February 6, 2025 • 14 mins
On this week's episode we speak to two great Aussie film directors - Greg McLean and Warrick Thornton - to hear about their most recent projects and how they were filmed right here in our backyard.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi Artside.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hi. I'm Jackie Limb with iHeart Essay, a brand new
show covering all the biggest issues and best stories from
around the regions. This week we'll look into some massive
new silver and small screen projects filmed right here in
our very own backyard. Each year's screen production injects one
hundred and eighty seven million dollars into the state's economy,
(00:24):
with about sixty seven percent of spending going into sectors
including hospitality, travel and retail. Particularly in the regions. Essay
is a popular choice for outback location shooting and can
double as other remote locations, such as the Pilboro which
was the backdrop for the film Red Dog. Coffin Bay
and other areas across the Air Peninsula were used in
place of the Western Desert for tracks, while the Riverland's
(00:47):
Wakeery hosted crews for the twenty twenty three flick Run
Rabbit Run on the small screen. However, probably the biggest
show to ever be filmed here is the Netflix hit
Territory The Raiding Sensation, premiered last year after filming in
several locations across our state, including McLaren Vale, Malila, Murray Bridge,
(01:07):
Taylor and Bend. And the Adelaide Hills. I spoke to
director Greg MacLean about the six part Thrillers' success after
reaching number three on the viewing platform's global Top ten list.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Territory is about the world's largest cattle station located in
Northern Territory, Australia, and when the favored son who's meant
to take over the station dies in this kind of
shock event, there's a power vacuum that opens up and
a whole lot of different forces start swirling around trying
mcgrass control of this cattle station, which is incredibly valuable.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And without giving anything away, I'm sure most people have
seen it by now, but for those who haven't, what's
the grand finale of the show, what can we look
forward to?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, it's basically you get. What you get is a
family drama, which is extremely you know, a heightened family drama.
So as a Shakespearean element to it, you get a
family squabbling over the spoils of this incredibly catl station.
But you also get a whole lot of other parties
coming into play. So there's a very strong Indigenous storyline
and some fantastic Indigenous characters in the show, as well
(02:09):
as some kind of scheming mining company characters as well
as some desic gangsters from the Northern Territory, all of
which line out to take over this station. So it
ends up with quite a compelling finale where all of
these thoughtss gathered to fight it out, literally fight it
out to the death for control of this cattle station.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Were expecting such an overwhelming worldwide reception over you know,
six million views in the first week, hit the top
ten in seventy four countries. That's pretty you know, outstanding.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, I mean it's obviously you know, when making things,
no one knows what's going to work. You know, you
can have everything lined up and think it's going to
work and then for some reason it doesn't. Conversely, you
can make something and you know timing, who knows why
things catch on when they do. Having said that, the
show has so many incredible elements to it that we
all felt were pretty unique. As soon as I read
(02:55):
the scripts, I thought, this is going to be an
incredible show just because of the writing was so great,
the mission was so great. We had great support from
Netflix to make the show on the scale that wanted
to make it. In the cast obviously elevate the whole,
the whole thing, and we just had a really incredible
experience making it. And I think one of the other
quite funny things is that Ben Davis, a producer, while
(03:17):
was shooting the show, he would walk around to us
and say to us without something funny, but he would
basically come up and guns and say, we're making a
global hit. We're making a global hit. And we would
all sort of laugh and say, oh, yes, it's very
funny and amusing, but he was serious anything. He was
kind of helping us visualize the idea that we should
really should for the stars and make this as big
(03:38):
and bold as we possibly can. I think secretly we
all thought that that we just weren't saying it out
loud because you don't like to jinx anything. But we
certainly were more making it new, that were making something
special because I think because of the actress, we had
to real cut off station to you know, we really,
I mean, the show was made and work in cuttle station.
So I think just the fact that way it was
to get into that location and show people the inside
(04:00):
of the workings of a station of that size was
pretty awesome in a way that I think people were
obviously going to respond to which they have.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, definitely, and you feel in some parts of it,
of course, Inessa, including in Malilla, the largest ever Netflix
production to film in South Australia. Why did you choose Essay?
What was the location scouting process?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I mean, there was more set up as a SA production,
which isn't a way suit in the NT so. We
pre produced the show at the Salestane Film Corporation, so
we had all the offices and staff there. We shot
the exteriors in the NT so we needed to do
obviously the cattle station and the Kakadu, but pretty much
everything that's an interior and some of the other exterior
locations were found in SA. And I think also, you know,
(04:42):
interiors were kind of easier to do closer to a city,
and obviously there's more infrastructure in Essay than NT, so
it was very very easy for us to do all
those beautiful inturiors in different homes and locations in SA.
But also there's a huge amount of variety of locations
in Australia that were able to match seamlessly with the
NT people. I mean, no one will even knows where
(05:02):
we're swapping between locations, but literally when you walk into
the door of the main homestead. In the door the
territory at the canl station. As soon as you walk
through that door, he's in home in North Adelaide. So
it's quite fascinating. Obviously, all switches and tricks we do.
But the Malala location is the Young Turks, we call
them the Young Turks, which is the young Marshall and
Shinning and Riches hang out. That's this incredible location in
(05:24):
Malaala which we just happened to stumble on, which is
just such a beautiful spot. And we did digitally put
in a few cacady f mounts in the background in
the wide shots, but it's just a unique location and
essays for those amazing spots that you can use for
all kinds of different film production.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, I wholeheartedly concur we've got some really cool landscape
around here out in the bush. Did you have any
funny stories while filming? I know, you know you said
that being close to the city was a win, but
was there anything you know that went on out bush
that was a little bit interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Oh? Look, I think you know, working on a real
working conrol station, they didn't stop doing cattle station stuff
or we were shooting. So for example, we had a
seen or were shooting actors doing a scene around the
cemetery one of the funeral scenes, and then you know,
we had our one hundred and eighty person crew or
you know, working away doing our scene, and then suddenly
the word were around everyone get behind something quickly, and
(06:19):
one of the cattle guys was running around to anyone
to hide, and then we all just jumped behind a
box or a tree or something not when they was done,
and then the real cattle guys musted like thirty bulls
through the panic were in and basically the bulls raced
through in the set and then basically once they passed,
everyone just stood up and thought, okay, cool, back to work.
So that kind of stuff what happened at the time
(06:39):
because we were kind of working around what they were doing,
which was sitting cattle, you know, doing all the business
seeds we do, so we had to kind of work
in and around that. The little village that we built,
which was all of these hundreds of motor homes that
everyone was saying in, was in the middle of this forest,
and in that forest there was some very interesting wildlife.
So there were some quite hilarious photographs that came out
was going around with the where people would go into
(07:02):
the bathroom and see our giant python wrap around the
face and of the toilet. Shop a few people at nighttime,
and these things are like, you know, six feet to
seventy feet long. Oh, they don't they don't need people.
They eat mice and rats and things. But when you
open the door of a toilet at night with your
torch and you came across the six foot python wrapped
around the toilet, it made some of the crew members
tell you nervous about going to the bathroom. Wow.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, absolutely. And the show was almost called Desert King.
It sounds like it should have been, judging by the snakes.
But why the change.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I think it was the first title we had and
we all were in love with it, and then as
we got into post production, we sort of realized that
it's not really desert because the territory is tropical. I mean,
obviously there's a desert element to the out Back, but
northern territory is different to most parts Astray because it's
urging in a tropical place. So we we wanted to
sort of focus it more on the territory and Northern
(07:54):
Territory as opposed to just the Outback. So I think
the change kind of focused more upon where cifically it
was set as opposed to just being you know about
the Outpack, which I think was a good good call.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Moving on to something else that you've worked on in
the past and will again in twenty twenty five. Earlier
this year, filming for Wolf Creek three due to start.
What can you tell us about that project anything.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, we're working on a third Wolf Creek movie. There's
obviously been two movies in two TV series in the
Wolf Creek franchise. Wolf Pack three, continuation of the you know,
the the Scary Zaga of Mick Taylor's adventures in the Impact.
It will be shot all of soub Australia or produced
by South Australian I mean, all the what Creek franchise
has done in South Australia. It's essentially it's kind of
(08:39):
wet into the landscape there, so we usually you know,
we usually at the Flinters. We love that location up there,
so we kind of either base out of Corker or
a bit Corn and then we offshoot there into the
or some locations around the Clinders and you know, the
landscape up there is just I mean, I don't need
to tell Substralian people, but it's unbelievably beautiful and gorgeous
(09:00):
and also quite wunting. So we use those landscapes of
those roads for much of the location of Fourth Creak.
So that's coming together now and we hopefully yeah, shooting
in the second part of twenty five.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well coming up after the break.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
My heartesisode.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
My Heart Essode welcome back. We just had a chat
with the director of the new hit TV series Territory.
The show was actually nominated for three Actor Awards, with
the first lot of winners announced at a gala night
in the Gold Coast on Wednesday. Territory was nominated in
the category's Best Cinematography in Television and Best Sound in
(09:36):
Television for episode one, but unfortunately lost both to Boy
Swallows Universe. The Actor Festival continues tonight with the ceremony
marking Australia's biggest night in film. Awards including Best Lead
Actor and Actress, will be handed out, with Anna Torf,
who played Emily Lawson in Territory, up for the gong
in the Drama category. Fingers crossed for Anna. Moving on
(09:59):
to the silver screen and another Actor Awards winner. The
film New Boy was also shot with South Australia's beautiful landscape,
and I was fortunate enough to catch up with First
Nations director Warwick Thornton.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I'm one of those people who's kind of like, I
don't spend so much time in Sydney, but I live
in our Springs and I hate playing, so I try
and drive from Alice to Sydney, or from Sydney to Alice,
and you know, it's a three day process. I'm always
going through the gorder line, and when I'm driving through there,
I'm being inspired by the landscape to have ideas about
films and stories. So there's a beautiful little town called
(10:33):
Mintaro out there, and I seriously want to retire there.
And when I stop making movies, I'm going to grow
tomatoes in Mintero. I reckon. I love it. Clear Abby's
right there, beautiful, the best red wine in the world.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Absolutely, you're speaking my language. This is a bit of
a true story the New Boy, right.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
I was a bit of a run of my kid
in Springs when I was, you know, ten, and my
mother went, now you're an idiot. I'm sending you to
boarding school. And she sent me to this boarding school
in West Australia called Savado College U Nausea and it's
run by a bunch of vanished Benedictine monks. And it's
not a dark film about about being sent to a
boarding school or anything like that there, but I do
(11:13):
remember as a child walking into the church there for
the first time and actually seeing Jesus on the cross
and how much it scared the hell out of me.
You know, It's a bloke up there getting tortured, and
I was like, well, why don't you get him down
and you know, give him a fee he's a bit skinny,
and help him. But you know, obviously part of Christianity
is that he needs to stay up there to remind
(11:35):
us all that we're we're all idiots, you know, and
so and we need to behave So that was just
the initial beginning of it. The new boy in the
film has special powers from being an unkery and he
doesn't know how to use those powers. So I don't know,
I'm not I don't have special powers like that. So
that's part of the fiction of there that I had.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, a mixture of fable and nonfiction. Then a little
bit of both.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Absolutely, you know, it is a fable. You could actually
watched this film and think it's Peter Pan if you
want to. But you know, there's some darker undertones about
clash of faith and religion and spirituality and how they
try and they want to fight each other. But if
you want it, you can watch this film and just
believe it's Petter Pan and he has a little orb
spark in his life. It's kind of like tinker Bell.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
The little spark that kind of followed him around was
gorgeous and yeah, so well done. Some of my other
favorite shots though, the bubble that Aswen or the new
Boy would pop on Kate and his feet dangling off
the back of the cart. These shots are just amazing.
How did you kind of come to these little details?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Well, you know they kind of you know, it took
outen years to write this thing, and it kind of
it has been a long journey and I've had to
do it a lot of thinking, and I had to
do a lot of growing up as a human being.
I think if I made it eighteen years ago, it
would be it a lot angrier, It wouldn't be as
balanced because in life, you know, when you're younger, you're
a bit angry. And as I've got older, I understand
to balance things and balance characters. And you know, their
(13:00):
is in the movies that I make, So you know,
it's just those little things that they're all there. But
that whole Orphanage, we built that on top of a hill,
you know, just out of burrough And I stood there
one day on that hill and said, we will build
the Orphanage here and we'll make the movie here. So
you know, so you kind of design right from the beginning.
You have a complete blank canvas, and you kind of
(13:22):
design right from the beginning the whole film and the
structure of every image and things like the bursting of
the bubble, you know, and she believes in her religion
and her spiritual connection and she's having a crisis of
faith and then he walks up and she's washing her
face and she's very upset about what's happened in the
story so far, and he walks up and bursts the bubble,
(13:45):
and it's kind of like, well, did he just burst
her bubble? As in what she believed the world was
doing and how the world would work. So you know,
you kind of design those sort of things in the film,
and they're small, but they can be quite big if
you think deeper into them.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
And of course you can't design everything. Scenery speaks for itself.
And you've got some ruins in there and some of
the old farm machinery which is from Buberowi.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
The big steam tractor section is you know, from the
bober A Steam Tractor Association and the most amazing collection
i'ven't seen in my entire life. And they were so giving.
The whole community came together to help make the movie.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
We're eagerly awaiting news of more projects to be filmed
right here in our backyard. That's it for this week,
though don't forget. You can hear iHeart Essay in the
iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jackie Lim.
Join us again next week for more of the stories
you want to hear. iHeart Essay the Voice of South Australia.
I Heart Essay
Hi Artside.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hi. I'm Jackie Limb with iHeart Essay, a brand new
show covering all the biggest issues and best stories from
around the regions. This week we'll look into some massive
new silver and small screen projects filmed right here in
our very own backyard. Each year's screen production injects one
hundred and eighty seven million dollars into the state's economy,
(00:24):
with about sixty seven percent of spending going into sectors
including hospitality, travel and retail. Particularly in the regions. Essay
is a popular choice for outback location shooting and can
double as other remote locations, such as the Pilboro which
was the backdrop for the film Red Dog. Coffin Bay
and other areas across the Air Peninsula were used in
place of the Western Desert for tracks, while the Riverland's
(00:47):
Wakeery hosted crews for the twenty twenty three flick Run
Rabbit Run on the small screen. However, probably the biggest
show to ever be filmed here is the Netflix hit
Territory The Raiding Sensation, premiered last year after filming in
several locations across our state, including McLaren Vale, Malila, Murray Bridge,
(01:07):
Taylor and Bend. And the Adelaide Hills. I spoke to
director Greg MacLean about the six part Thrillers' success after
reaching number three on the viewing platform's global Top ten list.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Territory is about the world's largest cattle station located in
Northern Territory, Australia, and when the favored son who's meant
to take over the station dies in this kind of
shock event, there's a power vacuum that opens up and
a whole lot of different forces start swirling around trying
mcgrass control of this cattle station, which is incredibly valuable.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And without giving anything away, I'm sure most people have
seen it by now, but for those who haven't, what's
the grand finale of the show, what can we look
forward to?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, it's basically you get. What you get is a
family drama, which is extremely you know, a heightened family drama.
So as a Shakespearean element to it, you get a
family squabbling over the spoils of this incredibly catl station.
But you also get a whole lot of other parties
coming into play. So there's a very strong Indigenous storyline
and some fantastic Indigenous characters in the show, as well
(02:09):
as some kind of scheming mining company characters as well
as some desic gangsters from the Northern Territory, all of
which line out to take over this station. So it
ends up with quite a compelling finale where all of
these thoughtss gathered to fight it out, literally fight it
out to the death for control of this cattle station.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Were expecting such an overwhelming worldwide reception over you know,
six million views in the first week, hit the top
ten in seventy four countries. That's pretty you know, outstanding.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, I mean it's obviously you know, when making things,
no one knows what's going to work. You know, you
can have everything lined up and think it's going to
work and then for some reason it doesn't. Conversely, you
can make something and you know timing, who knows why
things catch on when they do. Having said that, the
show has so many incredible elements to it that we
all felt were pretty unique. As soon as I read
(02:55):
the scripts, I thought, this is going to be an
incredible show just because of the writing was so great,
the mission was so great. We had great support from
Netflix to make the show on the scale that wanted
to make it. In the cast obviously elevate the whole,
the whole thing, and we just had a really incredible
experience making it. And I think one of the other
quite funny things is that Ben Davis, a producer, while
(03:17):
was shooting the show, he would walk around to us
and say to us without something funny, but he would
basically come up and guns and say, we're making a
global hit. We're making a global hit. And we would
all sort of laugh and say, oh, yes, it's very
funny and amusing, but he was serious anything. He was
kind of helping us visualize the idea that we should
really should for the stars and make this as big
(03:38):
and bold as we possibly can. I think secretly we
all thought that that we just weren't saying it out
loud because you don't like to jinx anything. But we
certainly were more making it new, that were making something
special because I think because of the actress, we had
to real cut off station to you know, we really,
I mean, the show was made and work in cuttle station.
So I think just the fact that way it was
to get into that location and show people the inside
(04:00):
of the workings of a station of that size was
pretty awesome in a way that I think people were
obviously going to respond to which they have.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, definitely, and you feel in some parts of it,
of course, Inessa, including in Malilla, the largest ever Netflix
production to film in South Australia. Why did you choose Essay?
What was the location scouting process?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I mean, there was more set up as a SA production,
which isn't a way suit in the NT so. We
pre produced the show at the Salestane Film Corporation, so
we had all the offices and staff there. We shot
the exteriors in the NT so we needed to do
obviously the cattle station and the Kakadu, but pretty much
everything that's an interior and some of the other exterior
locations were found in SA. And I think also, you know,
(04:42):
interiors were kind of easier to do closer to a city,
and obviously there's more infrastructure in Essay than NT, so
it was very very easy for us to do all
those beautiful inturiors in different homes and locations in SA.
But also there's a huge amount of variety of locations
in Australia that were able to match seamlessly with the
NT people. I mean, no one will even knows where
(05:02):
we're swapping between locations, but literally when you walk into
the door of the main homestead. In the door the
territory at the canl station. As soon as you walk
through that door, he's in home in North Adelaide. So
it's quite fascinating. Obviously, all switches and tricks we do.
But the Malala location is the Young Turks, we call
them the Young Turks, which is the young Marshall and
Shinning and Riches hang out. That's this incredible location in
(05:24):
Malaala which we just happened to stumble on, which is
just such a beautiful spot. And we did digitally put
in a few cacady f mounts in the background in
the wide shots, but it's just a unique location and
essays for those amazing spots that you can use for
all kinds of different film production.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, I wholeheartedly concur we've got some really cool landscape
around here out in the bush. Did you have any
funny stories while filming? I know, you know you said
that being close to the city was a win, but
was there anything you know that went on out bush
that was a little bit interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Oh? Look, I think you know, working on a real
working conrol station, they didn't stop doing cattle station stuff
or we were shooting. So for example, we had a
seen or were shooting actors doing a scene around the
cemetery one of the funeral scenes, and then you know,
we had our one hundred and eighty person crew or
you know, working away doing our scene, and then suddenly
the word were around everyone get behind something quickly, and
(06:19):
one of the cattle guys was running around to anyone
to hide, and then we all just jumped behind a
box or a tree or something not when they was done,
and then the real cattle guys musted like thirty bulls
through the panic were in and basically the bulls raced
through in the set and then basically once they passed,
everyone just stood up and thought, okay, cool, back to work.
So that kind of stuff what happened at the time
(06:39):
because we were kind of working around what they were doing,
which was sitting cattle, you know, doing all the business
seeds we do, so we had to kind of work
in and around that. The little village that we built,
which was all of these hundreds of motor homes that
everyone was saying in, was in the middle of this forest,
and in that forest there was some very interesting wildlife.
So there were some quite hilarious photographs that came out
was going around with the where people would go into
(07:02):
the bathroom and see our giant python wrap around the
face and of the toilet. Shop a few people at nighttime,
and these things are like, you know, six feet to
seventy feet long. Oh, they don't they don't need people.
They eat mice and rats and things. But when you
open the door of a toilet at night with your
torch and you came across the six foot python wrapped
around the toilet, it made some of the crew members
tell you nervous about going to the bathroom. Wow.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, absolutely. And the show was almost called Desert King.
It sounds like it should have been, judging by the snakes.
But why the change.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I think it was the first title we had and
we all were in love with it, and then as
we got into post production, we sort of realized that
it's not really desert because the territory is tropical. I mean,
obviously there's a desert element to the out Back, but
northern territory is different to most parts Astray because it's
urging in a tropical place. So we we wanted to
sort of focus it more on the territory and Northern
(07:54):
Territory as opposed to just the Outback. So I think
the change kind of focused more upon where cifically it
was set as opposed to just being you know about
the Outpack, which I think was a good good call.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Moving on to something else that you've worked on in
the past and will again in twenty twenty five. Earlier
this year, filming for Wolf Creek three due to start.
What can you tell us about that project anything.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, we're working on a third Wolf Creek movie. There's
obviously been two movies in two TV series in the
Wolf Creek franchise. Wolf Pack three, continuation of the you know,
the the Scary Zaga of Mick Taylor's adventures in the Impact.
It will be shot all of soub Australia or produced
by South Australian I mean, all the what Creek franchise
has done in South Australia. It's essentially it's kind of
(08:39):
wet into the landscape there, so we usually you know,
we usually at the Flinters. We love that location up there,
so we kind of either base out of Corker or
a bit Corn and then we offshoot there into the
or some locations around the Clinders and you know, the
landscape up there is just I mean, I don't need
to tell Substralian people, but it's unbelievably beautiful and gorgeous
(09:00):
and also quite wunting. So we use those landscapes of
those roads for much of the location of Fourth Creak.
So that's coming together now and we hopefully yeah, shooting
in the second part of twenty five.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well coming up after the break.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
My heartesisode.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
My Heart Essode welcome back. We just had a chat
with the director of the new hit TV series Territory.
The show was actually nominated for three Actor Awards, with
the first lot of winners announced at a gala night
in the Gold Coast on Wednesday. Territory was nominated in
the category's Best Cinematography in Television and Best Sound in
(09:36):
Television for episode one, but unfortunately lost both to Boy
Swallows Universe. The Actor Festival continues tonight with the ceremony
marking Australia's biggest night in film. Awards including Best Lead
Actor and Actress, will be handed out, with Anna Torf,
who played Emily Lawson in Territory, up for the gong
in the Drama category. Fingers crossed for Anna. Moving on
(09:59):
to the silver screen and another Actor Awards winner. The
film New Boy was also shot with South Australia's beautiful landscape,
and I was fortunate enough to catch up with First
Nations director Warwick Thornton.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I'm one of those people who's kind of like, I
don't spend so much time in Sydney, but I live
in our Springs and I hate playing, so I try
and drive from Alice to Sydney, or from Sydney to Alice,
and you know, it's a three day process. I'm always
going through the gorder line, and when I'm driving through there,
I'm being inspired by the landscape to have ideas about
films and stories. So there's a beautiful little town called
(10:33):
Mintaro out there, and I seriously want to retire there.
And when I stop making movies, I'm going to grow
tomatoes in Mintero. I reckon. I love it. Clear Abby's
right there, beautiful, the best red wine in the world.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Absolutely, you're speaking my language. This is a bit of
a true story the New Boy, right.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
I was a bit of a run of my kid
in Springs when I was, you know, ten, and my
mother went, now you're an idiot. I'm sending you to
boarding school. And she sent me to this boarding school
in West Australia called Savado College U Nausea and it's
run by a bunch of vanished Benedictine monks. And it's
not a dark film about about being sent to a
boarding school or anything like that there, but I do
(11:13):
remember as a child walking into the church there for
the first time and actually seeing Jesus on the cross
and how much it scared the hell out of me.
You know, It's a bloke up there getting tortured, and
I was like, well, why don't you get him down
and you know, give him a fee he's a bit skinny,
and help him. But you know, obviously part of Christianity
is that he needs to stay up there to remind
(11:35):
us all that we're we're all idiots, you know, and
so and we need to behave So that was just
the initial beginning of it. The new boy in the
film has special powers from being an unkery and he
doesn't know how to use those powers. So I don't know,
I'm not I don't have special powers like that. So
that's part of the fiction of there that I had.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, a mixture of fable and nonfiction. Then a little
bit of both.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Absolutely, you know, it is a fable. You could actually
watched this film and think it's Peter Pan if you
want to. But you know, there's some darker undertones about
clash of faith and religion and spirituality and how they
try and they want to fight each other. But if
you want it, you can watch this film and just
believe it's Petter Pan and he has a little orb
spark in his life. It's kind of like tinker Bell.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
The little spark that kind of followed him around was
gorgeous and yeah, so well done. Some of my other
favorite shots though, the bubble that Aswen or the new
Boy would pop on Kate and his feet dangling off
the back of the cart. These shots are just amazing.
How did you kind of come to these little details?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Well, you know they kind of you know, it took
outen years to write this thing, and it kind of
it has been a long journey and I've had to
do it a lot of thinking, and I had to
do a lot of growing up as a human being.
I think if I made it eighteen years ago, it
would be it a lot angrier, It wouldn't be as
balanced because in life, you know, when you're younger, you're
a bit angry. And as I've got older, I understand
to balance things and balance characters. And you know, their
(13:00):
is in the movies that I make, So you know,
it's just those little things that they're all there. But
that whole Orphanage, we built that on top of a hill,
you know, just out of burrough And I stood there
one day on that hill and said, we will build
the Orphanage here and we'll make the movie here. So
you know, so you kind of design right from the beginning.
You have a complete blank canvas, and you kind of
(13:22):
design right from the beginning the whole film and the
structure of every image and things like the bursting of
the bubble, you know, and she believes in her religion
and her spiritual connection and she's having a crisis of
faith and then he walks up and she's washing her
face and she's very upset about what's happened in the
story so far, and he walks up and bursts the bubble,
(13:45):
and it's kind of like, well, did he just burst
her bubble? As in what she believed the world was
doing and how the world would work. So you know,
you kind of design those sort of things in the film,
and they're small, but they can be quite big if
you think deeper into them.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
And of course you can't design everything. Scenery speaks for itself.
And you've got some ruins in there and some of
the old farm machinery which is from Buberowi.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
The big steam tractor section is you know, from the
bober A Steam Tractor Association and the most amazing collection
i'ven't seen in my entire life. And they were so giving.
The whole community came together to help make the movie.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
We're eagerly awaiting news of more projects to be filmed
right here in our backyard. That's it for this week,
though don't forget. You can hear iHeart Essay in the
iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jackie Lim.
Join us again next week for more of the stories
you want to hear. iHeart Essay the Voice of South Australia.
I Heart Essay
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