All posts by Mark

About Mark

Mark Poole is a writer and director of both drama and documentary. His most recent film Fearless about 92 year old playwright Julia Britton recently screened on ABC1. His career began when the feature film he wrote, A Single Life, won an AFI Award in 1987. Since then he has written more than 20 hours of broadcast television drama, won a directing award for the short film Basically Speaking at the St Kilda Film Festival, and was honoured with a major AWGIE, the Richard Lane Award in 2008.

Rise of the essay film

Documentary, Film, Latest News

For years the essay film has been a neglected form, but now its unorthodox approach to constructing reality is winning over a younger, tech-savvy crowd. Freedom and possibility…

For a brief, almost unreal couple of hours last July, in amid the kittens and One Direction-mania trending on Twitter, there appeared a very surprising name – that of semi-reclusive French film-maker Chris Marker, whose innovative short feature La Jetée (1962) was remade in 1995 as Twelve Monkeys by Terry Gilliam.

A few months earlier, art journal e-flux staged The Desperate Edge of Now, a retrospective of Adam Curtis’s TV films, to large audiences on New York’s Lower East Side. The previous summer, Handsworth Songs (1986), an experimental feature by the Black Audio Film Collective Salman Rushdie had once attacked as obscurantist and politically irrelevant, attracted a huge crowd at Tate Modern when it was screened shortly after the London riots.

Marker, Curtis, Black Audio: all have made significant contributions to the development of an increasingly powerful and popular kind of moving-image production: the essay film.

Continue reading Rise of the essay film →

‘The Grandmaster,’ Wong Kar Wai’s new film

Film, Latest News

At one point in Wong Kar Wai’s “The Grandmaster,” the Chinese kung fu legend known as Ip Man is confronted by an arrogant upstart who seeks to engage him in combat. Ip Man accepts, but not before inquiring as to whether the young man has eaten lunch yet. He has, in fact — rice and barbecued pork. Big mistake.

The brief slapstick episode that follows is not only the funniest moment in this lyrical and kinetic martial-arts drama, but also one of the numerous true stories Wong came across while researching Ip Man’s life firsthand. It’s a welcome reminder that although the Hong Kong auteur may be the cinema’s pre-eminent poet of romantic longing, even his celebrated arthouse weepies, such as “Happy Together” and “In the Mood for Love,” have their undercurrents of humor.

“I’m not a very serious person,” Wong chuckles, sitting down at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills to discuss his 10th feature (which the Weinstein Co. will release Stateside on Aug. 23). He could even be winking, though you wouldn’t be able to tell from those signature shades, which seem to deflect one’s questions in almost the same way his movies, with their playful surfaces and elliptical narratives, can resist easy interpretation. Continue reading ‘The Grandmaster,’ Wong Kar Wai’s new film →

Lizette Atkins prepares projects with Sue Brooks, Matthew Saville, Ana Kokkinos

Film, Latest News

By Don Groves –INSIDEFILM – [Thu 08/08/2013]

As a solo producer, Unicorn Films’ Lizzette Atkins has a remarkably diverse and prolific development slate. Atkins is preparing projects for directors Sue Brooks, Matthew Saville and Ana Kokkinos plus a slate of low-budget horror movies. While they span a variety of genres, Atkins says there is a common thread: all are director- driven.

She founded Unicorn Films last year after nine years as a partner in Circe Films, whose credits include Jon Hewitt’s steamy thriller X, Lawrence Johnston’s Night and Eddie Martin’s Lionel, a feature documentary on Aboriginal boxer Lionel Rose. Her latest production, Anna Broinowski’s Aim High in Creation! had its world premiere on Wednesday at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Continue reading Lizette Atkins prepares projects with Sue Brooks, Matthew Saville, Ana Kokkinos →

Kate Winslet, Judy Davis to Star in Revenge Dramedy ‘The Dressmaker’

Film, Latest News

The film project from Australian writer-director Jocelyn Moorhouse is described as “Unforgiven” with a sewing machine.

7:10 PM PDT 8/7/2013 by Pip Bulbeck – THR

SYDNEY — Kate Winslet and Judy Davis have signed on to star in the latest feature from Australian writer-director Jocelyn Moorhouse, producers Film Art Media said Thursday.
The Dressmaker, billed as a stylish drama with comic undertones, centers on Tilly Dunnage (Winslet), who returns after many years in Europe to her small Australian outback hometown with revenge on her mind. Tilly, a talented couturier, returns to the remote country town from which she fled as a child after being accused of murder. She wants to make amends with her eccentric mother, Molly (Davis), but first must unravel the secrets of her past. Moorhouse describes the tale of love, revenge and 1950s haute couture as “Unforgiven with a sewing machine”.
Continue reading Kate Winslet, Judy Davis to Star in Revenge Dramedy ‘The Dressmaker’ →

New Rules of Blockbuster Screenwriting

Film, Latest News, Screenwriting

Star Script Doctor Damon Lindelof Explains the New Rules of Blockbuster Screenwriting
By Scott Brown – August 12, 2013 issue of New York Magazine.

Damon Lindelof, the ubiquitous screenwriter-producer whose name seems attached to all of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters, is doing his damnedest to get small. This summer, he (along with fellow triage artists Drew Goddard and Christopher McQuarrie) miraculously pulled Brad Pitt out of the mass grave that was World War Z’s zombocalyptic original third act and restored the regular-guyness that made Pitt’s character work. He also resisted the temptation to threaten Earth’s existence (yet again!) at the end of Star Trek Into Darkness, focusing instead on a personal vendetta—albeit one enacted via a dizzying mile-high pursuit across a 23rd-century cityscape. But, hey, you have to give something to get something.

“We live in a commercial world, where you’ve gotta come up with ‘trailer moments’ and make the thing feel big and impressive and satisfying, especially in that summer- movie-theater construct,” says Lindelof. “But ultimately I do feel—even as a purveyor of it—slightly turned off by this destruction porn that has emerged and become very
bold-faced this past summer. And again, guilty as charged. It’s hard not to do it, especially because a movie, if properly executed, feels like it’s escalating.”
Continue reading New Rules of Blockbuster Screenwriting →

Ten questions: Peter Gawler

Latest News, Screenwriting, Television,

PETER Gawler has been the driving force behind the Underbelly franchise, the latest series of which, Squizzy Taylor, is screening on Nine.

The Underbelly series has proven wildly successful with audiences. Why do Australians seemingly love crime drama more than any other genre?

Underbelly is true crime drama, not crime fiction. I think people have a natural fascination for what really happened, particularly if they can relate to the story in some way – “I remember when Jason Moran was murdered”, “My dad used to point out the house where Squizzy was shot” or “We used to go the Cross and dance in that club John Ibrahim owned” and so on.

Continue reading Ten questions: Peter Gawler →

100 Bloody Acres: What went wrong?

Film, Latest News, Online Media, , ,

Australian horror/comedy 100 Bloody Acres tanked at six Australian cinemas last weekend. Producer Julie Ryan has some compelling theories on why that happened.

Ryan sees an urgent need to re-think the traditional film distribution model and for a campaign to convince Australian cinemagoers of the entertainment value of Australian films.

The producer identifies a number of factors which she believes militated against her film, including the release date, competition from The World’s End, a UK film in the same genre, piracy and file sharing, and lack of marketing support.

Continue reading 100 Bloody Acres: What went wrong? →

Cannes 2013 Extra: branding yourself and your projects

Film, Latest News

Branding yourself sounds like Blade Runner, but emerging producers are being taught these android skills in the training for Cannes. Screen Hub’s Andrew Einspruch was there, reporting this, our final bit of coverage from Cannes.

One of the keys to success at a film market is presenting yourself and your project in the best way possible. Roshanak Behesht Nedjad of Flying Moon Filmproduktion gave a lot of insights at a session called “Branding Yourself and Your Projects” at the Cannes Film Market last May. Screen Hub’s Andrew Einspruch was there, reporting this, our final bit of coverage from Cannes.

Let’s start with some numbers. There were around 12,000 film buyers, sellers, agency representatives and wannabes at this year’s Cannes Film Market. Obviously, not all of them are empowered to write a cheque.

So let’s simplify for the point of illustration. Assume there are just 1,000 sales agents there who could actually make a decision, and they are there for the five main days of the market. Now assume they only have meetings with two people on any given day (which is absurdly low – it is more like five to ten per day, at least). So, 1,000 agents x 5 days x 2 meetings/day = 10,000 meetings. If they all saw the same people, that’s 5,000 projects being pitched.

The point being made by Nedjad? At a minimum, you are competing with at least 5,000 other projects. That’s your starting point, and probably a very low number.

Sobering. Continue reading Cannes 2013 Extra: branding yourself and your projects →

Melbourne’s 37º South selects best pitches

Film, Latest News

A new project from the producer of Whale Rider, an adaptation of a US book and a Chinese-Australian co-production are to be pitched in the UK after being selected by Melbourne’s 37º South Market.

The three films will be pitched at the UK’s Production Finance Market (PFM) in October following a positive response at the seventh edition of 37º South, which runs as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.

New Zealand producer Tim Sanders is to pitch The Guinea Pig Club at PFM and received $1,850 (A$2,000) from sponsor Film Finances to help cover expenses.

After learning he would be heading to London for PFM (Oct 16-17), Sanders told ScreenDaily: “It is the story of a Kiwi surgeon called Archie McIndoe who restored the bodies of badly injured fighter pilots in World War II and also gave them the will to live and hope for the future.

Continue reading Melbourne’s 37º South selects best pitches →

The Business of Development

Latest News, Screenwriting

published in Screen Hub.

This week the Australian Writers’ Guild hosted a lively session on script development, with speakers from both Screen Australia and Film Victoria.

It was a timely opportunity to hear from three people central to development decisions, namely Jenni Tosi, CEO of Film Victoria, Veronica Gleeson, Senior Development Executive of Feature and Professional Development at Screen Australia, and the new person on the block, Jo Dillon who has just taken up her post as Development Executive at Screen Australia, based in Melbourne.

The session was pointed at times, if not outright heated, and each participant spoke from the heart about what moved them in a screenplay, which was fascinating to hear. However it also reflected the development limbo we’re in at present.

Continue reading The Business of Development →