTRS Theatre
130 Bent St
The Entertainment Quarter
Moore Park
Aden Young
Brimstone and Treacle
Dennis Potter at his macabre and mischievous best. Unfortunately it also stars Sting, who’s largely crap, but the story is still superb.
The complete original teleplay (before Sting got in on the act) is on YouTube, from the BBC ‘Play for Today’ series, which I was hooked on as a kid.
The tale is inspired by the Kierkegaard quote ‘There resides infinitely more good in the demonic man than in the trivial’, and concerns the ‘visitation’ of an apparently angelic boy to the home of a supposedly god-fearing man, his wife and their paraplegic daughter.
The boy gradually gains the trust of the wife and begins to take over as a kind of surrogate son, before starting to undermine the husband and slowly, horrifically, drags the ugly truth out of him.
It was banned for eleven years in the UK, as films starring Sting should be.
I love the idea of visitations – the arrival of strangers coming into a relationship, a place, or a situation, who may be by turns demonic or angelic. It’s what the great North European fairy tales dealt with repeatedly and it’s something Pinter loved to play around with too.
A fabulous psychological thriller, filled with biblical portent, in a claustrophobic domestic
environment.
The trailer’s here.
Check out the rest….
This is just a short note wishing Glendyn Ivin, the director of Last Ride congratualtions and the best of luck with the release of his film which opens this week across the country. It’s a stunningly beautiful film that was shot just before ours in South Australia last year. In fact some of the crew went straight from Last Ride to work with us. It shows a very different kind of Australian landscape than the one depicted in Lucky Country, yet both are stories about fathers and sons and our films have kind of trailed each other over the last couple of years through devlopment, financing, production and release. For more info check out the website and Glendyn’s really rich and insightful blog about the making and release of the film.
