March 25, 2025 • 47 mins
Episode Summary:
In this episode of The Fandom Portals Podcast, Aaron and Brash take a deep dive into Gabriel (2007), an Australian indie film that took a bold step into the fantasy action genre with a budget of just $200,000 AUD. They explore the film’s gritty aesthetic, digital effects, and ambitious storytelling.
Aaron and Brash also go head-to-head in the Fandom Fact Face-Off, where they quiz each other on Gabriel’s behind-the-scenes secrets, including how the film was nearly canceled just days before filming.
Topics:
Why Gabriel Feels Different from Typical Australian Films
Community Reactions: Reddit & Threads Weigh in on Gabriel
Dwayne Stevenson’s Unexpected Background Before Acting
he Surprising Role Dwayne Stevenson Was Originally Cast In
How Uriel’s Actor Prepared for His Role in an Unconventional Way
The Shot Glass Scene – A Happy Accident or Intentional Symbolism?
Why the Film Used Real Abandoned Buildings for Filming
The Financial Struggles & How the Crew Worked Without Pay
The $200,000 Budget & How the Film Still Made $1.4 Million
How Gabriel Used Digital Effects to Cover Budget Limitations
Garden Hoses for Rain? The Extreme Measures Taken for the Climactic Fight
Andy Whitfield’s Hypothermia Scare During Filming
The CGI Bullet Time Controversy – Impressive or Distracting?
The Role of Sydney’s Industrial Locations in Gabriel
Final Thoughts & What’s Coming in Part Two
Key Takeaways:
- Gabriel was shot on a micro-budget of $200,000 AUD, making it one of the most ambitious low-budget Australian films ever.
- Dwayne Stevenson was originally cast as Gabriel, but his commanding presence led him to take the villainous role of Samael.
- The production relied on abandoned buildings, digital color grading, and last-minute insurance deals to stay afloat.
- Andy Whitfield suffered hypothermia during the film’s rain-soaked final battle, which was created using garden hoses.
- The film’s visual style was heavily inspired by The Crow and Underworld, blending gothic and neo-noir aesthetics.
📢 Apple Podcast tags: Gabriel 2007, Australian cinema, indie films, low-budget filmmaking, Andy Whitfield, fantasy action, gothic movies, movie trivia, cult classics, digital effects, film history, action adventure, CGI in film, geek culture, Fandom Portals Podcast, Geek Freaks Network
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome to the Fandom Portals
podcast, the podcast where weexplore the fandoms that help us
learn and grow.
This week, adam Brasher and Ilooked at the movie Gabriel,
which is an Australian moviemade in 2007.
We look really deeply into howthis movie came about with such
a small budget of only 200,000Australian dollars.
We look at all the behind thescenes information and we also
(00:22):
challenge each other with somemore fandom fact based off
trivia questions, so you'll getto know everything that we do
about the movie of Gabriel.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys andgirls, we have also just
launched our very own website.
If you want to go check thatout, we would greatly appreciate
it.
You can find it atwwwfandomportalspodcastcom.
(00:43):
It'll also be in the show notesbelow.
Go have a little squizzy.
Go have a little look.
It's kind of nice.
Over there.
You can find all our amazingepisodes.
We've got some blog posts foryou as well, and you can also
sign up to our mailing list,where you will never miss an
update and you will be the firstto know about any future
giveaways that we do.
So if you're interested in that, wwwfandomportalspodcastcom.
(01:11):
We hope you enjoy this episodeon Gabriel.
Welcome to the Fandom PortalsPodcast, the podcast that
explores how fandoms can helpyou learn and grow.
I am here, as always, with myco-host, mr Adam Brasher.
(01:31):
How are you today, brash?
I'm tired.
How are you?
I'm going very well, very wellindeed.
We're here to talk about amovie that is an Australian
movie and it's not like yourusual Australian movies.
This one is called Gabriel.
It was made in 2007, directedby Shane Abus, and it was
written by Matt Whelan Todd andShane Abus himself as well,
starring Andy Whitfield, andwe're going to be talking about
(01:54):
this one today as one of ourMarch titles.
But before we get into that, asalways, we're going to jump into
our gratitudes and growths,where each week, we begin by
sharing a personal gratitude forthe week or an area that we
feel like we require growth inrash.
I might go first.
Yeah, um, a couple weeks ago, Idid my gratitudes, where I was
really grateful for for rainydays, and I'd like to take that
(02:16):
back because ever since I saidthat, it has literally not
stopped raining in our town andI'm not listeners, I'm talking
like we have had flooding levelevents in our town Weeks and
weeks and weeks.
Yeah, weeks and weeks and weeksof it.
So you know, love the rain insparse amounts, but this amount
not so much.
(02:36):
But my gratitude, let's say I'mgoing to be grateful for herbal
tea, because driving to and fromwork this week has been quite a
stressful event and whenever Icome home I have a nice herbal
tea to relax me, which is goodDrinking on some passion fruit
tea right now which is like andyou know the funny thing about
(02:57):
these herbal teas, they alwayssmell better than they taste but
still relaxing.
Grateful for herbal teas andrelaxing after a hard day of
driving through semi-floodwaters to get home to my amazing
and loving family.
What about you, brash?
What are you grateful?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
for I'm grateful for my work colleagues.
My work has quadrupled sincethis rain and not all of them
have like well, not all of themhave softened the amount of work
I'm doing, but they make it fun.
So, yeah, so I'm grateful forthe contractors that I work with
and I've met for my job andmost of them are all really good
(03:31):
and we've had to go out andlook at jobs together and
discuss on how we're going tofix all the leaking stuff
because of the rain and all theflutter stuff because of the
rain and all the moldy stuffbecause of the rain.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, mold's a big one.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So I'm grateful for those people, because at least
you have fun doing it.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, and you know it's really awkward when you're
sitting in the car with somebody.
That isn't very nice, yeah.
So it's good that you canactually have the time to have
that sort of chat with somefriendly colleagues.
And you know what Some friendlycolleagues and you know what
Sometimes my work friends haveturned into really good friend
friends and that's likesomething that can come from it
too.
So that's really good to hear.
Brash, I'm happy for you, man.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, no grateful for .
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Ace this week because he's been naughty.
Ace has been naughty.
He's still our third unofficialco-host.
He had a birthday.
Let's, let's.
Oh look, he has been naughty,but you can't not talk about his
birthday.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I've still been just spoiling the shit out of him,
which I probably shouldn't do,but I do, but yeah.
So yeah, it was his birthday onFriday, just go on.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Well, he's an only child.
You're allowed to spoil him.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I'm sure he won't turn out too poorly adjusted, he
is being very spoiled right now, me trying to figure out how to
make sure his dinner is alllavished Very good.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Only the best for our third co-host here on the Fan
Portals podcast, and we do wishyoung Ace a very happy first
birthday, a first year aroundthe sun.
Happy birthday to him from meand from you and from our
community.
All right, let's jump into it.
We're going to do our firsttakes segment.
Our first take segment is wherewe discuss how we first
(05:09):
encountered the media, what ourinitial impressions of the movie
were and what our feelings wereon the media after having
watched it.
We might also share some of ourcommunity's thoughts on this
movie and if you want tocontribute to those thoughts in
future, you can look at oursocial pages, which is Instagram
Threads and Reddit, and youmight find yourself being read
out and shouted out on our show.
Um, so brash.
I'll ask you first.
(05:30):
We're talking about gabriel,which was made in 2007, and
gabriel is about an archangeland he comes to purgatory, a
place where darkness and thefallen rule, and gabriel
attempts to save the souls ofthe city's inhabitants.
How did you hear about thismovie?
What were your initial thoughts?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
One of my best friends, who I've known for 25
years.
He actually first introducedthis to me because he was I
guess still is was very into theangels, demons and whatnot.
He's even got a big ass angeltattooed on his back to
represent his younger brother.
And what to represent hisyounger brother and what was for
his younger brother, I believe.
Yeah, so he first introduced itto me that was when it first
(06:12):
came out in 2007.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So you would have been around high school age,
right 17,.
Yep, yep, yep, all right.
So for me, I first watched thismovie when we had to put it
onto the podcast, which ispretty much very similar to a
lot of movies, because from thispodcast, I've found that I have
watched the same movies a lot.
Yeah, and that's one of thebest things about this podcast
(06:34):
is there's opened my eyes to adifferent kind of movie and a
different sort of horizon ofmovies, and it's increasing my
palate.
So I was actually very surprisedto find that this was an
Australian production to startwith, because, looking at the
title cover and also the trailer, it doesn't really look like
your typical Australian movies.
And that was probably one of myinitial thoughts is that it
doesn't really look like yourtypical Australian movies, which
(06:55):
kind of you know, nowadays, inthe 2020s, looks like Mad Max,
fury Road and Fury Rosa Furiosa,but in the past it looks like a
lot of family-based comedies ormovies like Babe, various
different musicals on occasion,or sometimes war movies that
were set in Australia, and alsosometimes some cultural movies
that are trying to betray amessage.
(07:16):
So that's what I'm used to fromAustralian cinema, so this
struck me as very different.
When did you learn it was anAustralian film, brash.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Actually much later on, so I didn't actually learn
it was an Australian film.
Brash Actually much later on,so I didn't actually realise it
was an Australian film, probablyuntil I actually the DVD I
showed you when I bought.
That is when I found out, and Ithink I got that when I was 25?
Because I watched it every nowand then Because back in those
days we didn't have anystreaming sites to watch stuff
on.
So every now and then the onlytime I could watch it was when I
(07:46):
either hired it from a thinguntil I eventually bought it and
then I had it on DVD.
But it piqued my interestbecause of well, back when I
watched it in 2007,.
So you're watching it now in2025.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I watched it back in 2007, where nothing was over the
top like excellence yeah, nobig boxster action flicks, or
they were just sort of startingto come out with that sort of
stuff that's when Iron man sortof around the time, iron man
came out.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So that's probably when Iron man came out.
So I was like, damn, they cando some good shit.
But even so, because evenwatching I was like oh yeah,
this seems kind of low budget,but I did like the story of it
and like always it's the same asDragonheart I reckon this would
be a really good show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A really good TV show.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Sort of like how they made Shadowhunters a TV show.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh yeah yeah, it's a really good concept for a TV
show as well, in terms of, youknow, heaven battling hell, or
light versus dark, all of thearchangels and the fallen in
this movie.
That's probably some of themost engaging parts of it.
You did mention the budgetbefore as well, being a little
bit low.
This movie was made on whatthey now suggest is about
$200,000 Australian dollars, soif you're an American listener
(08:57):
and you're listening to that,that's pretty much half Like our
Australian dollar is worthabout half of what your US
dollar is.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I was going to say I'm thinking a lot of
Americans realise that like wepay like double pretty much
anything Like if we buy anythingthat looked like American, we
have to pay pretty much doublefor it.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it cost Australian dollars wise
$200,000, and the director,shane Abus, actually sort of
struggled to come up with themoney to make this movie.
He actually had to continueworking you know, second, third
and fifth and fourth jobs tosort of get it done.
And you know this film wasactually pretty profitable,
(09:34):
brash, do you know how much itmade worldwide in US dollars?
Sorry, what do you reckon theworldwide gross was in US
dollars?
In US dollars?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So if it was more than what it did, so shit, it'd
get back $150,000.
In the US that'd be more.
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
yeah, I'm going to say $2 million Just under, it
made $1.4 million, which isactually almost six to seven
times its budget, which meansit's a financial success in that
regard.
And I think it came out at theright time, because 2007, there
was that sort of push towardgothic, neo-noir movies, that
(10:11):
sort of.
They had a target audience backin 2007.
It was basically you and me inhigh school.
If you remember the kind ofmusic that we used to listen to
or the kind of music that highschools used to listen to back
in 2007,.
You've got the rise, or the newrise, of the, the punk phase.
Uh, a lot of the the metal sortof bands were very sort of
famous around that time as well.
So it really played into that,that aesthetic and that vibe,
(10:32):
and you can see it from thetrailer and actually from the
movie as well watching it.
It very much had its niche andI think that really paid off for
it, you know, domestically, butalso worldwide, which was good
for australian cinema.
Oh yeah, I was%.
And what are your thoughts onthe movie?
When you watched it, youobviously sound like you liked
it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, I really enjoyed it, Like, yes, some
parts not all of it was great,but I think for the most part I
don't really think I can lookback on it and say, oh, I hated
that.
Most of the time I can say, oh,I liked that.
Yeah, I'd say if I washalf-headed, half liked it.
I'd be more in the second halfof liking it.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So, yep, that's three quarters three quarters a tank
full.
Yeah, I think for me.
I obviously saw it at a latertime.
I watched it in 2025 andthere's been some very
outstandingly visual movies thathave come out between 2007 and
2025, so my expectations werehigher than what yours were and
as a result of that, I think forme there were some things that
were really sort of well done interms of the budget, and then
there were some things that Ikind of I couldn't really like.
(11:29):
So for me, I'm hot and coldabout this one Brash.
That was my first thoughtsabout it.
I think we'll probably get intoit a little bit later on in our
sort of rundown.
But there are some things thatdefinitely really sort of hit
the mark and I definitelyappreciate the fact that this is
an Australian film that reallytried to break the mold, but
there are some things thatreally didn't kind of work for
me as well, so we'll get intothat a little bit later as well.
(11:49):
Let's get into our fandom factface-off segment, all right.
So our fandom fact face-offsegment is where the host asks
one another a series of triviaquestions associated with the
focus media.
The host with the mostcollected points from the Fandom
Fact Face-Off segment willshout the opposing co-host to an
all-expenses paid trip to themovie cinema Brash.
(12:12):
I'm yet to win one of these.
We've done two of them andyou've won both.
This week is our third run atour March Fandom Fact Face-Off,
so we're both sitting at six allsix apiece and we made the
gentleman's agreement last weekin our Dragonheart episode that
we would stop going easy on eachother.
Yes, yes, we do, yeah, and Ithink for this one we talked
(12:36):
about you know how we like togive each other clues.
I think for this one we cangive one clue, but then that's
it.
Okay, that's it, and you knowyou can talk about it, but once
you lock in, you lock in.
Yep, are you set with the newrules?
Set, all right, lovely, do youwant to go first?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Go for it Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
So my first one is you might know this one, dwayne
Stevenson, who plays Samuel orsomeone else.
He before he was, or didGabriel before he was acting,
what?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
do you do so?
Before he was an actor.
What was his profession?
Okay, I am thinking I know thathe did a lot of short films
with, and he was very goodfriends with the writer Matt
Hoylton-Todd, and they've beenin a few shorts together.
He's an Australian man, I'mgoing to say, because of the
(13:29):
nature of this segment, I'mgoing to say he was a male
dancer, he was a stripper.
Do you want your hint?
I'll take the hint, I'll takethe hint, I'll take the hint.
He was a stripper, do you wantyour hint?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I'll take the hint.
I'll take the hint.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I'll take the hint.
Good idea, am I that far off?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
um, yeah, quite a bit off.
Alright, think Adam Driver.
Oh, he was in the army, he was,he was in the Australian army.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Oh good stuff.
Yeah, that was a good clue.
By the way.
Yeah, thank you.
I can definitely get that.
He holds himself very well inthe interviews and the behind
the scenes that I've watched.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, so yeah, he was in the.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Australian Royal Army .
Oh, there you go.
Thank you, Dwayne Stevenson.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Alright, so it's 1-0 with my question coming.
My question is also aboutDwayne Stevenson's and I'm going
to see if you know this one.
Alright, so originally, when hewas first attached to the
project of Gabriel, he was oneof the first members cast.
Due to his familiarity with thescript writer, he was attached
to play a different part.
He wasn't attached to playSamael.
(14:26):
Which part was he attached toplay instead?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I do know this one.
He was actually meant to beGabriel, correct, yes.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah.
So in this one he was attachedas Gabriel for the longest time,
to the point where when othercast members would come into
screen test, he would playGabriel's lines.
However, when it got down tolater casting in the role,
Dwayne Stevenson actually saw asort of tape of him doing some
lines for Samael and thedirector, Shane Abus, sort of
looked at it and said you know,he's got this gravitas, he's got
(14:56):
this strong commanding presenceon screen and it's really
important for us to have areally strong villainous
presence within the movie justto balance the light and dark
tones of the film.
So they approached Dwayne andhe sort of disagreed to start
with until he saw himself onfilm and found that, you know,
he does have that sort of spacewithin him to portray Samael,
(15:17):
who ends up being the villain ofthe movie, Gabriel.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
And also being in the army and then having to play
someone who's commanding Lesser.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
The forces of the Fallen yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Fallen as his warrior minions Like I reckon he did a
really good job.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah, and I think as well, the mood he had to portray
was intense, it was atmosphericas well and he really did need
that sort of brooding presence.
And I talked to you about thisbefore we started recording.
But he actually kind of went abit method in his way where he
would kind of stay in characterand he had to wear those sort of
white contact lenses very, veryoften.
(15:58):
I suck, he was very unsettlingto a lot of the cast members
where he actually found peoplewould avoid him around the set
and he would stay, stay in hischaracter pretty often to the
point where you know um andywhitfield and he actually got
into a little bit of a verbalaltercation on the rooftop where
they uh were filming the rainscene in the the final moments
of the film and because of the,the situation and because of the
(16:19):
cold and all of that sort ofthing, they actually like really
sort of got into a bit of averbal.
But they still remained friendsand they knew it was a
professional atmosphere and itwas just the elements that sort
of was getting the best of them.
But yeah, it was really fun tosort of see that on the
interview that he was actuallyattached to play Gabriel at one
point before.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Andy came along.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, that's an idea I didn't pick up on initially
Very good, all right, one, allyour question, my question.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So like Dwayne was very method, Harry Pavlidis was
also very method.
He played Uriel.
What did he do to get ready forhis role?
Now, Uriel is the angel thatwas in the drive-in theatre.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
He was out in the drive-in theatre.
Yeah, he's the one that was inthe caravan for a really long
time that Gabriel sensed when hefirst came down to Purgatory
and he went to find straightaway.
So I do know this one.
Harry Pavlidis actually playedUriel and he was sort of going
through a personal crisis at thetime and he thought to fully
embody Uriel.
And he was sort of goingthrough a personal crisis at the
time and he thought to fullyembody Uriel's state of
isolation and suffering.
(17:22):
He would go and spend weeksalone in a caravan of his own in
a national park.
He did, yeah, and he wouldpractice his lines by
candlelight, he rationed hisfood.
He fully immersed himself inthat mindset of this tormented
archangel persona.
He said his dedication paid offbecause he was actually one of
the actors that was praised bythe Sydney Morning Herald when
this sort of came out.
He did a very good job, yeah,and they said that he was a
(17:44):
scene stealer.
So look out for Uriel if youguys are going to watch this one
.
He actually played it reallyreally well and I actually agree
he's probably one of myfavorite characters in the movie
just because of the way hedelivered some of his lines.
That was the reason I know somuch about that, because that
was actually part of one of myquestions that I was going to do
.
Oh yeah, so I'm going to adjustthis one, because there's a
second part to this that Ireally wanted to talk about as
(18:06):
well.
So your question relating toHarry Pavlidis as well, who does
play Uriel, there's a specificmoment in the film where he
picks up a set piece, which wasthis shot glass, and he very
sort of shakily and anxiouslysort of drinks out of that shot
glass, and you'll notice thatshot glass is a little bit sort
of damaged.
What's special about that scene, or what's special about that
(18:29):
shot glass, brash?
That's my question to you.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Ooh, what's special about that shot glass, is it?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
explained in the movie.
No, it's nothing.
Character that is like,character wise that's
significant, or plot wise that'ssignificant, it's just like a.
It's something that really sortof added to the aesthetic of
the character of uriel um.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Does he use it in the scene with gabriel?
Does he use it with scene withlillith?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
he uses it in the scene with gabriel.
Okay, after gabriel leaves andobviously gab Gabriel forces him
to show himself, after Gabrielstabs him to heal and he leaves.
He then takes that moment ofsolace and peace where he then
goes and pours some alcohol andtakes a drink out of this shot
glass.
And there's something veryspecial about that shot glass
that sort of indicates a littlebit about his process and the
(19:16):
way the film was shot.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Unfortunately, I can't even think I'm going to
take a stab, was it?
Oh, I don't know if you alreadysaid this.
Was it like cracked?
Yeah, was it cracked?
Yep, yep, that wasn't it.
That's not the thing.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
No, that is the thing .
Oh, it is.
Yeah, yeah, the shot glass wascompletely smashed and shattered
.
He actually dropped it momentsbefore they said action.
And for two reasons thedirector decided to keep it in,
the first being, obviously, theyhad no budget and no time, so
they couldn't go and find a newshot glass.
(19:47):
They had a certain amount ofruns to do for the day and they
needed to just move on and getit done.
And the second was because thedirector, shane abis, thought
that it actually fed intouriel's character, where he
didn't have very nice things andthis shot glass which is
incredibly cracked, by the way,and would have been very hard to
drink out of- I know,Especially if you just broke it.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
You just picked it up Like whether it's shards of
glass or something.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, that's what I thought as well and that's why
it stood out to me and why Iwanted to talk about it, because
that's like of acting stylethat he was doing there as well,
and it does sort of indicatethat Gabriel was broken.
Yeah, he was a broken man.
That's the symbology of it.
So, well done, good guess,that's like.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I was like but I was actually going to say and I
almost did but I'm like, oh, I'mlike because that's my thing
like he's a pretty brokencharacter.
I'm like, oh, they, it cracked.
But I didn't think it was gonnabe that sort of like symbolic.
I didn't think it was gonna bethat sort of like simple of a
thing.
But um, sometimes it's a simplequestion yeah, I was actually
gonna say that I had a um myinitial guess prior to the crack
(20:49):
.
I was gonna say it had a crosson it, like a faith to a cross
on it.
And so he's drinking because hejust got healed again and had
to bring it back because he'sbeen hiding his angel side so
long that he took a shot out ofa shot glass with a cross on it
or something.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm lucky I didn't say that, or
I?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
saw it in the wrong.
Well, I actually read thatthroughout the movie.
They tried to use terms likeangel and demon and heaven and
hell and those theology kind ofterms as little as possible yeah
, because they didn't want to belimited in the terms of spaces
where they could present andshow the movie or places where
it could be shown and it gives abit more um imagination and a
(21:29):
bit more like um.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
You don't have to be religious or believe in heaven
and hell to actually watch thismovie.
It could just be it can be.
You can simply look at it asgood versus bad yeah, or light
versus dark which is what theythey do portray it as that way
very often and you could sort ofwhat's the word I'm looking for
, where you can have your ownperception, perception of the
movie.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, it didn't have to be black and white yeah,
alright, so it's two all, eventhough we're being harder on
each other.
We're just too good.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We do our research here at the Fandom.
I don't think I should have gotthe last one, because I did ask
a few other questions on it.
I'm giving it to you.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I'm giving it to you, last one for you, and then my
one is after that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
So this one might be a bit harder.
This is probably my hardestquestion, because you have to.
This isn't so much about themovie, but also, um, the fact
that it's an australian alwaysmade it a strut as an australian
film.
So there's a lot of australianactors, so a lot of them have
actually worked, not so muchtogether, but worked on the same
projects before.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
So my question is out of the 12 uh, fallen and
archangels, how many were on thetv show home and oh, for those
that don't know, home and Awayis a soap that has run for years
and years and years Like it'sprobably gone for as long as
I've been alive and it is basedin Summer Bay and they have a
(22:50):
rotating cast of characterswhere every single soap trope
you can think of has happened.
On that show.
There's natural disasters everyyear.
Somebody's pregnant, somebodygets like there's a wedding,
there's someone dies, yeah, andthey play the worst TV ads for
it as well.
It's very trashy, but we loveit.
We love it here in Australia,yeah, and also a lot of our
Australian actors that ourinternational listeners probably
(23:11):
know are lily padded fromeither Home and Away or
Neighbours.
I know that Chris Hemsworth wason Chris Hemsworth.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
He was in Home and Away.
He was on Home and.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Away, boy, but I'm digressing because I don't know
the answer to this question.
Can you tell?
So for this one, I'm going toguess there's 12 fallen and
archangels.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Nozman, this is your clue.
I say this saying oh yeah, howmany people have been in Home
and Away?
There actually isn't that many.
Oh, I'll say two, then Four,four, which four?
So Michael who plays Asmodeus,erica who plays Lilith, jack who
plays Raphael, harry who playsUriel, and that was the four,
(23:51):
because I didn't, because, incase you sort of did look this
up, there's actually a fifth,brendan, but he was in the movie
.
Ah, they had a special HunterAway movie.
He wasn't actually in the show,he was in the special movie.
Brendan who played Balan.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
He played Balan yes, yeah, very nice.
Okay, so five of the 12actually appeared in the Amazing
Great.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I'll let you have it if you can guess who was
actually a main on Hunter Away.
Most of these are just a fewepisodes, or one episode, or
three episodes, four episodes.
There's one who actually didlike 87 episodes.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Was it Erica Haynes who played Lilith?
She came on later.
I did read something similarand I remember that she sort of
came on after she starred inGabriel.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Actually no, sorry, it was 123 episodes.
The person also broke their legbefore the movie.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I know Asmodeus broke his leg before the movie.
The guy that played Asmodeus sothat must be Michael Piccirilli
Was Michael Piccirilli.
I'm not going to take that onebecause I had too many clues.
Okay, so the film of Gabrieland you have one question to go.
The film of Gabriel had aextremely tight budget, as we
spoke about before.
There was actually somethingthat happened three days out
(25:00):
from filming that almostprevented it from being filmed
all together.
Can you tell me what that was?
Oh no, would you like a clue?
Yes, please.
Okay, so australian movies areusually financed and they can
get some government sort offunding, uh, but usually they
get government funding for filmsthat they obviously think is
going to be backed byinternational buyers.
(25:22):
However, any film that shootsin Australia or anywhere
requires this to go ahead, andthey lost it.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Oh, I still don't know.
I'm going to guess some sort ofis it like the film license?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Not the film license?
No, oh, then I have no idea.
So the licensing is somethingthat happens when they actually
have to have permission to shoot.
The film license?
No, oh, right, then I have noidea.
So the licensing is somethingthat happens when they actually
have to have permission to shootwhere they want to shoot.
But this is actually, uh, thefilm's insurance.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
So, oh, I think I do remember reading something about
this there.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, the the film insurance was unexpectedly
revoked and there's only,apparently according to, uh,
some of the people that were onthe interviews, uh, there's only
apparently two major insurancecompanies in australia for film
projects.
One of them had already declinedto work with Gabriel and the
other one agreed, however, threedays before.
Due to the risky nature of thefilm and the action sequences,
(26:09):
and especially the endingsequence involving Gabriel free
falling off of a building, theydecided that they would revoke
their insurance.
However, they did somescrambling.
They had to push shooting backby two days, so instead of
shooting on the Monday, theyended up shooting on the
Wednesday and they found aninsurer.
However, it was for three timesthe cost, so their small budget
became even smaller in terms ofwhat they could actually do
(26:32):
with the money.
So, because of the small budget, they had some extras and crew
members that left halfwaythrough in principal photography
, which made things hard, andthe director, shane Abus, said
that the ones that stayed werereally driven by the passion and
the belief of the film.
They wanted Australian cinemato thrive and they also thought
it could be a launchpad fortheir careers as well.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I think probably for a few.
It probably was too.
Yeah, yeah, Andy's one.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, andy Whitfield for one, and you know this isn't
a question, but it's aninteresting fact.
Do you know how he got so manypeople on the crew to work?
Besides the fact that you knowobviously they were driven by
passion and belief financially,do you know how he got them to
actually work on the film?
Don't ask.
No, they actually they Donuts.
No, they actually they agreedto work on a deferred payment.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
A deferred payment.
Yeah, which was really good ofthose people, too, doing the
work.
But I'm grateful because Iliked the movie.
Yep, yep, but I had a littletidbit too, that I was going to
like a little.
Yes, did you know?
Because you were watching.
Do you watch it on Prime?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
No, I watch it on Apple.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Did you know that there was actually there's
actually a after-birth scene.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yes, I did.
Where he shows up to Jade Jadeand he's got brown eyes.
He loses his tattoo because hebecomes a mortal, because he
gets rid of his wings.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about that a little bit
later for the MVTs, because Ithink that's a very interesting
kind of ending.
That's some of the questions Ihad for you too.
Yeah, good tidbit.
Good, this is calledforeshadowing people when we
talk about something beforethat's going to happen later.
It's a movie technique, but youknow what I did forget to do?
I forgot to read on the movie.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
So on Reddit.
I'd actually be really, I'mactually really interested in
seeing what they think.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, so we put it on Reddit and we always ask what
people thought of the movieGabriel.
We put up a movie poster aswell and we had some people
writing in.
So on Reddit we had Mike Corneowho said that they've never
seen it, but they're glad thatthe angel Gabriel got it due,
because usually Michael's thehero and usually it's
(28:40):
supernatural exactly, yeah, soGabriel is I actually kind of I
really like the name Gabriel forone but he's also seems to me
to be like the unsung sort ofyoungest yeah, because him
Michael Lucifer, and he's thealways the one, that sort of
(29:01):
yeah, the youngest child, yeah,the innocent one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, pushed around by their older brothers.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yep, we had Adam Effective on Reddit, who also
said that it was a great idea,however terrible, terrible,
terrible execution, they said.
Of course it didn't have areally big budget, though, so
there is that to note.
So, very, very true with thebudget uh, constraints there.
And then going over to ourthreads all right, so on our
threads we have cyber sentinelcomic that says it was okay.
(29:27):
They said that they thoughtthat they might have to watch it
again.
And then we had the dreamer.
The storyteller said I rememberthinking it was a really cool
concept, but but I barelyremember it from 2007.
So that's kind of like.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, I'd agree with that, Like me, because when I
watched it in 2007, and then Ididn't watch it again for a
while after that and then I wassort of like I sort of, because
I sort of enjoyed it and Ienjoyed the concept, I sort of
remembered most of it.
But even watching it againrecently for this, there was
some parts where I'm like, oh, Iforgot that even happened.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I actually really resonatedwith the dream of the
storyteller's comment as well,because I actually think as a
concept, this is actually reallygood.
I think you know, as we talkedabout before, the uh, light and
the dark, the heaven and thehell, the arcs and the that
whole concept of that battleover purgatory, that's a really
big draw for me.
I really like that.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And I have my own thoughts about the movie that
we'll talk about later, butabout that concept about good
and evil and everything, Verygood, all right.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
So with that we're going to move on to our Set
Secrets segment.
All right, so the Set Secretssegment is where hosts take a
look behind the scenes of themovie to give you all the
information on what went right,what went wrong, what was
interesting and how the moviewas made.
So our question for the setsecrets segment, brash, is how
was this movie made on such aminuscule budget?
So this is where we're going togo into all the techniques that
(30:55):
the director, shane Abus, usedin order to actually produce the
movie that was his passionproject for such a long time.
You know the budget was about$200,000 Australian dollars.
They have said that it's areally example of
resourcefulness, of low budgetfilmmaking.
They blended cinematographywith minimalist production
(31:17):
design and digital technology tokind of create this high
concept action film.
You know they overcame a lot offinancial struggles and stress.
They didn't have the industry'ssupport until the sort of very
end of the movie as well.
So they didn't get any sort ofindustry funding at all as well.
And you know this is during thetime when there was some
technical limitations too,because the amount of sort of
digital camera uses that theycould have weren't as advanced
(31:39):
as they are right now, so to say.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Well, for most of the buildings and stuff that they
used were all just abandoned andrun down abandoned places, so
they didn't have to actuallyhire these places.
They just went to abandonedhouses and buildings and shit
and just shot the film in there.
So that's how they got like allthe lofts and everything like
that and like where Jade sort ofspends most of the movie, and a
(32:04):
few of the other places.
And I believe it was shot inSydney around the Harbour.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Bridge.
Yeah, yeah, so Sydney wasdefinitely the place where they
shot this in the industrialdistrict and, as you said, you
know they used a lot ofindustrial locations that were
already existing.
Shane Abus actually joked thatwhen they were brainstorming
about this, he said we reallywanted to film it in places
where we could like jump a fence, shoot the film, shoot the
scene and then jump back outwithout being known because it
would be free.
(32:30):
But he kind of did sort of takethat approach where there was
abandoned buildings and they'djust go up with the props
department and sort of dress itup as best that they could cut
off various sections as well.
But also in their framingtechniques with the camera.
He also mentioned that, youknow, for some shots, you know,
about 20 centimeters to the leftof where the camera cuts off,
there is like an open field.
(32:50):
Yeah, you know, to the rightover there where somebody's arm
is, you know, just to the leftof that one you can see like a
whole bunch of farmland.
So he's like.
You know, we really had to usethose set designs and the
framing shots really, reallycarefully in order to not expose
the fact that we were, you know, using a cheaply designed or an
industrial kind of set.
And to me, you know, that was itwas successful to the point
(33:12):
where I think it's really welldone in terms and creative in
the way that they did it.
But for me it kind of felt alittle bit claustrophobic and
sort of limiting because theyhad to use specific angles and
usually when you're talkingabout camera angles in a movie,
you can look at it and think toyourself are they using that
long shot to establish settingor they're using this close-up
to establish, you know, a reallysort of tense environment and
they want us to focus on theseparticular things.
(33:34):
But for this movie you couldn'treally do that, because they
had to.
The reason behind it all it waslike oh, why did the director
choose to do that shot?
And the reason behind everysingle one was oh, they, they
had to they had to they, theycouldn't do it any other way.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Exactly right.
Which it feels like same withthe drive-in theater part Yep,
where you see like-.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Oh yeah, with everything the Uriel yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Yeah, all the.
If you look, when it did panout to the outside of that area,
it was just dark, yep, justdark, because they couldn't show
.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, it was basically like aconvie van or a caravan that was
sitting in an empty parking lotand behind it was literally
just nighttime.
So obviously in the film youcan see the swirling sort of
mist, that sky and that stormy,tumultuous, dystopian, and then
in the distance you also saw theflickering of the city beyond,
(34:23):
which was obviously the digitaleffects over the practical
effects as well.
That is also one of the waysthat they kind of cut costs in
this as well, because thepractical effects of the
backgrounds made the universeseem a little bit more expansive
than it would have beenotherwise, like that shot when
it goes through the city at thevery start, when he's falling,
and you can just.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I didn't really notice it in my first watch in
2007, but I noticed it when Iwatched it.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
How animated it was, yeah, yeah yeah, and you know
what I think, if we're going tocompare it to the Crow, where
they kind of used miniatures, Ifeel like in the Crow it kind of
worked because the miniaturesobviously gave that sort of
aesthetic for the city on fire.
Here it was probably just toodigital for me to really kind of
yeah, and when he comes out ofthe sky it's really bright.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I reckon if he had gone through bright clouds and
all of a sudden the clouds aredarker, darker, darker, and then
he came out into a darkerlandscape, but when he comes out
, there's that light behind himthat shines on the sea and makes
the city bright and you canreally notice that it's digital,
whereas if he came down and itwas already really dark, I
reckon they could have got awaywith the buildings because
everything looked so dark itwould have been hard to discern
(35:31):
that it was really digitallymade, like.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Obviously we were talking about the city, but we
can also talk about the digitaleffects that are throughout the
movie as well in terms of likethe explosions and wire work and
things like that was tooexpensive for any kind of combat
or any like bullet work.
So you'll notice that they tryand attempt to do this thing,
that the that the cinemafilmmakers call bullet time, and
it was made famous in in thematrix, where basically all time
(35:56):
slows down and the bullets aremoving and we can see in the
matrix Neo sort of does this,this dodging sort of technique,
which they attempt to do here inGabriel as well.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I kind of like it, you did, you liked it, you did,
you liked it.
I did because for like budgetand for like having like no
money to do anything, the factthat they could even sort of
because it sort of reminded melike don't tell, like no, by no
means is it like good, but but Ilike, I like the attempt and it
gives it that little bit extra,because it reminds me of, like
(36:25):
um, your old movies with yourspeedsters, like smallville and
stuff like that, when they're,when you see them doing their
like really quick moves andmoves, you're like, oh, like
it's bad, but I love it.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
See to me, with that, with the, especially with the
fight scenes, when they use theintense slow motion and the
zooming of the characters, Iknow what they were trying to do
.
They were trying to show thatthese guys are ethereal and
they're battling in a reallypowerful way, but for me it
really just made thechoreography of the fight
incoherent, so I couldn't reallytell what was happening.
And you know, there would be aflash of fast slow motion and
(36:58):
then two characters would bepointing guns at each other and
then like only just miss eachother with a shot and then, you
know, the guns would then besort of just pushed towards the
side.
But then, you know, theydecided to do the CGI bullet
time and they actually had twobullets collide.
And that was when I looked atthat and I was like come on.
But but interestingly enough,when they were actually doing
(37:20):
that, they were thinking oftrying to do those bullet scenes
where they were shootingbullets, scenes where they were
shooting bullets, especiallydown the hallway where he's
fighting, gabriel's fighting asmodius.
They tried to do that wherethey detached the bullets to
strings and fishing wire andthey said it literally just did
not work.
They couldn't do it so they hadto do it in post with cgi.
One one, one scene that Ithought actually did look good
as a digital effect and props tothe digital effect artist that
(37:41):
did it was when the uh soupkitchen exploded, yeah, so that
was actually a digital effectthat they sort of combined with
a practical set and then theydigitally remade the set and
obviously there was a, there wasa real life sort of flash, but
then the parts of the set thatsort of came off, they, they
animated, and that that actuallylooked okay.
That wasn't too bad.
So I think, like kind of hitand miss, and I know why they
(38:03):
had to use digital effects,because you know, the practical
effects was just way too hard touse but way too expensive to
use.
But we were talking as wellabout one of the probably the
silliest choices that they madein terms of cheapening up their
effects department and that wasin terms of the rain on the very
ending scene for the climax ofthe movie, where we've obviously
(38:25):
got Samuel who, spoiler alert,is giving you a moment to turn
off is revealed to be Michael,who Gabriel actually loves, a
mentor of his, and he realizesthat.
You know, gabriel, that Samuelslash Michael has been turned as
a result of his time inpurgatory, so they end up having
this battle and there is amassive amount of rain, like
(38:45):
these characters are fuckingdrenched, like they've probably
got more rain on that roof thanwe have in our town right now.
It was a very interesting waythat they did that effect.
Brash, can you tell me how thatthey did that?
Garden hoses, garden hoses theywent to Bunnings warehouse,
which is a hardware store herein Australia, and they actually
picked up some hoses, usedregular town water which wasn't
(39:07):
heated, which is usually whathappens on a film set and they
just shot it into the sky.
And actually on some of thebehind the scenes videos that I
watched, you actually see twopeople sitting on the roof
waving the garden hoses, so therain had a little bit of an
effect.
Instead of just shooting itstraight up, they literally
crouched up there waving gardenhoses and I thought that's just
(39:32):
so high school, isn't it, butyou know it the rain effect
actually looked okay on film.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
It did.
It looked okay on film, butthere was some pretty serious
consequences to that as well.
Yeah, for any, there was a fewlittle incidents on set, but, uh
, one of the biggest ones wasactually andy getting
hypothermia from being in thatridiculous rain for so long.
Because he was, he seemed toalways be out of weather, so so
all the rain sort of effectseventually caught up with him
and he got hypothermia.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, they ended up having to go to a local hospital
, not to put Andy into thehospital, andy Whitfield into
the hospital, but they actuallywent to get like space blankets
and they had to obviously wearthose space blankets.
And for subsequent takes afterhis hypothermia incident they
bought them both wetsuits thatthey were able to wear so they
wouldn't get as cold, but thespace blankets.
(40:12):
Apparently, in an interviewafterwards Andy Whitfield said
he still hears the crackling ofthe tinfoil space blanket around
him and it gives him flashbacksof his time when he had
hypothermia there.
So we were talking earlier inour earlier segments about how
duane stevenson and he sort ofdidn't really get along in this
moment because duane stevensonwas very method, but this is the
(40:32):
scene we're talking about.
When they were, they were kindof at each other's throats a bit
because they really really justwanted to get it right and get
out of that rain.
Um, they said it was almostlike a trauma response whenever
they would just sit betweentakes and just collect
themselves.
They'd look towards each otherand know, hey, there's someone
else in the same exact situationthat I am, so I'm okay.
And then the director would say, all right, are you ready to go
?
And then all their anxietieswould just fuel.
So it was a very high stakesand high octane sort of
(40:54):
environment during that scene inparticular.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Yeah, it would have been particularly hard for Andy
because Andy, especially at thestart of that was and at the end
was that had to be like oh, Ilove you, brother.
At the same time like fuckingget it right, because I want
this fucking Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, that's it.
Oh man, it would have been sohard and you know props to him
and we might talk about hisacting a little bit later.
But yeah, I think just for thedigital effects and effects
overall they had to very muchcut costs in a lot of regards to
(41:29):
the point post-productionenhancements of shadow and blood
and, uh, the the blue scaleacross almost everything, kind
of gave it like a comicbook-esque uh, look, which is
very similar to movies likeunderworld, which is the the
vibe that they were they weregoing for there.
I know in the crow they havethe same thing happen, but it's
obviously red, uh, so the theblue that goes through through
gives it that kind of etherealspace.
So the digital effects were,were good, but some of them you
can really just tell a digitaleffects in there yeah, very,
very much not so good.
(41:50):
The, the, the fightchoreographer choreography as
well was something that they did.
Usually.
What happens is they they hirea fight director in movies and
they take the utmost care tochoreograph these fights so they
look good and nobody gets hurt,and they're practiced down to
an art form.
So, you know, it's almost likea dance, like step by step.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
They can take these, these steps, and they can, uh,
pull off the moves that theyneed to you think, you can
almost think, like um hayden andewan in star wars, that like
their and their practice andtheir fighting was just
absolutely flawless, phenomenal,yeah, and you can see them
swinging their lightsabers andit's like they're in each
other's brains because they'vepracticed it that much In this
(42:29):
movie.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
However, some of the fight scenes which has been
characterized by the director asstylized pub brawling,
sometimes they only had about anhour or so to get that fighting
correct before they then had togo and do the actual scene.
So the fight between Gabrieland Asmodeus was actually a
98-move fight sequence and theyonly had an hour to prepare for
(42:52):
it before filming.
And they said the reason theywere successful in doing it
successful in quote marks wasbecause they had Kyle Rowling,
who was a fight director forlots of different movies.
He's been a stunt double in themovie called Wanted.
He was actually Count Dooku'sstunt double in Star Wars 2 and
3.
He was actually the fightdirector on this movie and he
(43:14):
kind of coached them through itminutes before and his
professionalism and hisknowledge of the actual art form
of fighting was how they wereable to get through it.
And that hallway scene, theyobviously used various different
cuts to kind of separate it outas well.
But you know, but the timingthat they would have had to
actually prepare and practicethey didn't have.
(43:35):
So one of the biggest thingsthat cost money on film sets is
feeding everybody, right?
So sometimes on a movie film,the catering budget alone can be
$200,000.
And that amount sounds veryfamiliar because this movie was
literally made on $200,000 total.
Can you guess the very famousAustralian company that came to
(43:55):
save the day for the productionof Gabriel Australian,
australian, aussies supportingAussies, brash Baker's Delight
oh, really Baker's Delight?
Yeah, baker's Delight offeredthe production and the crew to
use their end ofof-day breadwhich they usually throw out.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I was going to say 4 and 20.
Oh yeah, pies, that would havebeen great.
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Yeah, so they actually came to the rescue and
you know, for a lot of the daysthat they were filming, they
would offer taco night, theywould have sausage on bread day
for lunch and then there waspeople that were taking dual
roles.
(44:34):
So the producer was also thecaterer and the runner, and some
of the actors that weren't onset at the time were also doing
various jobs on set design andproduction design.
So everybody the director,shane Abers, said that everybody
was doing a job that theyweren't trained or signed up to
do and he was really, reallythankful that everybody kind of
(44:54):
came together to finish off thevision of the film.
Another thing that they used isthey used literally all of the
cast and crew, whether they wereactors or not, as extras in the
movie.
So at some point, if they werethe producer or even the
director, they have a spot inthe movie.
So at some point, if they werethe producer or even the
director, they have a spot inthe movie.
And the one where they all showup at the same time is in the
Ark nightclub scene where yousee the band playing.
And they hired out the Arknightclub.
(45:17):
They went in before hours andthey have to look like this
nightclub is absolutely packedout and they only had about 40
people.
So what they did is they gotevery single person that was
involved in the film dressed upand gothed up to the point where
and they use that really tightcamera framing to make it look
like this packed out nightcluband that was the scene where
where Lilith ends up, uh, beingkilled by Gabriel, in that scene
(45:38):
where they're all raving.
So everybody that you see inthat that scene there, no extras
, it's all just film.
Yeah, the cost of of the filmcrew, yeah, all right.
So gabriel was actually likepretty six.
It succeeded on a tiny budgetbecause of those reasons you
know.
It used digitally shot materialto save time instead of film
stocks.
I used those abandonedlocations, used various
different practical lighting andcolor grading and things like
(46:00):
that.
Fight scenes were done reallyraw, uh, and yeah, they used a
lot of vfx shots where they,where they could, and it just
kind of proves, you know, thatthe passion and creativity and
smart filmmaking, you can reallyget your vision done.
Alright, let's go on to our signoff for part one of our Gabriel
episode.
Alright, everybody, thank youso much for listening to part
(46:21):
one of our episode on Gabriel.
Part two will be available foryou in the list below this one.
In that part, we are also goingto be talking about the
characters of Gabriel and Samuelslash Michael.
We're going to be doing ourreal deal segment and we're
going to be doing our mostvaluable takeaways, where we get
into a really deep diveanalysis of the movie of Gabriel
, this amazing Australian filmthat really broke the barriers.
(46:44):
We've got some new thingshappening here at the Fandom
Portals podcast.
Obviously, if you want to joinus for our social medias, you
can take part in our portal ispics and you can have your
thoughts on the movies we doread out on our podcast.
You can do that on threads andyou can do that on Instagram,
and you can also email us if youhave more of a longer question
and you that at our emailaddress, which is fandomportals
(47:05):
at gmail dot com.
Alright, everybody, we'll seeyou in part two.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, guys.
Hello everybody and welcome to the Fandom Portals
podcast, the podcast where weexplore the fandoms that help us
learn and grow.
This week, adam Brasher and Ilooked at the movie Gabriel,
which is an Australian moviemade in 2007.
We look really deeply into howthis movie came about with such
a small budget of only 200,000Australian dollars.
We look at all the behind thescenes information and we also
(00:22):
challenge each other with somemore fandom fact based off
trivia questions, so you'll getto know everything that we do
about the movie of Gabriel.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys andgirls, we have also just
launched our very own website.
If you want to go check thatout, we would greatly appreciate
it.
You can find it atwwwfandomportalspodcastcom.
(00:43):
It'll also be in the show notesbelow.
Go have a little squizzy.
Go have a little look.
It's kind of nice.
Over there.
You can find all our amazingepisodes.
We've got some blog posts foryou as well, and you can also
sign up to our mailing list,where you will never miss an
update and you will be the firstto know about any future
giveaways that we do.
So if you're interested in that, wwwfandomportalspodcastcom.
(01:11):
We hope you enjoy this episodeon Gabriel.
Welcome to the Fandom PortalsPodcast, the podcast that
explores how fandoms can helpyou learn and grow.
I am here, as always, with myco-host, mr Adam Brasher.
(01:31):
How are you today, brash?
I'm tired.
How are you?
I'm going very well, very wellindeed.
We're here to talk about amovie that is an Australian
movie and it's not like yourusual Australian movies.
This one is called Gabriel.
It was made in 2007, directedby Shane Abus, and it was
written by Matt Whelan Todd andShane Abus himself as well,
starring Andy Whitfield, andwe're going to be talking about
(01:54):
this one today as one of ourMarch titles.
But before we get into that, asalways, we're going to jump into
our gratitudes and growths,where each week, we begin by
sharing a personal gratitude forthe week or an area that we
feel like we require growth inrash.
I might go first.
Yeah, um, a couple weeks ago, Idid my gratitudes, where I was
really grateful for for rainydays, and I'd like to take that
(02:16):
back because ever since I saidthat, it has literally not
stopped raining in our town andI'm not listeners, I'm talking
like we have had flooding levelevents in our town Weeks and
weeks and weeks.
Yeah, weeks and weeks and weeksof it.
So you know, love the rain insparse amounts, but this amount
not so much.
(02:36):
But my gratitude, let's say I'mgoing to be grateful for herbal
tea, because driving to and fromwork this week has been quite a
stressful event and whenever Icome home I have a nice herbal
tea to relax me, which is goodDrinking on some passion fruit
tea right now which is like andyou know the funny thing about
(02:57):
these herbal teas, they alwayssmell better than they taste but
still relaxing.
Grateful for herbal teas andrelaxing after a hard day of
driving through semi-floodwaters to get home to my amazing
and loving family.
What about you, brash?
What are you grateful?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
for I'm grateful for my work colleagues.
My work has quadrupled sincethis rain and not all of them
have like well, not all of themhave softened the amount of work
I'm doing, but they make it fun.
So, yeah, so I'm grateful forthe contractors that I work with
and I've met for my job andmost of them are all really good
(03:31):
and we've had to go out andlook at jobs together and
discuss on how we're going tofix all the leaking stuff
because of the rain and all theflutter stuff because of the
rain and all the moldy stuffbecause of the rain.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, mold's a big one.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So I'm grateful for those people, because at least
you have fun doing it.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, and you know it's really awkward when you're
sitting in the car with somebody.
That isn't very nice, yeah.
So it's good that you canactually have the time to have
that sort of chat with somefriendly colleagues.
And you know what Some friendlycolleagues and you know what
Sometimes my work friends haveturned into really good friend
friends and that's likesomething that can come from it
too.
So that's really good to hear.
Brash, I'm happy for you, man.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, no grateful for .
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Ace this week because he's been naughty.
Ace has been naughty.
He's still our third unofficialco-host.
He had a birthday.
Let's, let's.
Oh look, he has been naughty,but you can't not talk about his
birthday.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I've still been just spoiling the shit out of him,
which I probably shouldn't do,but I do, but yeah.
So yeah, it was his birthday onFriday, just go on.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Well, he's an only child.
You're allowed to spoil him.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I'm sure he won't turn out too poorly adjusted, he
is being very spoiled right now, me trying to figure out how to
make sure his dinner is alllavished Very good.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Only the best for our third co-host here on the Fan
Portals podcast, and we do wishyoung Ace a very happy first
birthday, a first year aroundthe sun.
Happy birthday to him from meand from you and from our
community.
All right, let's jump into it.
We're going to do our firsttakes segment.
Our first take segment is wherewe discuss how we first
(05:09):
encountered the media, what ourinitial impressions of the movie
were and what our feelings wereon the media after having
watched it.
We might also share some of ourcommunity's thoughts on this
movie and if you want tocontribute to those thoughts in
future, you can look at oursocial pages, which is Instagram
Threads and Reddit, and youmight find yourself being read
out and shouted out on our show.
Um, so brash.
I'll ask you first.
(05:30):
We're talking about gabriel,which was made in 2007, and
gabriel is about an archangeland he comes to purgatory, a
place where darkness and thefallen rule, and gabriel
attempts to save the souls ofthe city's inhabitants.
How did you hear about thismovie?
What were your initial thoughts?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
One of my best friends, who I've known for 25
years.
He actually first introducedthis to me because he was I
guess still is was very into theangels, demons and whatnot.
He's even got a big ass angeltattooed on his back to
represent his younger brother.
And what to represent hisyounger brother and what was for
his younger brother, I believe.
Yeah, so he first introduced itto me that was when it first
(06:12):
came out in 2007.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So you would have been around high school age,
right 17,.
Yep, yep, yep, all right.
So for me, I first watched thismovie when we had to put it
onto the podcast, which ispretty much very similar to a
lot of movies, because from thispodcast, I've found that I have
watched the same movies a lot.
Yeah, and that's one of thebest things about this podcast
(06:34):
is there's opened my eyes to adifferent kind of movie and a
different sort of horizon ofmovies, and it's increasing my
palate.
So I was actually very surprisedto find that this was an
Australian production to startwith, because, looking at the
title cover and also the trailer, it doesn't really look like
your typical Australian movies.
And that was probably one of myinitial thoughts is that it
doesn't really look like yourtypical Australian movies, which
(06:55):
kind of you know, nowadays, inthe 2020s, looks like Mad Max,
fury Road and Fury Rosa Furiosa,but in the past it looks like a
lot of family-based comedies ormovies like Babe, various
different musicals on occasion,or sometimes war movies that
were set in Australia, and alsosometimes some cultural movies
that are trying to betray amessage.
(07:16):
So that's what I'm used to fromAustralian cinema, so this
struck me as very different.
When did you learn it was anAustralian film, brash.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Actually much later on, so I didn't actually learn
it was an Australian film.
Brash Actually much later on,so I didn't actually realise it
was an Australian film, probablyuntil I actually the DVD I
showed you when I bought.
That is when I found out, and Ithink I got that when I was 25?
Because I watched it every nowand then Because back in those
days we didn't have anystreaming sites to watch stuff
on.
So every now and then the onlytime I could watch it was when I
(07:46):
either hired it from a thinguntil I eventually bought it and
then I had it on DVD.
But it piqued my interestbecause of well, back when I
watched it in 2007,.
So you're watching it now in2025.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I watched it back in 2007, where nothing was over the
top like excellence yeah, nobig boxster action flicks, or
they were just sort of startingto come out with that sort of
stuff that's when Iron man sortof around the time, iron man
came out.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So that's probably when Iron man came out.
So I was like, damn, they cando some good shit.
But even so, because evenwatching I was like oh yeah,
this seems kind of low budget,but I did like the story of it
and like always it's the same asDragonheart I reckon this would
be a really good show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A really good TV show.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Sort of like how they made Shadowhunters a TV show.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh yeah yeah, it's a really good concept for a TV
show as well, in terms of, youknow, heaven battling hell, or
light versus dark, all of thearchangels and the fallen in
this movie.
That's probably some of themost engaging parts of it.
You did mention the budgetbefore as well, being a little
bit low.
This movie was made on whatthey now suggest is about
$200,000 Australian dollars, soif you're an American listener
(08:57):
and you're listening to that,that's pretty much half Like our
Australian dollar is worthabout half of what your US
dollar is.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I was going to say I'm thinking a lot of
Americans realise that like wepay like double pretty much
anything Like if we buy anythingthat looked like American, we
have to pay pretty much doublefor it.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it cost Australian dollars wise
$200,000, and the director,shane Abus, actually sort of
struggled to come up with themoney to make this movie.
He actually had to continueworking you know, second, third
and fifth and fourth jobs tosort of get it done.
And you know this film wasactually pretty profitable,
(09:34):
brash, do you know how much itmade worldwide in US dollars?
Sorry, what do you reckon theworldwide gross was in US
dollars?
In US dollars?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So if it was more than what it did, so shit, it'd
get back $150,000.
In the US that'd be more.
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
yeah, I'm going to say $2 million Just under, it
made $1.4 million, which isactually almost six to seven
times its budget, which meansit's a financial success in that
regard.
And I think it came out at theright time, because 2007, there
was that sort of push towardgothic, neo-noir movies, that
(10:11):
sort of.
They had a target audience backin 2007.
It was basically you and me inhigh school.
If you remember the kind ofmusic that we used to listen to
or the kind of music that highschools used to listen to back
in 2007,.
You've got the rise, or the newrise, of the, the punk phase.
Uh, a lot of the the metal sortof bands were very sort of
famous around that time as well.
So it really played into that,that aesthetic and that vibe,
(10:32):
and you can see it from thetrailer and actually from the
movie as well watching it.
It very much had its niche andI think that really paid off for
it, you know, domestically, butalso worldwide, which was good
for australian cinema.
Oh yeah, I was%.
And what are your thoughts onthe movie?
When you watched it, youobviously sound like you liked
it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, I really enjoyed it, Like, yes, some
parts not all of it was great,but I think for the most part I
don't really think I can lookback on it and say, oh, I hated
that.
Most of the time I can say, oh,I liked that.
Yeah, I'd say if I washalf-headed, half liked it.
I'd be more in the second halfof liking it.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So, yep, that's three quarters three quarters a tank
full.
Yeah, I think for me.
I obviously saw it at a latertime.
I watched it in 2025 andthere's been some very
outstandingly visual movies thathave come out between 2007 and
2025, so my expectations werehigher than what yours were and
as a result of that, I think forme there were some things that
were really sort of well done interms of the budget, and then
there were some things that Ikind of I couldn't really like.
(11:29):
So for me, I'm hot and coldabout this one Brash.
That was my first thoughtsabout it.
I think we'll probably get intoit a little bit later on in our
sort of rundown.
But there are some things thatdefinitely really sort of hit
the mark and I definitelyappreciate the fact that this is
an Australian film that reallytried to break the mold, but
there are some things thatreally didn't kind of work for
me as well, so we'll get intothat a little bit later as well.
(11:49):
Let's get into our fandom factface-off segment, all right.
So our fandom fact face-offsegment is where the host asks
one another a series of triviaquestions associated with the
focus media.
The host with the mostcollected points from the Fandom
Fact Face-Off segment willshout the opposing co-host to an
all-expenses paid trip to themovie cinema Brash.
(12:12):
I'm yet to win one of these.
We've done two of them andyou've won both.
This week is our third run atour March Fandom Fact Face-Off,
so we're both sitting at six allsix apiece and we made the
gentleman's agreement last weekin our Dragonheart episode that
we would stop going easy on eachother.
Yes, yes, we do, yeah, and Ithink for this one we talked
(12:36):
about you know how we like togive each other clues.
I think for this one we cangive one clue, but then that's
it.
Okay, that's it, and you knowyou can talk about it, but once
you lock in, you lock in.
Yep, are you set with the newrules?
Set, all right, lovely, do youwant to go first?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Go for it Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
So my first one is you might know this one, dwayne
Stevenson, who plays Samuel orsomeone else.
He before he was, or didGabriel before he was acting,
what?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
do you do so?
Before he was an actor.
What was his profession?
Okay, I am thinking I know thathe did a lot of short films
with, and he was very goodfriends with the writer Matt
Hoylton-Todd, and they've beenin a few shorts together.
He's an Australian man, I'mgoing to say, because of the
(13:29):
nature of this segment, I'mgoing to say he was a male
dancer, he was a stripper.
Do you want your hint?
I'll take the hint, I'll takethe hint, I'll take the hint.
He was a stripper, do you wantyour hint?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I'll take the hint.
I'll take the hint.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I'll take the hint.
Good idea, am I that far off?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
um, yeah, quite a bit off.
Alright, think Adam Driver.
Oh, he was in the army, he was,he was in the Australian army.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Oh good stuff.
Yeah, that was a good clue.
By the way.
Yeah, thank you.
I can definitely get that.
He holds himself very well inthe interviews and the behind
the scenes that I've watched.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, so yeah, he was in the.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Australian Royal Army .
Oh, there you go.
Thank you, Dwayne Stevenson.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Alright, so it's 1-0 with my question coming.
My question is also aboutDwayne Stevenson's and I'm going
to see if you know this one.
Alright, so originally, when hewas first attached to the
project of Gabriel, he was oneof the first members cast.
Due to his familiarity with thescript writer, he was attached
to play a different part.
He wasn't attached to playSamael.
(14:26):
Which part was he attached toplay instead?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I do know this one.
He was actually meant to beGabriel, correct, yes.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah.
So in this one he was attachedas Gabriel for the longest time,
to the point where when othercast members would come into
screen test, he would playGabriel's lines.
However, when it got down tolater casting in the role,
Dwayne Stevenson actually saw asort of tape of him doing some
lines for Samael and thedirector, Shane Abus, sort of
looked at it and said you know,he's got this gravitas, he's got
(14:56):
this strong commanding presenceon screen and it's really
important for us to have areally strong villainous
presence within the movie justto balance the light and dark
tones of the film.
So they approached Dwayne andhe sort of disagreed to start
with until he saw himself onfilm and found that, you know,
he does have that sort of spacewithin him to portray Samael,
(15:17):
who ends up being the villain ofthe movie, Gabriel.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
And also being in the army and then having to play
someone who's commanding Lesser.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
The forces of the Fallen yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Fallen as his warrior minions Like I reckon he did a
really good job.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah, and I think as well, the mood he had to portray
was intense, it was atmosphericas well and he really did need
that sort of brooding presence.
And I talked to you about thisbefore we started recording.
But he actually kind of went abit method in his way where he
would kind of stay in characterand he had to wear those sort of
white contact lenses very, veryoften.
(15:58):
I suck, he was very unsettlingto a lot of the cast members
where he actually found peoplewould avoid him around the set
and he would stay, stay in hischaracter pretty often to the
point where you know um andywhitfield and he actually got
into a little bit of a verbalaltercation on the rooftop where
they uh were filming the rainscene in the the final moments
of the film and because of the,the situation and because of the
(16:19):
cold and all of that sort ofthing, they actually like really
sort of got into a bit of averbal.
But they still remained friendsand they knew it was a
professional atmosphere and itwas just the elements that sort
of was getting the best of them.
But yeah, it was really fun tosort of see that on the
interview that he was actuallyattached to play Gabriel at one
point before.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Andy came along.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, that's an idea I didn't pick up on initially
Very good, all right, one, allyour question, my question.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So like Dwayne was very method, Harry Pavlidis was
also very method.
He played Uriel.
What did he do to get ready forhis role?
Now, Uriel is the angel thatwas in the drive-in theatre.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
He was out in the drive-in theatre.
Yeah, he's the one that was inthe caravan for a really long
time that Gabriel sensed when hefirst came down to Purgatory
and he went to find straightaway.
So I do know this one.
Harry Pavlidis actually playedUriel and he was sort of going
through a personal crisis at thetime and he thought to fully
embody Uriel.
And he was sort of goingthrough a personal crisis at the
time and he thought to fullyembody Uriel's state of
isolation and suffering.
(17:22):
He would go and spend weeksalone in a caravan of his own in
a national park.
He did, yeah, and he wouldpractice his lines by
candlelight, he rationed hisfood.
He fully immersed himself inthat mindset of this tormented
archangel persona.
He said his dedication paid offbecause he was actually one of
the actors that was praised bythe Sydney Morning Herald when
this sort of came out.
He did a very good job, yeah,and they said that he was a
(17:44):
scene stealer.
So look out for Uriel if youguys are going to watch this one
.
He actually played it reallyreally well and I actually agree
he's probably one of myfavorite characters in the movie
just because of the way hedelivered some of his lines.
That was the reason I know somuch about that, because that
was actually part of one of myquestions that I was going to do
.
Oh yeah, so I'm going to adjustthis one, because there's a
second part to this that Ireally wanted to talk about as
(18:06):
well.
So your question relating toHarry Pavlidis as well, who does
play Uriel, there's a specificmoment in the film where he
picks up a set piece, which wasthis shot glass, and he very
sort of shakily and anxiouslysort of drinks out of that shot
glass, and you'll notice thatshot glass is a little bit sort
of damaged.
What's special about that scene, or what's special about that
(18:29):
shot glass, brash?
That's my question to you.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Ooh, what's special about that shot glass, is it?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
explained in the movie.
No, it's nothing.
Character that is like,character wise that's
significant, or plot wise that'ssignificant, it's just like a.
It's something that really sortof added to the aesthetic of
the character of uriel um.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Does he use it in the scene with gabriel?
Does he use it with scene withlillith?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
he uses it in the scene with gabriel.
Okay, after gabriel leaves andobviously gab Gabriel forces him
to show himself, after Gabrielstabs him to heal and he leaves.
He then takes that moment ofsolace and peace where he then
goes and pours some alcohol andtakes a drink out of this shot
glass.
And there's something veryspecial about that shot glass
that sort of indicates a littlebit about his process and the
(19:16):
way the film was shot.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Unfortunately, I can't even think I'm going to
take a stab, was it?
Oh, I don't know if you alreadysaid this.
Was it like cracked?
Yeah, was it cracked?
Yep, yep, that wasn't it.
That's not the thing.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
No, that is the thing .
Oh, it is.
Yeah, yeah, the shot glass wascompletely smashed and shattered
.
He actually dropped it momentsbefore they said action.
And for two reasons thedirector decided to keep it in,
the first being, obviously, theyhad no budget and no time, so
they couldn't go and find a newshot glass.
(19:47):
They had a certain amount ofruns to do for the day and they
needed to just move on and getit done.
And the second was because thedirector, shane abis, thought
that it actually fed intouriel's character, where he
didn't have very nice things andthis shot glass which is
incredibly cracked, by the way,and would have been very hard to
drink out of- I know,Especially if you just broke it.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
You just picked it up Like whether it's shards of
glass or something.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, that's what I thought as well and that's why
it stood out to me and why Iwanted to talk about it, because
that's like of acting stylethat he was doing there as well,
and it does sort of indicatethat Gabriel was broken.
Yeah, he was a broken man.
That's the symbology of it.
So, well done, good guess,that's like.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I was like but I was actually going to say and I
almost did but I'm like, oh, I'mlike because that's my thing
like he's a pretty brokencharacter.
I'm like, oh, they, it cracked.
But I didn't think it was gonnabe that sort of like symbolic.
I didn't think it was gonna bethat sort of like simple of a
thing.
But um, sometimes it's a simplequestion yeah, I was actually
gonna say that I had a um myinitial guess prior to the crack
(20:49):
.
I was gonna say it had a crosson it, like a faith to a cross
on it.
And so he's drinking because hejust got healed again and had
to bring it back because he'sbeen hiding his angel side so
long that he took a shot out ofa shot glass with a cross on it
or something.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm lucky I didn't say that, or
I?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
saw it in the wrong.
Well, I actually read thatthroughout the movie.
They tried to use terms likeangel and demon and heaven and
hell and those theology kind ofterms as little as possible yeah
, because they didn't want to belimited in the terms of spaces
where they could present andshow the movie or places where
it could be shown and it gives abit more um imagination and a
(21:29):
bit more like um.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
You don't have to be religious or believe in heaven
and hell to actually watch thismovie.
It could just be it can be.
You can simply look at it asgood versus bad yeah, or light
versus dark which is what theythey do portray it as that way
very often and you could sort ofwhat's the word I'm looking for
, where you can have your ownperception, perception of the
movie.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, it didn't have to be black and white yeah,
alright, so it's two all, eventhough we're being harder on
each other.
We're just too good.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We do our research here at the Fandom.
I don't think I should have gotthe last one, because I did ask
a few other questions on it.
I'm giving it to you.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I'm giving it to you, last one for you, and then my
one is after that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
So this one might be a bit harder.
This is probably my hardestquestion, because you have to.
This isn't so much about themovie, but also, um, the fact
that it's an australian alwaysmade it a strut as an australian
film.
So there's a lot of australianactors, so a lot of them have
actually worked, not so muchtogether, but worked on the same
projects before.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
So my question is out of the 12 uh, fallen and
archangels, how many were on thetv show home and oh, for those
that don't know, home and Awayis a soap that has run for years
and years and years Like it'sprobably gone for as long as
I've been alive and it is basedin Summer Bay and they have a
(22:50):
rotating cast of characterswhere every single soap trope
you can think of has happened.
On that show.
There's natural disasters everyyear.
Somebody's pregnant, somebodygets like there's a wedding,
there's someone dies, yeah, andthey play the worst TV ads for
it as well.
It's very trashy, but we loveit.
We love it here in Australia,yeah, and also a lot of our
Australian actors that ourinternational listeners probably
(23:11):
know are lily padded fromeither Home and Away or
Neighbours.
I know that Chris Hemsworth wason Chris Hemsworth.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
He was in Home and Away.
He was on Home and.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Away, boy, but I'm digressing because I don't know
the answer to this question.
Can you tell?
So for this one, I'm going toguess there's 12 fallen and
archangels.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Nozman, this is your clue.
I say this saying oh yeah, howmany people have been in Home
and Away?
There actually isn't that many.
Oh, I'll say two, then Four,four, which four?
So Michael who plays Asmodeus,erica who plays Lilith, jack who
plays Raphael, harry who playsUriel, and that was the four,
(23:51):
because I didn't, because, incase you sort of did look this
up, there's actually a fifth,brendan, but he was in the movie
.
Ah, they had a special HunterAway movie.
He wasn't actually in the show,he was in the special movie.
Brendan who played Balan.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
He played Balan yes, yeah, very nice.
Okay, so five of the 12actually appeared in the Amazing
Great.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I'll let you have it if you can guess who was
actually a main on Hunter Away.
Most of these are just a fewepisodes, or one episode, or
three episodes, four episodes.
There's one who actually didlike 87 episodes.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Was it Erica Haynes who played Lilith?
She came on later.
I did read something similarand I remember that she sort of
came on after she starred inGabriel.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Actually no, sorry, it was 123 episodes.
The person also broke their legbefore the movie.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I know Asmodeus broke his leg before the movie.
The guy that played Asmodeus sothat must be Michael Piccirilli
Was Michael Piccirilli.
I'm not going to take that onebecause I had too many clues.
Okay, so the film of Gabrieland you have one question to go.
The film of Gabriel had aextremely tight budget, as we
spoke about before.
There was actually somethingthat happened three days out
(25:00):
from filming that almostprevented it from being filmed
all together.
Can you tell me what that was?
Oh no, would you like a clue?
Yes, please.
Okay, so australian movies areusually financed and they can
get some government sort offunding, uh, but usually they
get government funding for filmsthat they obviously think is
going to be backed byinternational buyers.
(25:22):
However, any film that shootsin Australia or anywhere
requires this to go ahead, andthey lost it.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Oh, I still don't know.
I'm going to guess some sort ofis it like the film license?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Not the film license?
No, oh, then I have no idea.
So the licensing is somethingthat happens when they actually
have to have permission to shoot.
The film license?
No, oh, right, then I have noidea.
So the licensing is somethingthat happens when they actually
have to have permission to shootwhere they want to shoot.
But this is actually, uh, thefilm's insurance.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
So, oh, I think I do remember reading something about
this there.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, the the film insurance was unexpectedly
revoked and there's only,apparently according to, uh,
some of the people that were onthe interviews, uh, there's only
apparently two major insurancecompanies in australia for film
projects.
One of them had already declinedto work with Gabriel and the
other one agreed, however, threedays before.
Due to the risky nature of thefilm and the action sequences,
(26:09):
and especially the endingsequence involving Gabriel free
falling off of a building, theydecided that they would revoke
their insurance.
However, they did somescrambling.
They had to push shooting backby two days, so instead of
shooting on the Monday, theyended up shooting on the
Wednesday and they found aninsurer.
However, it was for three timesthe cost, so their small budget
became even smaller in terms ofwhat they could actually do
(26:32):
with the money.
So, because of the small budget, they had some extras and crew
members that left halfwaythrough in principal photography
, which made things hard, andthe director, shane Abus, said
that the ones that stayed werereally driven by the passion and
the belief of the film.
They wanted Australian cinemato thrive and they also thought
it could be a launchpad fortheir careers as well.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I think probably for a few.
It probably was too.
Yeah, yeah, Andy's one.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, andy Whitfield for one, and you know this isn't
a question, but it's aninteresting fact.
Do you know how he got so manypeople on the crew to work?
Besides the fact that you knowobviously they were driven by
passion and belief financially,do you know how he got them to
actually work on the film?
Don't ask.
No, they actually they Donuts.
No, they actually they agreedto work on a deferred payment.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
A deferred payment.
Yeah, which was really good ofthose people, too, doing the
work.
But I'm grateful because Iliked the movie.
Yep, yep, but I had a littletidbit too, that I was going to
like a little.
Yes, did you know?
Because you were watching.
Do you watch it on Prime?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
No, I watch it on Apple.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Did you know that there was actually there's
actually a after-birth scene.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yes, I did.
Where he shows up to Jade Jadeand he's got brown eyes.
He loses his tattoo because hebecomes a mortal, because he
gets rid of his wings.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about that a little bit
later for the MVTs, because Ithink that's a very interesting
kind of ending.
That's some of the questions Ihad for you too.
Yeah, good tidbit.
Good, this is calledforeshadowing people when we
talk about something beforethat's going to happen later.
It's a movie technique, but youknow what I did forget to do?
I forgot to read on the movie.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
So on Reddit.
I'd actually be really, I'mactually really interested in
seeing what they think.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, so we put it on Reddit and we always ask what
people thought of the movieGabriel.
We put up a movie poster aswell and we had some people
writing in.
So on Reddit we had Mike Corneowho said that they've never
seen it, but they're glad thatthe angel Gabriel got it due,
because usually Michael's thehero and usually it's
(28:40):
supernatural exactly, yeah, soGabriel is I actually kind of I
really like the name Gabriel forone but he's also seems to me
to be like the unsung sort ofyoungest yeah, because him
Michael Lucifer, and he's thealways the one, that sort of
(29:01):
yeah, the youngest child, yeah,the innocent one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, pushed around by their older brothers.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yep, we had Adam Effective on Reddit, who also
said that it was a great idea,however terrible, terrible,
terrible execution, they said.
Of course it didn't have areally big budget, though, so
there is that to note.
So, very, very true with thebudget uh, constraints there.
And then going over to ourthreads all right, so on our
threads we have cyber sentinelcomic that says it was okay.
(29:27):
They said that they thoughtthat they might have to watch it
again.
And then we had the dreamer.
The storyteller said I rememberthinking it was a really cool
concept, but but I barelyremember it from 2007.
So that's kind of like.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, I'd agree with that, Like me, because when I
watched it in 2007, and then Ididn't watch it again for a
while after that and then I wassort of like I sort of, because
I sort of enjoyed it and Ienjoyed the concept, I sort of
remembered most of it.
But even watching it againrecently for this, there was
some parts where I'm like, oh, Iforgot that even happened.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I actually really resonatedwith the dream of the
storyteller's comment as well,because I actually think as a
concept, this is actually reallygood.
I think you know, as we talkedabout before, the uh, light and
the dark, the heaven and thehell, the arcs and the that
whole concept of that battleover purgatory, that's a really
big draw for me.
I really like that.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And I have my own thoughts about the movie that
we'll talk about later, butabout that concept about good
and evil and everything, Verygood, all right.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
So with that we're going to move on to our Set
Secrets segment.
All right, so the Set Secretssegment is where hosts take a
look behind the scenes of themovie to give you all the
information on what went right,what went wrong, what was
interesting and how the moviewas made.
So our question for the setsecrets segment, brash, is how
was this movie made on such aminuscule budget?
So this is where we're going togo into all the techniques that
(30:55):
the director, shane Abus, usedin order to actually produce the
movie that was his passionproject for such a long time.
You know the budget was about$200,000 Australian dollars.
They have said that it's areally example of
resourcefulness, of low budgetfilmmaking.
They blended cinematographywith minimalist production
(31:17):
design and digital technology tokind of create this high
concept action film.
You know they overcame a lot offinancial struggles and stress.
They didn't have the industry'ssupport until the sort of very
end of the movie as well.
So they didn't get any sort ofindustry funding at all as well.
And you know this is during thetime when there was some
technical limitations too,because the amount of sort of
digital camera uses that theycould have weren't as advanced
(31:39):
as they are right now, so to say.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Well, for most of the buildings and stuff that they
used were all just abandoned andrun down abandoned places, so
they didn't have to actuallyhire these places.
They just went to abandonedhouses and buildings and shit
and just shot the film in there.
So that's how they got like allthe lofts and everything like
that and like where Jade sort ofspends most of the movie, and a
(32:04):
few of the other places.
And I believe it was shot inSydney around the Harbour.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Bridge.
Yeah, yeah, so Sydney wasdefinitely the place where they
shot this in the industrialdistrict and, as you said, you
know they used a lot ofindustrial locations that were
already existing.
Shane Abus actually joked thatwhen they were brainstorming
about this, he said we reallywanted to film it in places
where we could like jump a fence, shoot the film, shoot the
scene and then jump back outwithout being known because it
would be free.
(32:30):
But he kind of did sort of takethat approach where there was
abandoned buildings and they'djust go up with the props
department and sort of dress itup as best that they could cut
off various sections as well.
But also in their framingtechniques with the camera.
He also mentioned that, youknow, for some shots, you know,
about 20 centimeters to the leftof where the camera cuts off,
there is like an open field.
(32:50):
Yeah, you know, to the rightover there where somebody's arm
is, you know, just to the leftof that one you can see like a
whole bunch of farmland.
So he's like.
You know, we really had to usethose set designs and the
framing shots really, reallycarefully in order to not expose
the fact that we were, you know, using a cheaply designed or an
industrial kind of set.
And to me, you know, that was itwas successful to the point
(33:12):
where I think it's really welldone in terms and creative in
the way that they did it.
But for me it kind of felt alittle bit claustrophobic and
sort of limiting because theyhad to use specific angles and
usually when you're talkingabout camera angles in a movie,
you can look at it and think toyourself are they using that
long shot to establish settingor they're using this close-up
to establish, you know, a reallysort of tense environment and
they want us to focus on theseparticular things.
(33:34):
But for this movie you couldn'treally do that, because they
had to.
The reason behind it all it waslike oh, why did the director
choose to do that shot?
And the reason behind everysingle one was oh, they, they
had to they had to they, theycouldn't do it any other way.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Exactly right.
Which it feels like same withthe drive-in theater part Yep,
where you see like-.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Oh yeah, with everything the Uriel yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Yeah, all the.
If you look, when it did panout to the outside of that area,
it was just dark, yep, justdark, because they couldn't show
.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, it was basically like aconvie van or a caravan that was
sitting in an empty parking lotand behind it was literally
just nighttime.
So obviously in the film youcan see the swirling sort of
mist, that sky and that stormy,tumultuous, dystopian, and then
in the distance you also saw theflickering of the city beyond,
(34:23):
which was obviously the digitaleffects over the practical
effects as well.
That is also one of the waysthat they kind of cut costs in
this as well, because thepractical effects of the
backgrounds made the universeseem a little bit more expansive
than it would have beenotherwise, like that shot when
it goes through the city at thevery start, when he's falling,
and you can just.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I didn't really notice it in my first watch in
2007, but I noticed it when Iwatched it.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
How animated it was, yeah, yeah yeah, and you know
what I think, if we're going tocompare it to the Crow, where
they kind of used miniatures, Ifeel like in the Crow it kind of
worked because the miniaturesobviously gave that sort of
aesthetic for the city on fire.
Here it was probably just toodigital for me to really kind of
yeah, and when he comes out ofthe sky it's really bright.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I reckon if he had gone through bright clouds and
all of a sudden the clouds aredarker, darker, darker, and then
he came out into a darkerlandscape, but when he comes out
, there's that light behind himthat shines on the sea and makes
the city bright and you canreally notice that it's digital,
whereas if he came down and itwas already really dark, I
reckon they could have got awaywith the buildings because
everything looked so dark itwould have been hard to discern
(35:31):
that it was really digitallymade, like.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Obviously we were talking about the city, but we
can also talk about the digitaleffects that are throughout the
movie as well in terms of likethe explosions and wire work and
things like that was tooexpensive for any kind of combat
or any like bullet work.
So you'll notice that they tryand attempt to do this thing,
that the that the cinemafilmmakers call bullet time, and
it was made famous in in thematrix, where basically all time
(35:56):
slows down and the bullets aremoving and we can see in the
matrix Neo sort of does this,this dodging sort of technique,
which they attempt to do here inGabriel as well.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I kind of like it, you did, you liked it, you did,
you liked it.
I did because for like budgetand for like having like no
money to do anything, the factthat they could even sort of
because it sort of reminded melike don't tell, like no, by no
means is it like good, but but Ilike, I like the attempt and it
gives it that little bit extra,because it reminds me of, like
(36:25):
um, your old movies with yourspeedsters, like smallville and
stuff like that, when they're,when you see them doing their
like really quick moves andmoves, you're like, oh, like
it's bad, but I love it.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
See to me, with that, with the, especially with the
fight scenes, when they use theintense slow motion and the
zooming of the characters, Iknow what they were trying to do
.
They were trying to show thatthese guys are ethereal and
they're battling in a reallypowerful way, but for me it
really just made thechoreography of the fight
incoherent, so I couldn't reallytell what was happening.
And you know, there would be aflash of fast slow motion and
(36:58):
then two characters would bepointing guns at each other and
then like only just miss eachother with a shot and then, you
know, the guns would then besort of just pushed towards the
side.
But then, you know, theydecided to do the CGI bullet
time and they actually had twobullets collide.
And that was when I looked atthat and I was like come on.
But but interestingly enough,when they were actually doing
(37:20):
that, they were thinking oftrying to do those bullet scenes
where they were shootingbullets, scenes where they were
shooting bullets, especiallydown the hallway where he's
fighting, gabriel's fighting asmodius.
They tried to do that wherethey detached the bullets to
strings and fishing wire andthey said it literally just did
not work.
They couldn't do it so they hadto do it in post with cgi.
One one, one scene that Ithought actually did look good
as a digital effect and props tothe digital effect artist that
(37:41):
did it was when the uh soupkitchen exploded, yeah, so that
was actually a digital effectthat they sort of combined with
a practical set and then theydigitally remade the set and
obviously there was a, there wasa real life sort of flash, but
then the parts of the set thatsort of came off, they, they
animated, and that that actuallylooked okay.
That wasn't too bad.
So I think, like kind of hitand miss, and I know why they
(38:03):
had to use digital effects,because you know, the practical
effects was just way too hard touse but way too expensive to
use.
But we were talking as wellabout one of the probably the
silliest choices that they madein terms of cheapening up their
effects department and that wasin terms of the rain on the very
ending scene for the climax ofthe movie, where we've obviously
(38:25):
got Samuel who, spoiler alert,is giving you a moment to turn
off is revealed to be Michael,who Gabriel actually loves, a
mentor of his, and he realizesthat.
You know, gabriel, that Samuelslash Michael has been turned as
a result of his time inpurgatory, so they end up having
this battle and there is amassive amount of rain, like
(38:45):
these characters are fuckingdrenched, like they've probably
got more rain on that roof thanwe have in our town right now.
It was a very interesting waythat they did that effect.
Brash, can you tell me how thatthey did that?
Garden hoses, garden hoses theywent to Bunnings warehouse,
which is a hardware store herein Australia, and they actually
picked up some hoses, usedregular town water which wasn't
(39:07):
heated, which is usually whathappens on a film set and they
just shot it into the sky.
And actually on some of thebehind the scenes videos that I
watched, you actually see twopeople sitting on the roof
waving the garden hoses, so therain had a little bit of an
effect.
Instead of just shooting itstraight up, they literally
crouched up there waving gardenhoses and I thought that's just
(39:32):
so high school, isn't it, butyou know it the rain effect
actually looked okay on film.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
It did.
It looked okay on film, butthere was some pretty serious
consequences to that as well.
Yeah, for any, there was a fewlittle incidents on set, but, uh
, one of the biggest ones wasactually andy getting
hypothermia from being in thatridiculous rain for so long.
Because he was, he seemed toalways be out of weather, so so
all the rain sort of effectseventually caught up with him
and he got hypothermia.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, they ended up having to go to a local hospital
, not to put Andy into thehospital, andy Whitfield into
the hospital, but they actuallywent to get like space blankets
and they had to obviously wearthose space blankets.
And for subsequent takes afterhis hypothermia incident they
bought them both wetsuits thatthey were able to wear so they
wouldn't get as cold, but thespace blankets.
(40:12):
Apparently, in an interviewafterwards Andy Whitfield said
he still hears the crackling ofthe tinfoil space blanket around
him and it gives him flashbacksof his time when he had
hypothermia there.
So we were talking earlier inour earlier segments about how
duane stevenson and he sort ofdidn't really get along in this
moment because duane stevensonwas very method, but this is the
(40:32):
scene we're talking about.
When they were, they were kindof at each other's throats a bit
because they really really justwanted to get it right and get
out of that rain.
Um, they said it was almostlike a trauma response whenever
they would just sit betweentakes and just collect
themselves.
They'd look towards each otherand know, hey, there's someone
else in the same exact situationthat I am, so I'm okay.
And then the director would say, all right, are you ready to go
?
And then all their anxietieswould just fuel.
So it was a very high stakesand high octane sort of
(40:54):
environment during that scene inparticular.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Yeah, it would have been particularly hard for Andy
because Andy, especially at thestart of that was and at the end
was that had to be like oh, Ilove you, brother.
At the same time like fuckingget it right, because I want
this fucking Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, that's it.
Oh man, it would have been sohard and you know props to him
and we might talk about hisacting a little bit later.
But yeah, I think just for thedigital effects and effects
overall they had to very muchcut costs in a lot of regards to
(41:29):
the point post-productionenhancements of shadow and blood
and, uh, the the blue scaleacross almost everything, kind
of gave it like a comicbook-esque uh, look, which is
very similar to movies likeunderworld, which is the the
vibe that they were they weregoing for there.
I know in the crow they havethe same thing happen, but it's
obviously red, uh, so the theblue that goes through through
gives it that kind of etherealspace.
So the digital effects were,were good, but some of them you
can really just tell a digitaleffects in there yeah, very,
very much not so good.
(41:50):
The, the, the fightchoreographer choreography as
well was something that they did.
Usually.
What happens is they they hirea fight director in movies and
they take the utmost care tochoreograph these fights so they
look good and nobody gets hurt,and they're practiced down to
an art form.
So, you know, it's almost likea dance, like step by step.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
They can take these, these steps, and they can, uh,
pull off the moves that theyneed to you think, you can
almost think, like um hayden andewan in star wars, that like
their and their practice andtheir fighting was just
absolutely flawless, phenomenal,yeah, and you can see them
swinging their lightsabers andit's like they're in each
other's brains because they'vepracticed it that much In this
(42:29):
movie.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
However, some of the fight scenes which has been
characterized by the director asstylized pub brawling,
sometimes they only had about anhour or so to get that fighting
correct before they then had togo and do the actual scene.
So the fight between Gabrieland Asmodeus was actually a
98-move fight sequence and theyonly had an hour to prepare for
(42:52):
it before filming.
And they said the reason theywere successful in doing it
successful in quote marks wasbecause they had Kyle Rowling,
who was a fight director forlots of different movies.
He's been a stunt double in themovie called Wanted.
He was actually Count Dooku'sstunt double in Star Wars 2 and
3.
He was actually the fightdirector on this movie and he
(43:14):
kind of coached them through itminutes before and his
professionalism and hisknowledge of the actual art form
of fighting was how they wereable to get through it.
And that hallway scene, theyobviously used various different
cuts to kind of separate it outas well.
But you know, but the timingthat they would have had to
actually prepare and practicethey didn't have.
(43:35):
So one of the biggest thingsthat cost money on film sets is
feeding everybody, right?
So sometimes on a movie film,the catering budget alone can be
$200,000.
And that amount sounds veryfamiliar because this movie was
literally made on $200,000 total.
Can you guess the very famousAustralian company that came to
(43:55):
save the day for the productionof Gabriel Australian,
australian, aussies supportingAussies, brash Baker's Delight
oh, really Baker's Delight?
Yeah, baker's Delight offeredthe production and the crew to
use their end ofof-day breadwhich they usually throw out.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I was going to say 4 and 20.
Oh yeah, pies, that would havebeen great.
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Yeah, so they actually came to the rescue and
you know, for a lot of the daysthat they were filming, they
would offer taco night, theywould have sausage on bread day
for lunch and then there waspeople that were taking dual
roles.
(44:34):
So the producer was also thecaterer and the runner, and some
of the actors that weren't onset at the time were also doing
various jobs on set design andproduction design.
So everybody the director,shane Abers, said that everybody
was doing a job that theyweren't trained or signed up to
do and he was really, reallythankful that everybody kind of
(44:54):
came together to finish off thevision of the film.
Another thing that they used isthey used literally all of the
cast and crew, whether they wereactors or not, as extras in the
movie.
So at some point, if they werethe producer or even the
director, they have a spot inthe movie.
So at some point, if they werethe producer or even the
director, they have a spot inthe movie.
And the one where they all showup at the same time is in the
Ark nightclub scene where yousee the band playing.
And they hired out the Arknightclub.
(45:17):
They went in before hours andthey have to look like this
nightclub is absolutely packedout and they only had about 40
people.
So what they did is they gotevery single person that was
involved in the film dressed upand gothed up to the point where
and they use that really tightcamera framing to make it look
like this packed out nightcluband that was the scene where
where Lilith ends up, uh, beingkilled by Gabriel, in that scene
(45:38):
where they're all raving.
So everybody that you see inthat that scene there, no extras
, it's all just film.
Yeah, the cost of of the filmcrew, yeah, all right.
So gabriel was actually likepretty six.
It succeeded on a tiny budgetbecause of those reasons you
know.
It used digitally shot materialto save time instead of film
stocks.
I used those abandonedlocations, used various
different practical lighting andcolor grading and things like
(46:00):
that.
Fight scenes were done reallyraw, uh, and yeah, they used a
lot of vfx shots where they,where they could, and it just
kind of proves, you know, thatthe passion and creativity and
smart filmmaking, you can reallyget your vision done.
Alright, let's go on to our signoff for part one of our Gabriel
episode.
Alright, everybody, thank youso much for listening to part
(46:21):
one of our episode on Gabriel.
Part two will be available foryou in the list below this one.
In that part, we are also goingto be talking about the
characters of Gabriel and Samuelslash Michael.
We're going to be doing ourreal deal segment and we're
going to be doing our mostvaluable takeaways, where we get
into a really deep diveanalysis of the movie of Gabriel
, this amazing Australian filmthat really broke the barriers.
(46:44):
We've got some new thingshappening here at the Fandom
Portals podcast.
Obviously, if you want to joinus for our social medias, you
can take part in our portal ispics and you can have your
thoughts on the movies we doread out on our podcast.
You can do that on threads andyou can do that on Instagram,
and you can also email us if youhave more of a longer question
and you that at our emailaddress, which is fandomportals
(47:05):
at gmail dot com.
Alright, everybody, we'll seeyou in part two.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, guys.
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