This week, Tourism Tasmania is launching a new spring campaign and with it, a series of five, three-minute ‘Tasmanian Secrets’ films we produced for them. Working with WHYBIN/TBWA TEQUILA/, we traveled across the five regions of the southern state, capturing the ‘local secrets’ as told by colourful locals, and then edited them into bite size visual feasts that give you a taste of what you can discover off the beaten path in Tasmania.

Our brief was to get outside the brochure, and we think we did that, traveling over 2000 miles in 7 days, and covering pretty much every square inch of the island state.

The videos were done to highlight the strengths of each of Tasmania’s regions, including Launceston & North | Hobart & Surrounds | Western Wilderness | North West Coast | East Coast, and though it was in the tail end of winter when we shot the documentaries, we managed to capture the essence of spring, to create a vivid, bright representation of Tasmania. To be honest, it wasn’t hard to make Tassie look good, everywhere you point the camera down there is visually intoxicating.

See the completed films at the Discover Tasmania website.

Not too long ago Soap gave us a call, to help them create an immersive experience for viewers online for Boca Lupo, called “Follow the Wolf” at www.bocalupo.com.au. The site included graphical and video elements, and needed a score and sound bed that got richer as the experience went deeper into the forest. We helped create that, and think the end result is worth a shout.

Best Actor and Women in Cinema Award at Tropfest

Congratulations to Clarke Richards and Katie May Johnson who won Best Actor and the Women in Film award respectively at Tropfest. Their film, Happenstance, written by Katie May and directed by John Marsh, played to a 60,000 strong crowd at Tropfest, the largest short film festival in the world. Elijah Wood was a judge this year, along with actress Toni Collette, Animal Kingdom director David Michod, and Peter and Michael Spierig, who made Daybreakers.

Happenstance
Director: John Marsh
Writer: Katie May Johnson
Actors: Clarke Richards, Katie May Johnson & Dustin Clare

Tropfest Crowd

By Jim Lounsbury

Independent film, for generations, has been built at the crossroads of financial limitation and innovation. One could argue that somewhere in the interdependence of this relationship is found the mysterious alchemy that good art makes. This assumes that financial limitation creates innovation, in the way that erecting walls around a prison drives the creative thoughts of convicts. At the very least, financial limitation is one factor that can lead to innovation, and innovation can lead to great art. I have been party to their manifestation enough times to believe in these principles, but more importantly curious enough to ask the question, “Why do these principles exist, and how can we embrace them to independently create moving pictures that are truly moving?”

read entire article online >

Dustin Clare and Clarke Richards in Early Checkout.

Early Checkout, the short film by director Jim Lounsbury starring Dustin Clare and Clarke Richards has just won best picture at the New England Film Festival in NSW.

The film also played at the Palm Springs Short Film Festival earlier this year, as part of their showcase “Idiots Delight.”

EARLY CHECKOUT
Producer: Dustin Clare, Clarke Richards
Director: Jim Lounsbury
Writer: Clarke Richards and Dustin Clare
DP: Andrew McLeod

Figure With Bandaged Head, Peter Booth 2004

While Bruce Beresford is taking the box office by storm with Mao’s Last Dancer, his daughter, Trilby’s short film Possessions is taking the art world by storm, as it depicts the slashing of a painting by renowned artist, Peter Booth. Although in the opening scene of the film, the Peter Booth painting is attacked by an obsessed character, Deutscher and Hackett executive director Damian Hackett assures that “no paintings were harmed in the making of the film, Possessions.” He adds, “Although it did make my heart skip a beat to see it appearing to be slashed with a knife in the film. Good thing the Booth painting had a stunt double.”

FILMINK article “Peter Booth ‘Film star’ painting in fine art auction,” November 09, 2009

Read the reelloop article here >

Link to the Deutcher and Hackett auction catalogue.

Watch the film trailer.

POSSESSIONS
Produced by: Trilby Beresford
Written and Directed by: Jim Lounsbury
Starring: Max Cullen, Asher Keddie, Laurence Fuller

Living Movie Poster - Start to Finish from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.