"THIS TOWN AIN'T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE 3 OF US..."
Avalon Film & Television School Documentary Film Team Project
Co-Producer, Co-Editor, Co-Researcher, Co-Camera Operator, Co-Sound Operator
2003
Our documentary project was also a team event, with five of us set to
create an idea of a documentary and then go out and shoot it. After
discussion, we went with an idea about the increase in both boutique
cinemas and home entertainment options that were looking to possibly
crush the basic multiplex cinemas that had dominated most of the
previous decade.
My part was to do research into the multiplex cinema side, and strike
up interviews with those involved. I was able to get the manager of the
Regent on Manners, a Hoyts based cinema, to commit to talking to us
onscreen. Sadly the manager of the Readings Cinema would only do a
written interview and not one on camera. However out of this we got
enough material to talk about the multiplex side. 10 years down the
track from this interview, a lot of irony can be found in how the
multiplexes did struggle and the ones that stuck out ended up copying
the types of expeirences the boutique operators were doing (bigger
comfy seats, food and alcoholic drinks, etc.).
Our downfall, specifically, as the documentary goes is to approach the
focus of the home cinema too forwardly and immediately paint a
negative picture of the multiplex cinemas, no matter how true some of
the statements made were, instead of letting the interview subjects
dominate this for us. Our script - voiced by fellow team member Chris
Popperwell, pushes this forward quicker than our interviews can.
However on that basis Bill Sheet, then Chairman of the Embassy
Theatre Trust, told us a great quote off camera about the "troughs of
Manners St." which he wouldn't fully repeat on camera in case he got in
trouble. Specifically with the famous film director who said the
comment. He made reference to it, but had we managed to nail it in
full
I think I wouldn't have felt so bad about it.
We also didn't look much into the piracy side of things even though
one of our interviewees brought this up, and this was also an overlook
especially when looking back on this a decade later. Additionally I think
when shooting better thought on our interview framing, as well as
more cutaways would have assisted us greatly in the edit as some of
the interviews needed more material.
As both a team event and a documentary learning expeirence went, it
was enjoyable. We did a bunch of the shoot together, spending time in
the middle of town getting shots we needed including at Harvey
Normans to get a proper home cinema setup shot (one of my favs
from the whole shoot), as well as scenes watching stuff on a projector
at Chris' house. We also spent a lot of time in the edit as a team, and
made a finished project that I was both happy to have been involved in
and was quite relevant at the time it was made.
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