“Better, stronger, faster…”
on making Six Dollar Fifty Man – and more
Sticky Pictures’ Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland talk about making Six Dollar Fifty Man, their third short film together, as well as their experience at the Cannes Film Festival last year where second short Run was in competition, and their screen production training and education experiences.
on making Six Dollar Fifty Man – and more
Sticky Pictures’ Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland talk about making Six Dollar Fifty Man, their third short film together, as well as their experience at the Cannes Film Festival last year where second short Run was in competition, and their screen production training and education experiences.
So what’s Six Dollar Fifty Man about?
Plot-wise, Six Dollar Fifty Man is about Andy, a gutsy, anti-social eight-year-old boy who has to stand up to school bullies and a scary primary school headmaster so he can keep his closest friend and face his biggest fear.
As far as themes go, it deals with isolation and determination.
This is the second short in a row you've made that centres on kids. What is it about stories of childhood that draws you to them?
Louis Sutherland: I think kids are so much more beautiful to watch than adults when it comes to the frame. A lot of people, not only parents, are readily drawn to the vulnerability of a child, which really helps you to reach the audience quickly. So for a short film, if you have the patience and process to support them, they are perfect subjects to base your story around.
They have also offered Mark and myself so much learning, specifically about direction. Handling a child on set can be a bit like juggling explosives, as they are easily tired out and emotions can just pop. Adults aren’t built like this, so focusing on the kids was paramount and therefore a challenge. It’s something I will cherish and take into my future projects, and I don’t think we would have acquired it with an adult actor over the same period of production.
Your second short, Run was very much informed by your attitudes about parenthood, given the story involved a father’s relationship with his two kids. Did the fact you’re both fathers impact on Six Dollar Fifty Man in a similar way?
LS: I think we both have very assertive children. Obviously this should really be attributed to Daphne and Amy, our very lovely ladies, but we’ll take the credit of course.
As a parent I aspire to give my kids as much empowerment as possible, so they grow easily into an environment where they are comfortable making their own decisions. That doesn’t include demands for more pudding though.
Our stories capture the essence of that. We are dealing with kids who must stand up for themselves or face their fears in both Six Dollar Fifty Man and Run. I think we would both want our children to have similar strengths as the little heroes in our films. I guess our lead characters are very much ideal kids in some way or another. They are unique and they are happy in being who they are.
Mark Albiston: I try to be really nice to my three kids as I’d hate to be the inspiration for an antagonist in one of their films – they already put the boot in when we play their favourite game, ‘rough and tumble’. But seriously, the characteristics in Andy, the hero of Six Dollar Fifty Man, are qualities I’d encourage in my kids – standing up for yourself and being happy in your own skin.
With the short films you’ve previously made together – Dead End and Run – plus the feature film script you’re currently developing, you’ve mined your own experiences for material. Is that the case with this one?
MA: In the case of Six Dollar Fifty Man the original inspiration came from a true story my kids ask me to tell them a lot. It’s based on my attempted ‘great escape’ from primary school, which climaxed with four classrooms of kids pressing their noses to the window and watching with anticipation as two big kids mowed me down as I tried to out run them across our back field. I told Louis the story and he connected with it straight away and started writing it.
In the case of Run we started with disparate moments from Louis’ experiences growing up and found a plot that we could weld those moments to.
With The Six Dollar Fifty Man we started with a true to life plot, then we defined what the story was (which, as many writers know, is one of the hardest things to do). After that we got ruthless and cut the bits that weren’t serving our central story. Then we enhanced it by doing things like giving our hero a good friend and creating other moments that were better and economical. Louis chipped in with some his childhood experiences (like killing insects with a burning plastic clothes peg).
LS: I personally don’t think our childhoods are that remarkable, to be honest. I just find we like shaping and working with our memories. It means I know a lot of what I’m writing about and also as a collaborative team we can pinpoint and align our ideas quickly as we share a lot of each other’s past.
Given this is the third short you’ve collaborated on together, you’ve presumably developed a formula for the way you approach writing together. So what did the writing process for Six Dollar Fifty Man involve and in what if any ways did it differ from your writing process for Dead End and Run?
LS: Our process of writing is pretty relaxed. It always begins with a conversation about what we think would be enjoyable to work with. It’s very open ended. Sometimes we will just be chewing the fat and an idea will emerge that will surprise the both of us.
So I wouldn’t say we have a stringent approach to how we write and each of our films so far has taken a different road in development. Six Dollar Fifty Man, for example, began as an unforgettable day Mark had at our old school, Raumati Beach Primary. It was an experience he had where he did a runner after being sent to our headmaster’s office. Mark chickened out and legged it across the back field, while all us kids watched it from our classroom windows. Two boys were then sent to chase after him and the school watched the drama unfold.
It was one of those moments everyone instantly enjoys hearing about because what you have is a wee fella taking on the system in the only way he can. It’s primal, about survival, and a pretty cute premise as well.
From us agreeing this was a great beginning, we then put together an initial structure in a two-hour road trip we shared one day. From there I hit the keyboards and got out a first draft very quickly and we then put it on the table and tore it to pieces. At any stage when I write I’ll be sending a scene or part draft to Mark and we’ll refine as I continue writing. There really is no start or finish to this. We collaborate and the line is always open.
Anyways, the next five-odd drafts for Six Dollar Fifty Man were about improving the story structure/plot and filling in moments of the tale with other pieces of our past. Beautiful details like the wonderful character of our old headmaster Mr Hannah and the nature of some of our old school friends began seeping into the pages. Things we did as kids that we felt people would enjoy and relate to.
If we disagree we generally will let it sit for a few days or couple of weeks and from there one of us usually will come around to the other’s way of thinking. With writing in particular it really is only costing you, say, the time to write a scene or two and the cost of the electricity for the computer, so we generally will be pretty open to trying all of our ideas out. It’s pretty obvious what is going to work once we have a read together.
We are pretty relaxed about how we approach it and I don’t think this will change too much.
Mark, in the past you’ve said you think the way you and Louis work together is unique. Can the two of you describe what you see as the key/s to your working relationship, and how is it continuing to evolve with each successive project?
MA: We are both quite strong all-rounders in the field of film and television but when we work together on our projects we automatically begin working to our personal strengths, as we know this is what is best for the work.
That said, this isn’t something we decided to do consciously but more what we have found through the shared experience of each production. Louis will put the words on the page, I will paint the pictures. In pre-production we both workshop with the actors and lock down direction. On set I work closer with the crew and Louis works closer with the actors. In post-production we are very much side by side.
It works because we think about most things ahead of time and then trust each other to make it work on the day.
LS: Through each project we have found areas where we wanted to improve. After Dead End it was our writing, following Run I think it was our support for performance and a desire to risk more in the style, and after Six Dollar Fifty Man I think we are looking towards finding a production process that will support our style/ideas as we work towards our feature project, Shopping. We would like to refine this with one more short film before Shopping.
Other than the casting, which we’ll get to in a tick, what were the principal challenges that bringing Six Dollar Fifty Man to the screen presented you with?
LS: One challenge was, of course, budget (nothing new there!). We were fortunate to have Wendy Cuthbert on as our producer for Six Dollar Fifty Man and she did a great job in keeping the purse strings tight for the project in order to get us across the finish line.
We also made some early decisions about what we should shoot on. We wanted to explore improvisations in some scenes, which we hadn’t worked towards in Run, so we knew we could be burning a few more feet of film. So to support our performance process we went for 16mm with a digital intermediate instead of 35mm. We bounced the ideas around with our DoP, Simon Baumfield, and he helped us with advice on how we could shoot to the strengths of 16mm after we had some viewings of various film stocks at Park Road Post.
MA: This has to be said – where would we be without a giving and supportive crew? This was really highlighted when we were in Cannes last year with Run. We discussed the ins and outs of the New Zealand film industry with many directors and producers. Apart from the majority salivating over the concept of a government-funded body such as the NZFC providing support and funds for filmmakers, they were surprised to hear that not only was it legal for crew members to work below union rates but were even more amazed that our crews would choose to. Let’s face it, $100,000 is a great start, and all credit to the NZFC for their continued support, but without the giving nature of so many professionals around Wellington, none of our films would have been made.
As mentioned earlier, Six Dollar Fifty Man was produced by Wendy Cuthbert who managed to pull together a great crew with people like Kate Trafford on wardrobe, Chris Hiles on sound, Giles Coburn as gaffer, Murray Love on grip, Josh O’Neill in the art department, and Gareth Moon grabbing some awesome publicity shots. And we are really lucky to have the services of Jon Baxter from Perceptual Engineering masterminding the grade, and Matt Stutter tracklaying/foley and ADR. Also, thanks to Peter Fleming from Camera Tech for supplying the camera and John Bicknell from Fuji for supplying the stock. And Park Road Post (as always) is giving us great deals on post sound and vision – they were our champions on Run and have again been fantastic with accommodating our needs on Six Dollar Fifty Man.
You obviously set yourselves a major casting (and production) challenge by making the main characters in the short kids. You did the same thing with Run, so it’s pretty clear the two of you share a strong streak of masochism. Any animals in key roles as well, per chance? Seriously though, in Run you specifically looked to cast kids without prior film acting experience. Was that the case with Six Dollar Fifty Man as well, and if yes, how come? What did your casting process involve?
LS: We used the same approach with Six Dollar Fifty Man as we did with Run. Our view is that kids can be great performers and very transformative but are so much more believable in the frame when they can bring more of themselves. So, after an initial look through acting agents’ books, we then went searching at local schools in the Wellington region. Again, like Run, we were looking for a texture of personality similar to the character. The kids that were brave, showed intelligence and weren’t challenged by the presence of a camera stood out. Generally a child with this confidence can sell a line, remember their blocking and their marks, and above all remain alive and in their own skin.
However, for all our experience and process, it was a real curve ball when casting the lead role of Andy, who is wilful, witty and unique. He had to be exceptional so we knew this would be challenging, but after a lot of energy and hope we were still left empty-handed after over a month of scouring.
Then one day, Mhairead Connor, Sticky Pictures’ general manager, was at the office finishing up for the day while her son Oscar sat waiting. We have both known Oscar for a couple of years and he has always managed to entertain us in some way or another – he’s brave, blunt and frighteningly quicker than a lot of adults we know. It was funny because there he was, just being himself, and then it kind of dawned on us at the same time: “Oscar is bloody Andy!” So yeah, you can try to be as clever and as process driven as you like, sometimes, fortunately, you just get lucky!
How much rehearsal did you do prior to the shoot, and what did it involve? Did this include workshopping the script with the cast at all?
LS: We worked with our cast, particularly the children, for a week prior to shooting. We really just worked them into the story, allowing them time to consider the themes amd moments, and process it by way of talking, sharing and then enacting in some way or form. We also ran scenes, text and no-text, so they could feel their own way through the moments and beats. I guess this also helped us pick some beautiful dialogue from what they ‘offered’ and rewrite scenes.
As far as workshopping goes, yes, this was inclusive but never as a separate focus to the rehearsal. We workshopped while we rehearsed effectively, grabbing and rewriting the gold that the cast offered up as we played games and worked moments in the script.
We are always open to shifting something structurally if the opportunity arises but we had worked hard with our executive producers/script advisers, Shuchi Kothari and Sarina Pearson, so the script’s structure remained pretty solid through the rehearsal process.
When we spoke to you last year about Run you shared what you saw as the key to helping kids give good performances on film. Any new tips and techniques you’ve hit upon in the interim?
MA: A big tip for pre-production is not to overdo it. They need time to recover for the shoot! Kids get so exited that they don’t sleep the night before the first day and can spend the rest of the shoot trying to recover.
A good break between rehearsals and production is great if you can manage it.
On set, make sure they have a minder who takes them away from set and can keep them entertained in a relaxed way so they don’t ‘burn out’.
It was also great having two of us as we could share the load when dealing with the demands of keeping the kids’ energy up.
How did your relationship work on set, given the two of you directed the short?
MA: The key is to make sure we are solid on what we want before we talk to people. That way when we come to set we are able to make decisions autonomously without second-guessing each other. That allows Louis to spend most of his time working with the actors and frees me to focus more with the DoP and art department. That said, if something isn’t happening performance-wise or technically we will problem solve it together.
We share a vision and so the trust is there.
There was a lot of collaboration on Run, which led into Six Dollar Fifty Man – Louis wrote the film and I worked with him on the story. Louis played the antagonist father in Run so he wasn’t involved as much on set or on the floor in pre-production. That was a decision made in order to give Louis enough distance to perform. But we worked together on systems and process with the actors and how we both saw the film. We also worked together a lot on post-production with Run.
So with Six Dollar Fifty Man it was a natural progression for us to work side-by-side for the whole gig and develop our on-set relationship.
Mark, it’s been your habit in the past to edit a lot of your shows – did you perform this duty on Six Dollar Fifty Man, or did you bring someone else in as you did on Run? How did this part of the process work in those terms and also as far as being co-directors goes?
LS: Again we worked in a similar vein as we did in Run. Mike Horton did a week’s cut as our editor, with Mark driving the edit suite. After this had been achieved Mark and myself sat down over a solid week refining and refocusing the drama. Together we tried new things, scouring the footage and taking chances.
When we were fairly happy with a rough off-line we tested it with an audience and then returned to the edit suite where we made some decisions based on a fresh view.
Refining the cut is spread a bit due to the need to make money for our babies during the day. We’d often have to go home for tea with the family in the evening, bathe the kids and then find our way back to work after their bedtime.
When we spoke last year you talked about your feature film script, Shopping, which draws on Louis’ youthful experience as a kind of Samoan Artful Dodger on the mean streets of Wellington. Where are you at with that script? Was there much interest in it when you were, ahem, shopping it around at Cannes last year?
LS: We have just delivered our first draft of Shopping to the NZFC, so fingers crossed we’ll be back into a second draft really soon.
In Cannes we were both really excited about the concept of Shopping and the opportunity the NZFC had given us in flying and putting us up there. We didn’t want to let the moment pass, so we banged out a treatment and approached three or four distributors we thought would be interested in the style of film we wanted to make. We got some immediate interest and now here we are, first draft down with notes for improvements and keen to crack into a second.
Speaking of Cannes, which you attended thanks to Run being selected to screen in competition (where it made the final three), how did you find that whole experience, from both a business and personal perspective?
MA: In Cannes we found ourselves thrown into the world’s most hectic film market and it really is either a ‘sink or swim’ environment. You can sit back and watch it all pass you while enjoying the sun and sinking a few too many drinks or you can use it to further your experience of film, particularly the foreign market and making connections, putting your face in front of anyone who’ll listen. We went for the latter.
It was great putting ourselves under the pressure of getting together Shopping’s treatment and pitch in a matter of days. We rehearsed it in our villa and then charged down a hill into the busy streets, making our way to our first meeting. The feeling really is no different to taking the stage on opening night in a theatre piece. You’re on show. We’re glad to say no one threw tomatoes but, irrelevant of how we were taken, the sheer experience of this was a huge growth period for us.
LS: Cannes – and the other festivals of this type – is where so many industry people make their living in film. We remember Hone Kouka from the NZFC telling us to pace ourselves, as it’s pretty full on.
One image will always stick with us. This guy was sitting outside in the sun at a table looking worse for wear. Bare-chested, his expensive suit jacket and shirt were discarded on the ground beside him and empty bottles of champagne sat around him on a table. Downcast, he slid a handful of plastic across the table to a waiter without even looking up at what he was doing. It was obvious he’d blown out and he was drowning his dreams with the champers. Sad to watch, but a reality check that this was the hard-assed business end.
And what’s happening with Sticky Pictures’ other work, like The Gravy for instance – is that going to be renewed for another series? And what else is on the boil?
MA: The Gravy is into its third series now and we’ve been named as finalists in the Qantas Film and TV Awards in the lifestyle section and in ‘best director’ for the same category (for Phillip England). We have a number of directors working on the show including Louis, which is awesome.
Sticky Pictures has just been commissioned to do a 20-minute doco on Sir Peter Blake for the Sir Peter Blake museum on Auckland’s viaduct. We just got a development grant from NZ On Air with which we are developing a handful of docos, including one on the Homeless World Cup, which we are really excited about. We just finished a pilot for a comedy show called Nah Zullin featuring our animator/writer Rhys Morgan, Tammy Davis (Munter from Outrageous Fortune), Tanya Thompson aka Misery (we’ll be making Misery short animations) and Jeremy Randerson, and we have two really exiting TV dramas in development. Our feature Shopping is also going to be a Sticky Pictures production.
Given the issue this is associated with includes our annual training and education feature, it behoves me to ask you a couple of questions are that particularly relevant to that… So, what – if any – training and education did you both do, and if you had your time over again, would you do the same stuff or take a different tack?
LS: I started out in radio writing and voicing really bad commercials, which was really just a laugh. Then in the early ’90s I went to work at a community television station based in Kapiti where to get the programme out you basically had to do everything. Although Mark and I had known each other since we were kids it was here that we first began working on projects together. (He jumped on board after leaving his degree at art/film school.)
Anyway, although the quality of work suffered as a result, the experience of directing, researching, producing, shooting, presenting, and editing was priceless as there is nothing like being hands on. I left after a few years and went out contracting as a director. It was after a stint shooting in East Timor when Indonesia withdrew in 1999 that I decided to return and concentrate on film/performance. Instead of film school, as I felt I already had some of these skills, I went the way of Toi Whakaari and obtained my performance degree.
It was the best thing I could do and it has shed so much light on how to communicate with performers to draw out what I need for my work as a director. Also, having read plays/scripts for four years I think I had a better understanding of story/structure/character/plot etc, which has helped me as a writer.
MA: I went to Canterbury Film School, which wasn’t the greatest experience for me. I was 17 and a bit aimless. Film school at Canterbury is a part of the Fine Arts Department and initially I thought I’d like to become a painter/print maker because that’s what I’d enjoyed most at school. I’d like to say that I was then captured by cinema, but it just so happened that I aced the section of our intermediate year (we had to do a stint of every arts discipline on offer before specialising) with a short that I did for the film section of our intermediate year.
I liked it a lot but at the time I think I was more into having a good time and playing sport. I dropped out in my second or third year and went overseas playing rugby in Canada before coming back to my hometown of Raumati on the Kapiti Coast where I did a stint treating timber for the Parapine wood plant. After making the news with a chemical overflow, I bumped into Louis who swung me a job at ONTV, the local TV station on the then very small cable network. I learnt more there than I did at film school, and having to shoot, direct and edit every day and turn stories around is a great way to learn that mistakes are good – unlike when treating timber next to an arterial waterway.
It was then that Louis and I dreamed of making films (after being inspired by Kitchen Sink), so together and filled of passion we wrote a really, really shit-house script that thankfully we never made.
Since then I have travelled overseas to London with my partner Amy, where I made a heap of sports lifestyle TV, which took me all over the world, before having our first child and returning to set up Sticky Pictures in Wellington in 2000. The week after Eva, our first, was born, I left to work with Louis overseas. I came back and made a pilot for an arts show called The Living Room, a 10x30 minute series. I talked my partner Amy into running our company, which we called Sticky Pictures and that’s how it started. I got Louis to direct on a couple of Living Room stories while he was at drama school and from there we decided to write and make movies for real!
I don’t think I’d change anything about my education. Doing community TV was great for me – crazy deadlines but no creative boundaries was perfect. I think arts school came at the wrong time and I went for the wrong reasons but that’s OK too. We’ve only made a couple of shorts so in my mind we’re still at school in a way!
What advice do you have to someone who would like to be part of the NZ film and television industry?
LS: I would suggest they get their heads around as many aspects of the industry as possible. Think the ‘number eight wire’ mentality. If you want to be a director, learn how to edit. If you’re training to be an actor, take a script-writing course or begin penning your first draft. You cannot learn too much and I think an understanding of how the left hand serves the right is what makes a useful team.
Also it could give you an income stream when you aren’t doing ‘exactly’ what you want to be at that point in time. In that, accept that you might not hit your straps immediately. In some cases people do but that’s a rarity and not a rule of thumb. I think that the patience you gain from this will help you develop the right attitude. Be open to everything, work your ass off and you’ll get there.
MA: There are a number of ways to break in. No, you don’t have to join a big company or TVNZ or go to film school any more. Just do it by any means necessary and learn by being a part of projects. Volunteer for short film and music video shoots – a great way to see how shooting 35mm or 16mm film works. Be a runner or a directors assistant for a doco. Ask to sit in on edits. Watch lots of films and videos, yes, but make sure you get out and make stuff – do the 48HOUR film fest. Once you start working together with people you get swept up into different projects.
Anything else you’d like to mention?
LS: Mark is a dropout…
Mark and Louis, thanks very much for your time!
© Copyright Onfilm magazine, October 2008 www.onfilm.co.nz
Plot-wise, Six Dollar Fifty Man is about Andy, a gutsy, anti-social eight-year-old boy who has to stand up to school bullies and a scary primary school headmaster so he can keep his closest friend and face his biggest fear.
As far as themes go, it deals with isolation and determination.
This is the second short in a row you've made that centres on kids. What is it about stories of childhood that draws you to them?
Louis Sutherland: I think kids are so much more beautiful to watch than adults when it comes to the frame. A lot of people, not only parents, are readily drawn to the vulnerability of a child, which really helps you to reach the audience quickly. So for a short film, if you have the patience and process to support them, they are perfect subjects to base your story around.
They have also offered Mark and myself so much learning, specifically about direction. Handling a child on set can be a bit like juggling explosives, as they are easily tired out and emotions can just pop. Adults aren’t built like this, so focusing on the kids was paramount and therefore a challenge. It’s something I will cherish and take into my future projects, and I don’t think we would have acquired it with an adult actor over the same period of production.
Your second short, Run was very much informed by your attitudes about parenthood, given the story involved a father’s relationship with his two kids. Did the fact you’re both fathers impact on Six Dollar Fifty Man in a similar way?
LS: I think we both have very assertive children. Obviously this should really be attributed to Daphne and Amy, our very lovely ladies, but we’ll take the credit of course.
As a parent I aspire to give my kids as much empowerment as possible, so they grow easily into an environment where they are comfortable making their own decisions. That doesn’t include demands for more pudding though.
Our stories capture the essence of that. We are dealing with kids who must stand up for themselves or face their fears in both Six Dollar Fifty Man and Run. I think we would both want our children to have similar strengths as the little heroes in our films. I guess our lead characters are very much ideal kids in some way or another. They are unique and they are happy in being who they are.
Mark Albiston: I try to be really nice to my three kids as I’d hate to be the inspiration for an antagonist in one of their films – they already put the boot in when we play their favourite game, ‘rough and tumble’. But seriously, the characteristics in Andy, the hero of Six Dollar Fifty Man, are qualities I’d encourage in my kids – standing up for yourself and being happy in your own skin.
With the short films you’ve previously made together – Dead End and Run – plus the feature film script you’re currently developing, you’ve mined your own experiences for material. Is that the case with this one?
MA: In the case of Six Dollar Fifty Man the original inspiration came from a true story my kids ask me to tell them a lot. It’s based on my attempted ‘great escape’ from primary school, which climaxed with four classrooms of kids pressing their noses to the window and watching with anticipation as two big kids mowed me down as I tried to out run them across our back field. I told Louis the story and he connected with it straight away and started writing it.
In the case of Run we started with disparate moments from Louis’ experiences growing up and found a plot that we could weld those moments to.
With The Six Dollar Fifty Man we started with a true to life plot, then we defined what the story was (which, as many writers know, is one of the hardest things to do). After that we got ruthless and cut the bits that weren’t serving our central story. Then we enhanced it by doing things like giving our hero a good friend and creating other moments that were better and economical. Louis chipped in with some his childhood experiences (like killing insects with a burning plastic clothes peg).
LS: I personally don’t think our childhoods are that remarkable, to be honest. I just find we like shaping and working with our memories. It means I know a lot of what I’m writing about and also as a collaborative team we can pinpoint and align our ideas quickly as we share a lot of each other’s past.
Given this is the third short you’ve collaborated on together, you’ve presumably developed a formula for the way you approach writing together. So what did the writing process for Six Dollar Fifty Man involve and in what if any ways did it differ from your writing process for Dead End and Run?
LS: Our process of writing is pretty relaxed. It always begins with a conversation about what we think would be enjoyable to work with. It’s very open ended. Sometimes we will just be chewing the fat and an idea will emerge that will surprise the both of us.
So I wouldn’t say we have a stringent approach to how we write and each of our films so far has taken a different road in development. Six Dollar Fifty Man, for example, began as an unforgettable day Mark had at our old school, Raumati Beach Primary. It was an experience he had where he did a runner after being sent to our headmaster’s office. Mark chickened out and legged it across the back field, while all us kids watched it from our classroom windows. Two boys were then sent to chase after him and the school watched the drama unfold.
It was one of those moments everyone instantly enjoys hearing about because what you have is a wee fella taking on the system in the only way he can. It’s primal, about survival, and a pretty cute premise as well.
From us agreeing this was a great beginning, we then put together an initial structure in a two-hour road trip we shared one day. From there I hit the keyboards and got out a first draft very quickly and we then put it on the table and tore it to pieces. At any stage when I write I’ll be sending a scene or part draft to Mark and we’ll refine as I continue writing. There really is no start or finish to this. We collaborate and the line is always open.
Anyways, the next five-odd drafts for Six Dollar Fifty Man were about improving the story structure/plot and filling in moments of the tale with other pieces of our past. Beautiful details like the wonderful character of our old headmaster Mr Hannah and the nature of some of our old school friends began seeping into the pages. Things we did as kids that we felt people would enjoy and relate to.
If we disagree we generally will let it sit for a few days or couple of weeks and from there one of us usually will come around to the other’s way of thinking. With writing in particular it really is only costing you, say, the time to write a scene or two and the cost of the electricity for the computer, so we generally will be pretty open to trying all of our ideas out. It’s pretty obvious what is going to work once we have a read together.
We are pretty relaxed about how we approach it and I don’t think this will change too much.
Mark, in the past you’ve said you think the way you and Louis work together is unique. Can the two of you describe what you see as the key/s to your working relationship, and how is it continuing to evolve with each successive project?
MA: We are both quite strong all-rounders in the field of film and television but when we work together on our projects we automatically begin working to our personal strengths, as we know this is what is best for the work.
That said, this isn’t something we decided to do consciously but more what we have found through the shared experience of each production. Louis will put the words on the page, I will paint the pictures. In pre-production we both workshop with the actors and lock down direction. On set I work closer with the crew and Louis works closer with the actors. In post-production we are very much side by side.
It works because we think about most things ahead of time and then trust each other to make it work on the day.
LS: Through each project we have found areas where we wanted to improve. After Dead End it was our writing, following Run I think it was our support for performance and a desire to risk more in the style, and after Six Dollar Fifty Man I think we are looking towards finding a production process that will support our style/ideas as we work towards our feature project, Shopping. We would like to refine this with one more short film before Shopping.
Other than the casting, which we’ll get to in a tick, what were the principal challenges that bringing Six Dollar Fifty Man to the screen presented you with?
LS: One challenge was, of course, budget (nothing new there!). We were fortunate to have Wendy Cuthbert on as our producer for Six Dollar Fifty Man and she did a great job in keeping the purse strings tight for the project in order to get us across the finish line.
We also made some early decisions about what we should shoot on. We wanted to explore improvisations in some scenes, which we hadn’t worked towards in Run, so we knew we could be burning a few more feet of film. So to support our performance process we went for 16mm with a digital intermediate instead of 35mm. We bounced the ideas around with our DoP, Simon Baumfield, and he helped us with advice on how we could shoot to the strengths of 16mm after we had some viewings of various film stocks at Park Road Post.
MA: This has to be said – where would we be without a giving and supportive crew? This was really highlighted when we were in Cannes last year with Run. We discussed the ins and outs of the New Zealand film industry with many directors and producers. Apart from the majority salivating over the concept of a government-funded body such as the NZFC providing support and funds for filmmakers, they were surprised to hear that not only was it legal for crew members to work below union rates but were even more amazed that our crews would choose to. Let’s face it, $100,000 is a great start, and all credit to the NZFC for their continued support, but without the giving nature of so many professionals around Wellington, none of our films would have been made.
As mentioned earlier, Six Dollar Fifty Man was produced by Wendy Cuthbert who managed to pull together a great crew with people like Kate Trafford on wardrobe, Chris Hiles on sound, Giles Coburn as gaffer, Murray Love on grip, Josh O’Neill in the art department, and Gareth Moon grabbing some awesome publicity shots. And we are really lucky to have the services of Jon Baxter from Perceptual Engineering masterminding the grade, and Matt Stutter tracklaying/foley and ADR. Also, thanks to Peter Fleming from Camera Tech for supplying the camera and John Bicknell from Fuji for supplying the stock. And Park Road Post (as always) is giving us great deals on post sound and vision – they were our champions on Run and have again been fantastic with accommodating our needs on Six Dollar Fifty Man.
You obviously set yourselves a major casting (and production) challenge by making the main characters in the short kids. You did the same thing with Run, so it’s pretty clear the two of you share a strong streak of masochism. Any animals in key roles as well, per chance? Seriously though, in Run you specifically looked to cast kids without prior film acting experience. Was that the case with Six Dollar Fifty Man as well, and if yes, how come? What did your casting process involve?
LS: We used the same approach with Six Dollar Fifty Man as we did with Run. Our view is that kids can be great performers and very transformative but are so much more believable in the frame when they can bring more of themselves. So, after an initial look through acting agents’ books, we then went searching at local schools in the Wellington region. Again, like Run, we were looking for a texture of personality similar to the character. The kids that were brave, showed intelligence and weren’t challenged by the presence of a camera stood out. Generally a child with this confidence can sell a line, remember their blocking and their marks, and above all remain alive and in their own skin.
However, for all our experience and process, it was a real curve ball when casting the lead role of Andy, who is wilful, witty and unique. He had to be exceptional so we knew this would be challenging, but after a lot of energy and hope we were still left empty-handed after over a month of scouring.
Then one day, Mhairead Connor, Sticky Pictures’ general manager, was at the office finishing up for the day while her son Oscar sat waiting. We have both known Oscar for a couple of years and he has always managed to entertain us in some way or another – he’s brave, blunt and frighteningly quicker than a lot of adults we know. It was funny because there he was, just being himself, and then it kind of dawned on us at the same time: “Oscar is bloody Andy!” So yeah, you can try to be as clever and as process driven as you like, sometimes, fortunately, you just get lucky!
How much rehearsal did you do prior to the shoot, and what did it involve? Did this include workshopping the script with the cast at all?
LS: We worked with our cast, particularly the children, for a week prior to shooting. We really just worked them into the story, allowing them time to consider the themes amd moments, and process it by way of talking, sharing and then enacting in some way or form. We also ran scenes, text and no-text, so they could feel their own way through the moments and beats. I guess this also helped us pick some beautiful dialogue from what they ‘offered’ and rewrite scenes.
As far as workshopping goes, yes, this was inclusive but never as a separate focus to the rehearsal. We workshopped while we rehearsed effectively, grabbing and rewriting the gold that the cast offered up as we played games and worked moments in the script.
We are always open to shifting something structurally if the opportunity arises but we had worked hard with our executive producers/script advisers, Shuchi Kothari and Sarina Pearson, so the script’s structure remained pretty solid through the rehearsal process.
When we spoke to you last year about Run you shared what you saw as the key to helping kids give good performances on film. Any new tips and techniques you’ve hit upon in the interim?
MA: A big tip for pre-production is not to overdo it. They need time to recover for the shoot! Kids get so exited that they don’t sleep the night before the first day and can spend the rest of the shoot trying to recover.
A good break between rehearsals and production is great if you can manage it.
On set, make sure they have a minder who takes them away from set and can keep them entertained in a relaxed way so they don’t ‘burn out’.
It was also great having two of us as we could share the load when dealing with the demands of keeping the kids’ energy up.
How did your relationship work on set, given the two of you directed the short?
MA: The key is to make sure we are solid on what we want before we talk to people. That way when we come to set we are able to make decisions autonomously without second-guessing each other. That allows Louis to spend most of his time working with the actors and frees me to focus more with the DoP and art department. That said, if something isn’t happening performance-wise or technically we will problem solve it together.
We share a vision and so the trust is there.
There was a lot of collaboration on Run, which led into Six Dollar Fifty Man – Louis wrote the film and I worked with him on the story. Louis played the antagonist father in Run so he wasn’t involved as much on set or on the floor in pre-production. That was a decision made in order to give Louis enough distance to perform. But we worked together on systems and process with the actors and how we both saw the film. We also worked together a lot on post-production with Run.
So with Six Dollar Fifty Man it was a natural progression for us to work side-by-side for the whole gig and develop our on-set relationship.
Mark, it’s been your habit in the past to edit a lot of your shows – did you perform this duty on Six Dollar Fifty Man, or did you bring someone else in as you did on Run? How did this part of the process work in those terms and also as far as being co-directors goes?
LS: Again we worked in a similar vein as we did in Run. Mike Horton did a week’s cut as our editor, with Mark driving the edit suite. After this had been achieved Mark and myself sat down over a solid week refining and refocusing the drama. Together we tried new things, scouring the footage and taking chances.
When we were fairly happy with a rough off-line we tested it with an audience and then returned to the edit suite where we made some decisions based on a fresh view.
Refining the cut is spread a bit due to the need to make money for our babies during the day. We’d often have to go home for tea with the family in the evening, bathe the kids and then find our way back to work after their bedtime.
When we spoke last year you talked about your feature film script, Shopping, which draws on Louis’ youthful experience as a kind of Samoan Artful Dodger on the mean streets of Wellington. Where are you at with that script? Was there much interest in it when you were, ahem, shopping it around at Cannes last year?
LS: We have just delivered our first draft of Shopping to the NZFC, so fingers crossed we’ll be back into a second draft really soon.
In Cannes we were both really excited about the concept of Shopping and the opportunity the NZFC had given us in flying and putting us up there. We didn’t want to let the moment pass, so we banged out a treatment and approached three or four distributors we thought would be interested in the style of film we wanted to make. We got some immediate interest and now here we are, first draft down with notes for improvements and keen to crack into a second.
Speaking of Cannes, which you attended thanks to Run being selected to screen in competition (where it made the final three), how did you find that whole experience, from both a business and personal perspective?
MA: In Cannes we found ourselves thrown into the world’s most hectic film market and it really is either a ‘sink or swim’ environment. You can sit back and watch it all pass you while enjoying the sun and sinking a few too many drinks or you can use it to further your experience of film, particularly the foreign market and making connections, putting your face in front of anyone who’ll listen. We went for the latter.
It was great putting ourselves under the pressure of getting together Shopping’s treatment and pitch in a matter of days. We rehearsed it in our villa and then charged down a hill into the busy streets, making our way to our first meeting. The feeling really is no different to taking the stage on opening night in a theatre piece. You’re on show. We’re glad to say no one threw tomatoes but, irrelevant of how we were taken, the sheer experience of this was a huge growth period for us.
LS: Cannes – and the other festivals of this type – is where so many industry people make their living in film. We remember Hone Kouka from the NZFC telling us to pace ourselves, as it’s pretty full on.
One image will always stick with us. This guy was sitting outside in the sun at a table looking worse for wear. Bare-chested, his expensive suit jacket and shirt were discarded on the ground beside him and empty bottles of champagne sat around him on a table. Downcast, he slid a handful of plastic across the table to a waiter without even looking up at what he was doing. It was obvious he’d blown out and he was drowning his dreams with the champers. Sad to watch, but a reality check that this was the hard-assed business end.
And what’s happening with Sticky Pictures’ other work, like The Gravy for instance – is that going to be renewed for another series? And what else is on the boil?
MA: The Gravy is into its third series now and we’ve been named as finalists in the Qantas Film and TV Awards in the lifestyle section and in ‘best director’ for the same category (for Phillip England). We have a number of directors working on the show including Louis, which is awesome.
Sticky Pictures has just been commissioned to do a 20-minute doco on Sir Peter Blake for the Sir Peter Blake museum on Auckland’s viaduct. We just got a development grant from NZ On Air with which we are developing a handful of docos, including one on the Homeless World Cup, which we are really excited about. We just finished a pilot for a comedy show called Nah Zullin featuring our animator/writer Rhys Morgan, Tammy Davis (Munter from Outrageous Fortune), Tanya Thompson aka Misery (we’ll be making Misery short animations) and Jeremy Randerson, and we have two really exiting TV dramas in development. Our feature Shopping is also going to be a Sticky Pictures production.
Given the issue this is associated with includes our annual training and education feature, it behoves me to ask you a couple of questions are that particularly relevant to that… So, what – if any – training and education did you both do, and if you had your time over again, would you do the same stuff or take a different tack?
LS: I started out in radio writing and voicing really bad commercials, which was really just a laugh. Then in the early ’90s I went to work at a community television station based in Kapiti where to get the programme out you basically had to do everything. Although Mark and I had known each other since we were kids it was here that we first began working on projects together. (He jumped on board after leaving his degree at art/film school.)
Anyway, although the quality of work suffered as a result, the experience of directing, researching, producing, shooting, presenting, and editing was priceless as there is nothing like being hands on. I left after a few years and went out contracting as a director. It was after a stint shooting in East Timor when Indonesia withdrew in 1999 that I decided to return and concentrate on film/performance. Instead of film school, as I felt I already had some of these skills, I went the way of Toi Whakaari and obtained my performance degree.
It was the best thing I could do and it has shed so much light on how to communicate with performers to draw out what I need for my work as a director. Also, having read plays/scripts for four years I think I had a better understanding of story/structure/character/plot etc, which has helped me as a writer.
MA: I went to Canterbury Film School, which wasn’t the greatest experience for me. I was 17 and a bit aimless. Film school at Canterbury is a part of the Fine Arts Department and initially I thought I’d like to become a painter/print maker because that’s what I’d enjoyed most at school. I’d like to say that I was then captured by cinema, but it just so happened that I aced the section of our intermediate year (we had to do a stint of every arts discipline on offer before specialising) with a short that I did for the film section of our intermediate year.
I liked it a lot but at the time I think I was more into having a good time and playing sport. I dropped out in my second or third year and went overseas playing rugby in Canada before coming back to my hometown of Raumati on the Kapiti Coast where I did a stint treating timber for the Parapine wood plant. After making the news with a chemical overflow, I bumped into Louis who swung me a job at ONTV, the local TV station on the then very small cable network. I learnt more there than I did at film school, and having to shoot, direct and edit every day and turn stories around is a great way to learn that mistakes are good – unlike when treating timber next to an arterial waterway.
It was then that Louis and I dreamed of making films (after being inspired by Kitchen Sink), so together and filled of passion we wrote a really, really shit-house script that thankfully we never made.
Since then I have travelled overseas to London with my partner Amy, where I made a heap of sports lifestyle TV, which took me all over the world, before having our first child and returning to set up Sticky Pictures in Wellington in 2000. The week after Eva, our first, was born, I left to work with Louis overseas. I came back and made a pilot for an arts show called The Living Room, a 10x30 minute series. I talked my partner Amy into running our company, which we called Sticky Pictures and that’s how it started. I got Louis to direct on a couple of Living Room stories while he was at drama school and from there we decided to write and make movies for real!
I don’t think I’d change anything about my education. Doing community TV was great for me – crazy deadlines but no creative boundaries was perfect. I think arts school came at the wrong time and I went for the wrong reasons but that’s OK too. We’ve only made a couple of shorts so in my mind we’re still at school in a way!
What advice do you have to someone who would like to be part of the NZ film and television industry?
LS: I would suggest they get their heads around as many aspects of the industry as possible. Think the ‘number eight wire’ mentality. If you want to be a director, learn how to edit. If you’re training to be an actor, take a script-writing course or begin penning your first draft. You cannot learn too much and I think an understanding of how the left hand serves the right is what makes a useful team.
Also it could give you an income stream when you aren’t doing ‘exactly’ what you want to be at that point in time. In that, accept that you might not hit your straps immediately. In some cases people do but that’s a rarity and not a rule of thumb. I think that the patience you gain from this will help you develop the right attitude. Be open to everything, work your ass off and you’ll get there.
MA: There are a number of ways to break in. No, you don’t have to join a big company or TVNZ or go to film school any more. Just do it by any means necessary and learn by being a part of projects. Volunteer for short film and music video shoots – a great way to see how shooting 35mm or 16mm film works. Be a runner or a directors assistant for a doco. Ask to sit in on edits. Watch lots of films and videos, yes, but make sure you get out and make stuff – do the 48HOUR film fest. Once you start working together with people you get swept up into different projects.
Anything else you’d like to mention?
LS: Mark is a dropout…
Mark and Louis, thanks very much for your time!
© Copyright Onfilm magazine, October 2008 www.onfilm.co.nz