MICHAEL CRAFT.
Director of Australian thriller STORAGE. |
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Michael Craft is an experienced and talented Australian film director. I recently reviewed his latest film STORAGE, a dark thriller that completely fucks with your head! Michael Craft is definitely what I would call a pioneer in Australian thriller. His new film STORAGE shows influences from some of the greats like David Fincher & Alfred Hitchcock.
It's a brilliant looking film, with fantastic performances from it's cast and devoted direction from Michael himself.
Michael took time out to answer some questions about the making of his new film, the Australian film industry and what he thinks about Nicolas Cage! Read on my friends (PS. you're not really my friends):
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Michael, how are you going?
Yeah good mate, good. How’s your Saturday treating you so far?
Yeah, not bad, sounds like I didn’t hit the turps as hard as you did last night!
It was the New Filmmakers awards; there’s an award ceremony each year as part of the Brisbane film festival, where student film makers submit their awards. I was giving an award at the ceremony and it just ended up being a bigger night than I anticipated *laughs*
Sounds like a lot of fun. Do you mind if I get into a few of these questions?
M: That’s fine. Thanks for all your help in promoting the film.
Not a problem at all. I guess the first thing I’ve been pretty interested in knowing is how you came up with the idea for the movie. It’s a pretty obvious location for a scarier type of film. It’s a dark place and there aren’t really a lot of people around, if you get in trouble you’d be pretty screwed.
I was helping my fiancé move house and she had to put some stuff in to storage. I’d never been in to a storage facility before and I went to this place in the valley; an underground storage facility. You have to take an elevator down to this maze of corridors and as soon as the elevator doors opened, I walked out and saw this great long stretch of darkness punctuated by these flickering fluorescent lights. A few corridors down, there was some guy moving furniture and you could hear him grunting under the weight, this and the whirring ventilation system all combined to create this picture of a pretty spooky place.
A lot of atmosphere without even trying.
M: Yeah, and then I did a bit of research and found out more about how they work. People often store their memories and you can imagine people wanting to hide things away in these storage rooms. What happens when somebody gets access to this information? I thought that would be pretty interesting.
I’d like to know the process you went through to find the cast and crew on this film because I think everyone did an excellent job. Some of the camera angles and the lighting; it was such a simple set up, but it was so effective. I could imagine it being done the wrong way quite easily, but it seems to have come out pretty successfully. What was the process you went through of finding the cast AND the crew?
Well the crew, the head department, the cinematographer and the production designer, I had worked with before on some short films and music videos. Tony Liu who does the cinematography, he’s very sought after up here and now down in Sydney, he’s got a great reputation and he’s very, very good at what he does, so I knew from the beginning that I wanted to work with him on it. The editor Jeff Lamb kind of came on board about a year later (??), he’s also very good at what he does, he did the Children of the Silk Road, the feature film, and he’s done quite a lot of television, so he is very experienced, and he’s a wonderful editor. The actors we’re auditioned, all around Australia and I suppose we got some pretty well known Australian name actors. With the uncle and the “young guy” roles, my casting director had a couple of people come in to the Gold Coast studios. He had actually taught Matt, so that’s how we kind of brought him on board. He’d done some work on H20 and Starter Wife and he was great, as soon as I saw him, I thought he was a very intuitive performer. He had a really good handle on the character and I just really liked him on camera. In the same casting session Damien Gardener came in. I’d met Damien before, I’d auditioned him for a short film many years ago, and his audition was extraordinary, he was able to really travel the breadth of the character. The character needed to be quite benevolent and sympathetic and kind of avuncular at the start and then become pretty malevolent at the end and getting an actor who can really plausibly play both dimensions was a pretty big ask and I can’t say enough about Damien, I think he’s wonderful.
He was fantastic. I like how you used a bit of CGI in the film; with the actual movie title, and some of the effects in it, but I also like how you used it very minimally. Sometimes, especially in this day and age, it’s really in your face. What’s your opinion on CGI in cinema these days, and what’s your opinion of films like by, someone to pick on, Michael Bay?
Well, we had I think 25 effect shots (7.00) in the film by the end, some of them you can’t even see; we put some stars in the sky and some of the exterior stuff like that. Two key CGI effects were the corridor extension, there are three shots where you can see down the corridor past the elevator, and we basically tripled the length of it which gave it a sense of scale and then there’s the stuff at the end with Saskia getting shot in the head, with the blood, and when Damien’s shot, with the blood coming out of the hole in his forehead.
It looked very good.
M: Oh thanks! Well Cutting Edge did a great job. With this kind of budget, it’s very difficult to do a lot of those kind of effects unless you do them yourself, like the Spierig brothers did with Undead. So we knew we had to be pretty resourceful. I suppose the genre of films that I like are basically psychological thrillers, they’re not normally very effects heavy, but when they’re used in the right way, they really broaden the palate that the filmmaker has at his disposal. I’m all for it if it’s done well.
For example, Transformers 2. I mean, sure, maybe it’s a good action blockbuster but it just looks so full of CGI that I can’t imagine where filming on set begins and where filming in front of a green screen ends, it seems like it’s all CGI.
Well, that can work, like Sin City and I suppose 300. I think 300 especially. I didn’t really agree with some of the story decisions that they chose, but it’s kind of spectacular and you can see how when it’s used well, The Watchmen for example. The Watchmen, I thought, was pretty amazing, and that combined a lot of that CGI but it just looks amazing.
What type of camera tricks, direction methods and lens techniques did you use to make the quality and the lighting and all of the visuals look so crisp, considering it was obviously made on a lower budget?
We did quite a lot of camera tests. We realised pretty early on that for budgetary reasons, we’d either have to shoot on 16 or a digital format. We looked at Viper, we looked at the Genesis and some of those high end digital cameras, the F23. Then we tested the Red, and the Red was really new at that point, there’d only been one Australian film that’d been shot on it, and there had been no films released theatrically that had been shot on it as far as we knew. So it was a bit nerve wracking, but one of the things that’s great about the Red is that it can use all of the high speed 35mil lenses, but it’s also got a 35mil full chip gate which gives you that 35mil depth of field. We wanted the film to look filmic, a camera that looked filmic, and the Red really does a great job and gives it a really good picture. We wanted to have a dark looking film but we also wanted to give it a unique sensibility so we appropriated some of the devices that Chris Doyle and Wan Carlisle use, with that saturated colour palate, but then we made it quite contrasty and interspersed with these dark pools. I suppose to give it a hopefully pretty unique aesthetic. There’s a film called High Tension, which is a French horror film that we really liked, and the colour palate that they used in that film, while keeping it kind of dense and dark, was one of the reference points.
I kind of noticed that there was almost a David Fincher style to it; it had very gritty visuals and it was really dark. I was wondering if perhaps his style was an inspiration for you at all, and if it isn’t, what drove the style you went for?
I’m a big fan of Fincher, I think most filmmakers are. Seven was another big reference point, in terms of the camera placement and the coverage style. We looked at that film quite a lot.
I even got that out of the music.
M: Of course, the Howard Shaw stuff. We definitely talked about Seven in terms of the swelling, the low strings, that was definitely a reference point. With Music Box, we also were looking at Jessie James, I thought that was a great score, and also Name of the Rose.
When it comes to the DVD release, when can we expect that, and what sort of extras do you have planned for it? After watching the movie, I really wanted to know more about what happened behind the scenes because it seemed like everyone was really on board and having a lot of fun with it.
The DVD release is in October and we’ve got a “Making Of” which is going to be on there. There’s other behind the scenes stuff that we can’t put on the DVD for copyright reasons. I had this thing called a “Quip Reel” which was excerpts from 30 different studio films, and they were broken down into five sections; story, lighting, cameras, production design, editing and character, and then I put a commentary track over the top, talking about what was relevant within each scene. That was really to get everyone on the same page. The half an hour “Making Of” is pretty good, we had a great second unit director who also did the behind the scenes stuff and put it all together. I think it’s a real inside in to how we went about it.
What is the hardest part of bringing together an independent film production?
Financing. Financing distribution is very tough in this country. It’s really difficult. Last year was a very big year for film production; I think there were about 40 films made. This year as far as I know, there’s only been 3 or 4 films green lit by Screens Australia. The producers rebate makes things more difficult instead of easier; at least the investors get the tax deduction but the offset’s really difficult to cash flow, there aren’t any real government facilities that are doing that yet. The banks don’t want to finance the offset, so where do you get your money from? You have to pay insane interest rates, often which end up being the same cost as the money you get back from the offset, so it doesn’t save you any money at the moment. On top of that, investors, private investors don’t want to put money in to Australian films because they just lose money. The stats are terrible, even when we get really great films. This year has been a really amazing year for Australian film and as far as I know the only film that’s really made money is Sampson and Delilah, when you’ve got films like The Combination and Last Ride – they’re a bunch of really great films this year; they’re just not getting big enough audiences to make them profit.
Do you think perhaps that comes from there not being enough marketing? That Australian films aren’t projected enough to the public, and people don’t really know about them unless they’re in to the Australian Film industry specifically?
No. Some people say that, but I think the marketing budgets are as big as they’re ever gonna be and I think that the marketing people are as smart as they’re ever gonna get. The two big issues are that there’s a stigma to do with Australian cinema; Australian audiences have this prejudice against it, which is very different to most other countries. Apart from the English speaking world, you’ve got countries that love to see stories in their own languages; you get some countries like South Korea and France, where the national box office revenue is 50% domestic product. In the UK it’s still pretty high, it’s 20 or 30%, and there’s a national sense of pride and sometimes obligation to go see their domestic product. In Australia, that doesn’t exist. Most of the domestic audiences don’t want to see Australian films. I can’t understand why films like... the Combination... had half a million dollar marketing budget which was OK, it was pretty small, really, but when that film got pulled from the cinemas because of the riots in in some of the western suburbs in Sydney, I read that gave the film the equivalent of 7 million dollars of free advertising. It was in most papers, it was online for weeks, David Field and the writer were getting press for about a month. I got the film, I saw it, I think it’s one of the best Australian films ever made, it’s a gangster film, it’s like Goodfellas in the western suburbs of Sydney and it’s fucking amazing, it’s so well made. That film only made half a million dollars at the box office. It had a lot of profile, it had a lot of publicity, it’s a very accessible film, it didn’t have any stars in it. The problem is, with a lot of these places like South Korea, and I suppose France – they’ve got their own star system, even French Canada has their own star system, I presume because of the language thing, but Australia and Canada, we don’t have that national star “thing” because as soon as they get any level of celebrity, they go over to Hollywood.
Especially in places like Canada, half of Hollywood’s star base is from Canada.
Yeah and a quarter is from Australia. We get these people like Hugo Weaving coming back to do Australian films, and for some reason the audience doesn’t wanna buy them. Eric Bana did Romulus My Father, another great film, and people just go “Meh, it’s Australian, I don’t wanna watch it.” I dunno what the answer is to that.
What's in store for Michael Craft?
Do I have any new projects on the horizon? Well, because I’m one of the producers on Storage, I’ve been working pretty solidly on it until very recently. I do have a couple of ideas but I’ve only just started writing them, so I’m not really ready to talk about them.
That’s fair enough. What are your top 5 films and why?
My favourite film, the one that I watch regularly that I just never get sick of, is Adaptation. I love that film. I think Spike Jones is a genius, he’s an amazing filmmaker. I can’t think of another director who could be involved in Jackass, who could also play a redneck idiot in Three Kings, who could define a new genre of music video directing, like Michelle Gondry but make it specifically Spike Jones, and then make, arguably, the most insightful and innovative film on the actual craft of screen writing and filmmaking ever made, is amazing. I love him, I just love him. I quote little lines from Adaptaion all the time.
It shows a lot of flexibility doesn’t it?
Yeah, but it’s almost unnatural flexibility; a person who is good at each of those things shouldn’t be good at the other. I think that to be able to recreate the way that a film can be self referential, well you don’t expect that from a commercial director or someone who’s made ‘It’s Oh So Quiet.’ Spike Jones is a very aesthetically driven filmmaker, but on top of that, he’s a great actor; I think he’s very funny. He’s a comedian. You look at the ‘Praise Me’ video and you look at that role in Three Kings, he’s got an incredible comedic timing. To have a great comedic actor, a great visual stylist and a great post modern philosopher… I don’t understand how those three mindsets can exist within the same person. I love Spike Jones, I love that movie. I love thrillers, Seven is one of my favourite films, Le Samurai – the Melville film, I like Polanski’s early films; I’m a big fan of Knife In The Water and Repulsion, I love Hitchcock; Stranger’s on the Train is probably one of my favourite films.
Actually I just saw Drag Me to Hell last night. The return of Sam Raimi! I have to say, it’s gone straight up to the top section of my favourite horror movies of all time.
*laughs* I’ve heard it’s pretty rad! I’ve wanted to go see it.
I’m really into horror, and generally I don’t get scared by much, but it was genuinely very, very scary. My girlfriend actually screamed out loud in one part and I was even covering my eyes at one time. You should definitely check it out!
I’m debating whether I should run off to see it; it’s playing in 10 minutes at the South Bank cinemas!
Sure! Maybe if you could just quickly tell me, Nicolas Cage: thespian genius or raving lunatic?
Oh, I love Nicolas Cage, he’s a bit... inpragmatic, he does all these stupid action films, something like National Treasure is fine, I’m trying to think of a movie I really don’t like him in... I can’t think of it...
Ghost Rider!?
Yeah, maybe Ghost Rider. There was something recently, where he gets really mannered, and he does those hand flicks and raised eyebrows. It’s like ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!”
Have you seen the Wickerman remake?
Oh, I never saw that, no.
You know what? You should see it, it’s hilarious. It’s a fantastically hilarious movie. Do you know what I think he needs? He needs close direction, if a director lets him go about it his own way he gets unravelled and starts flinging his hands about everywhere.
Yeah, it’s annoying isn’t it? You look at Adaptation, that’s an extraordinary performance, because I know a few pairs of twins, and it takes you a little while to work out who is who, because even though their DNA is the same, they’ve got subtle psychological differences and I’ve never seen a twin movie where that is really nailed like it is in Adaptation. Donald and Charlie, they’re completely unique characters, while being the same person. It’s fucking amazing. I love Nicolas Cage movies. I think every performance is arguably the best performance of each of those actors’ careers, including Meryl Streep, I love Meryl Streep, in everything, but I think she’s just extraordinary in that film.
Thank you very much for your time, I really appreciate it. I’m sure you’re busy, and maybe if you leave right now you could catch Drag Me To Hell!
I think I will!
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Follow the linkt to read The Bludge's review of STORAGE.
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