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Opening Night
The MUFF academy is back and we are here to remind you that filmmaking cannot be taught. However, you can be inspired and enlightened. We hope and aim to do our best to put the Indy film makers in touch with other filmmakers who know what they are doing, have done it before and can tell you how they did it. The whole Promethean process is what we are about elucidating here at MUFF. It is YOU who will create the great cinematic artworks of the future. It is the Promethean fire that we wish to awake in you at the MUFF Academy. So for $50 you get eight sessions that will inspire, confront and vitalise you to make your own Indy movies forthwith. No delay, no excuses.
– Signed by Headmaster Mr Wolstencroft.
The MUFF Academy curriculum:
Jon Hewitt
3pm Sat 22 Sept LOOP
Fresh from shooting Acolytes with Joel Edgerton in Queensland with a 4 million dollar budget, Jon will spread the joy on moving from Indy films to being abale to work with a larger budget and crew. He will espouse the virtues of the Viper camera (from Fincher’s Zodiac) he used and if you behave yourselves he may even show a trailer for Acolytes. Jon is a font of cinematic ideas and wisdom, so make the most of his session at the MUFF Academy.
Peter Sleazy Christopherson
5pm Wed 26 Sept TOFF
Sleazy will hold a special MUFF academy session in the middle of the festival. He has made a number of high quality and budget video clips that make Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry look like the pussies that they are. Sleazy will share his wit and wisdom on the cosmos with you and show a few Coil clips and other stuff he’s done and maybe even some of the bizarre visuals he’s created for The Threshold House boys Choir. You want his credentials? They are manifold, but you remember Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here LP cover? When Peter worked at Hipgnosis in the 70’s he did that. Need we say more?
Alexi Vellis
3pm Sun 23 Sept LOOP
Acting, acting, acting. Three words that any Indy filmmaker needs to have banged into their head. The importance of performance in an Indy film cannot be overstated. It makes the difference between a releasable product and a talented amateur. Alexis Vellis (director of cult Oz classics Nirvana Street Murder and Wogboy) will give us the scoop on how to achieve a fine level of performance in an Indy movie. Alex takes a great acting class at the Film Space in St Kilda and is a brilliant teacher and philosophiser on the art of acting. No Indy filmmaker out there should miss this session.
Daniel Armstrong
11am Sat 22 Sept LOOP
Daniel Armstrong from Armstrong Pictures will advise you on how to make trailers and put together websites / myspace sites for your independent movies. The art of self-promotion is an art all Indy filmmakers need to master and Armstrong is an expert in this area. He has a number of cool horror projects on the boil from The Disturbed to Z3D5, not to mention the up coming sci fi gore female wrestling flick From Parts Unknown. Daniel will show trailers for his work that look like they cost a lot of money but did not and can tell you how to put what little money you have up on screen. A horror and genre nut, he will share his enthusiasm for the movement.
Richard Wolstencroft
1pm Sun 23 Sept LOOP
MUFF director will take a class to share his ever-controversial views on Australian cinema and guerrilla filmmaking. He has just completed his fourth feature and has much advice to impart. He will speak about many things not normally related to Indy film making like the importance of developing an independent an interesting Weltanschauung (world view), the importance of literature and philosophy to film making and his notion of ontological cinema. Maybe he will also show a scene from his new film The Beautiful and Damned. Add a little salacious gossip to the mix and you have a MUFF academy session not to be missed!
Frank Howson
11am Sun 23 Sept LOOP
Frank talks on the perils of success. What happens if you make it as a filmmaker? That’s normally when things go really wrong. The pitfalls of actually succeeding as a filmmaker are looked at by industry veteran and legend Frank Howson. In 1989 Frank Howson’s Boulevard Films’ 5th movie production was entitled Beyond My Reach. It was conceived to be the prequel to his highly successful AFI winning film Boulevard of Broken Dreams. It tells the tale of two young Aussie film-makers, a writer and a director, who make a small budget local film that gets picked up for distribution in the U.S. The two naive local guys go to Los Angeles and are hit with many compromises to their little gem. As one of the partners is seduced by the lure of Hollywood success and the other fights for his integrity, it creates a rift in their friendship. As one spirals down on La La Land excess, the other turns his back on Tinsel Town fame and fortune and returns home. Frank Howson will show the feature to the class and then answer any questions regarding the film and the series of events that produced it.
Gregory Pakis
1pm Sat 22 Sept LOOP
The man who brought us The Garth Method gives you his tips and philosophy on low budget filmmaking. Greg has a particularly lo-fi aesthetic and is a dedicated self promoter and marketer of his work. Come and get the scoop from Greg/Garth in the flesh at The MUFF Academy. Greg will play some clips of his films and talk about his many experiences indepth with his characteristic charm.
