Did you do any Uni or TAFE? If so, what & did you graduate?
Did BA(Communications) at UTS and Producing year at AFTRS
How important was formal study to your career?
At UTS I did practical and theoretical study that gave me the grounding to understand what storytelling meant, as well as the technical skills to start. At AFTRS I learnt about the business of the industry and the realities of producing.
How did you get your first career break?
I'd joined WIFT and got my first "post film school" job from Eva Orner, who I'd met through another woman there Eva's just won an Oscar for her doco made in the US Taxi to the Dark Side.
Why this industry?
I started in acting, then moved to radio, but it was when I made my first film that I realised that this was the method of storytelling that I felt really moved people. Rather than telling them, you show them, you bring the audience with you so that they feel the story, rather than just hear it.
What were the three most significant evolutions/changes in your working life?
I guess the first was the one I've just mentioned. I guess I'd call that the moment of recognition of the power of cinema to move people.
Winning the Academy Award for Harvie Krumpet was a big deal too, and not necessarily in the ways people might think. My mum was dying at the time so I was under the most extraordinary amount of pressure and I guess that created a level of clarity for me about what actually was important.
Financing and contracting this feature film, Mary and Max, my first, has also radically changed the way I view the film industry and my life. At various stages I just thought it was frankly too hard. I was ready to walk away. I didn't obviously, but I do think that I am tougher and more humble as a result. I 'dips me lid' to anyone who has produced a feature.
I now know that if you haven't been completely personally and professionally humiliated you haven't really financed a film.
Did anything jeopardise your career in its early stages?
One thing I struggled with early on was that because I'd come from the community sector (community radio, community TV, community video access centre) I got told I wasn't entrepreneurial enough. The way I address that was to say 'if I can do all this with next to nothing, imagine what I can do with some real resources' and to just persist.
What was the best piece of professional advice you received in the early stages of your career?
Patricia Lovell, the Grand Dame of Australian Producing, (Monkey Grip, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli) and my teacher at AFTRS taught me not to read scripts without meeting the writer first which might sound crazy but it is just the best bit of advice.
Filmmaking is about collaboration, so you meet people first, then if you like them, then read the script. You'll then 'read into' the script the dynamics of the relationship and what all creative parties will bring to the project.
It takes me about two days to properly read a script, think about it. and write notes on it. It takes me about twenty minutes over coffee to work out if I want to work with someone. And they usually buy the coffee! Saves me so much time and money!
The other gem is one of my favourite quotes from Vincent Van Gogh he's writing to his brother Theo about drawing but I think it true of all art/storytelling
"What is drawing? How does one come to it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How is one to get through that wall -- since pounding at it is of no use? In my opinion one has to undermine that wall, filing through it steadily and patiently. And there you are how can one continue such work assiduously without being distracted or diverted, unless one reflects and orders one's life according to principles? And as it is with art so it is with other things. And great things are not something accidental, they must be distinctly willed."
Trust me, I feel that I 'distinctly will' all my projects into existence.
If you could thank anyone from your professional past, who would it be and what would you say to them?
Too many to list but here's some that come to mind now.
Sarah Gibson at UTS was an inspirational teacher and I only wish I'd been a bit older and more confident in my own voice when I was taught by her.
Patricia Lovell for the advice above and for her passionate embodiment of "Producing as a Lifestyle".
All the various tenants from over the years at 179 Johnston St, Fitzroy (and its precursor at 379 Brunswick St). I have worked out of there since 1998. From the early days with December Films and then Penny Robins, who let me develop my own projects while I was working for her. And more recently to the amazing Mish Armstrong, Philippa Campey, Monique Schwarz, Carmel McAloon, Trevor Blainey, and all the others. We share much more than a photocopier.
Geoff Brown, Trish Lake and the other staff, councillors and producers at SPAA (Screen Producers Association of Australia). There is nothing like sharing your troubles, dramas, hopes and fears with people who KNOW what you are going through.