BLOWN

Actor Director Workshop
2004 VCA (Melb, Australia)

In 2004, while I was studying in my final Directing year at VCA I was also taking meetings with the Marketing manager at TAC which is a big advertising client in Melbourne that runs some amazing adv campaigns to counter Road Accidents. We were discussing peer pressure issues that trigger road accidents. Part of my research for this campaign involved watching 2 hours worth of Road Accident footage and ads (I felt rather traumatised after watching that much horrific gore for 2 hours straight) ... While thinking about this Marketing client's target market, I also observed a lot of larrikin binge drinking clubber pubbers around the city and young teens around the skate parks/malls; taking notes on their body language interactions, mannerisms and speech patterns.

So, I wrote this short script and spent an afternoon workshopping with some young talented actors from the VCA Drama school. They did a fantastic job with the intonation and feeling the moment with the scripted dialogue. As a Director I'm quite a stickler for intonation and we spent a good 4 hours doing the takes over and over again trying it various ways; mixing improv and hitting the key dialogue clearly. I was really glad to secure these actors for my workshop: I went to the Drama school and observed the actors as they worked on their stage work. But for this video i really required actors who had On Camera experience bec often stage trained actors project far to much. Fortunately 2 of these guys have a lot of TV experience so they knew how to play subtlety, I was very grateful as a Director, to not have to debate too much about toning down bec. they were already savvy enough to understand this instinctively.

I wrote this clip because of the directing challenge to capture that adolescent larrikin disregard, note how even though the characters are talking about a very serious incident bec of peer pressure to appear like everything's cool the characters are still trying to push 'sicko' humour into it, because as 'young carefree adolescent-types' they don't know how to react to the stark reality of their young friend's situation. They wouldn't have seen him for a year after his accident.

So, I loved the challenge of researching how to write this and thinking about ways to articulate and direct this subtlety, so that it appears natural : as if we really are just eaves dropping on 3 boys fooling around in a park.

These young guys went on to be working actors on Aussie TV and stage, they were classically trained at the illustrious VCA drama school: such range from Shakespeare to Slackers.

This was a no budget workshop, so I shot it on my home domestic camcorders with an extended mic. Crap sound quality bec hid the mic in the clothes.
Car footage care of TAC, and I put my camera on a dolly for the studio shot and used a back projected screen borrowed from the production school (the perks of studying at VCA). A generous guy who is a congenital amputee volunteered to feature in the studio shots revealing his limb, this was a very tender moment.

The clip was very popular with TAC and I went on to consult on the Youth Marketing Strategy with Grey and Clemenger, their adv agencies.

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Music Credits : Landslide by Rhubarb from the Slow Motion album
http://www.rhubarbmusic.com/music/slow-motion-2002

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• TAC
• drunk teens
• road accident