Monthly Archives: November 2023

Why elephants? Why India?

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We’ve shifted into sound post production with The Way, My Way – and there’s not much for us to do at this stage of things, so I decided that Jennifer and I could productively use our time to do research and location surveys on a story that’s intrigued me for some time.

And by some time, I mean for about twelve years or so.
That’s often how long I need to sit with a story to allow it to marinate before I feel sufficiently comfortable to move ahead on it – or not.

Kiss or Kill took ten years, In a Savage Land took eight, The Nugget had a long gestation period of over a decade, and this current film The Way, My Way, was percolating away for seven years before we upped tools and began production.

I can’t really remember when I first read Tarquin Hall’s To an Elephant Graveyard, but it would have been a good twelve years ago, maybe longer.

It was an obscure book, set in Assam in the north east of India, and it detailed how a council of villagers hired a hunter to track down and kill a “rogue” elephant. The story was told through the eyes of a journalist sympathetic to the elephant.

I found it a fascinating story, and one that would allow me to explore the destruction of natural habitats, and the dysfunction and disconnect between man and nature.

Assam though is fraught with political difficulties, not a very safe place to visit I was told, but then in research I discovered that there was a place called the Elephant Mountains in a remote region of Tamil Nadu in southern India that had one of the largest concentration of elephants in the world.

I also discovered that a scientist by the name of Dr Anand Kumar, Chief Scientist at the Nature Conservation Foundation, was a world expert in what’s called elephant / human conflict. In other words, deaths resulting from human / elephant interactions. The place where he’d done most of his research was in the Elephant Mountains.

So I contacted Dr Kumar from Australia and arranged for Jennifer and me to spend a few days with him and his associate in the NCF, Ganesh Raghunathan. (Ganesha by the way is one of the most prominent of Hindi gods – an elephant god believed to be a clearer of obstacles.)

They were very generous with their time with us. And they immediately informed me that the story in To an Elephant Graveyard simply wouldn’t fly.

For starters they railed against the notion of a rogue or killer elephant. In scientific terms they didn’t see elephants in that way at all. Elephant behaviour was far more complex and sophisticated – and to be branded rogue or killer was simply sensationalism – and they wished to have no part in any production that sought to go down that path.

Equally, they said that a village group hiring a hunter to kill an elephant just wouldn’t happen, even fifteen or twenty years ago. Apart from the fact that it was then and still is illegal, they pointed out that elephants in India are deities — they worship Ganesha, the elephant god.

So that killed stone dead my thoughts of making a film around that book.
That’s okay.
Maybe there was a better story to be told within this arena.

And there is!
A way better story.

During the time spent with Anand and Ganesh, they gave us information and told us true stories which you simply couldn’t make up.

Put into a dramatic narrative form, they will make for a film that will have way more impact than the story I started out with. It will be far more intriguing, and it will say things about the co-existance of man and the natural world in ways that will be fresh, original, and will be a full-blast emotional rollercoaster.

Jennifer and I had to come to the Elephant Mountains and spend time with these very special people and get out and see locations for ourselves – be on the ground talking not only to scientists but villagers and others as well – to feel comfortable that we will be attempting to undertake a film that, like The Way, My Way, can be told with the utmost authenticity.

Now I have a big write ahead of me.

The Way, My Way – Q&As

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You’ll notice a new look to the blog – I’m using the key art from the film – the poster artwork, which is interim artwork until a distributor comes on board – but more on that later… oh and by the way, I notice from the analytics that this blog has been getting a lot of traffic recently, so I’m going to eat my bran and be more regular, I promise!

Firstly, there’s been a lot of interest in the film lately so I thought I would use my blog to update you all on what’s really happening, as against what’s purported to be happening.

QUESTION: What stage is the film at right now?

The film is now at fine cut stage. What that means is that after nearly six months of editing, we have locked off the picture cut. It´s running time is 103 mins, without end credits. I’m finally happy with the cut – at least, I’m happy enough – for if truth be told, I could spend another twelve months or more in the editing room fine fine tuning with Rishi Shukla, my trusted editor, but to what end? At some point I have to let go of my baby.

QUESTION: What happens next?

The next stage is sound post-production, which is probably even more complex than picture post production.

Fortunately I have the best sound team in the country, and indeed one of the best in the world in Wayne Pashley and Libby Pashley and their team at Big Bang Sound. They were Oscar nominated last year for their work on Baz Luhrmann´s Elvis. Their previous credits include Mad Max Fury Road, the Babe movies and Happy Feet for George Miller.

Wayne and Lib have done all my movies since Kiss or Kill in 1996, for which they won the AFI Award for Best Sound.

Sound post will take us up to next February, So the film won’t be completed until end of Feb earliest.

QUESTION: What’s happening with distribution?

Now that the film is in sufficient shape to show distributors, we’re beginning to have screenings. We’ve already had interest from one major distributor here in Australia, and we’re hoping that an offer might be forthcoming.

Once we have an Australian distributor locked in we´ll then seek a foreign sales agent. This has to be done linearly, step by step. I’ve been producing movies now for forty years and I know my way around distribution and exhibition enough to know that you can’t rush these things.

I’ve brought on veteran distributor Richard Becker to act as consultant in these matters. Richard is retired now, but he’s been a huge fan of this movie right from the getgo, and he’s providing invaluable advice. Distribution and marketing is a minefield, and even someone with my experience needs someone like Richard to guide the film through this minefield.

QUESTION: When am I going to be able to see it? And where?

That’s the key question, and the answer is I don’t know, and the decision isn’t mine anyway – it will not even be the distributor´s decision most likely – it will be the exhibitors´. They’re the ones that call the shots. If a distributor can’t get the screens, then they can’t release the movie.

If everything falls into place, then I’m hoping – and I emphasise the word hoping – that the film will be in cinemas in Australia in the first half of 2024, and internationally sometime after that.

Streaming then will follow – and as for the timing on that, it will depend on the distributors, because they’ll most probably hold those rights.

But you know, there’s another scenario:

The film gets invited into Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, the film gets a ten minute standing ovation in the Palais, after the screening there’s a bidding war between Netflix, Amazon, A24 and a bunch of others, Netflix offers us US$20m and it takes us all of five seconds to accept their offer, they give the film a short theatrical release to qualify for the Oscars, then a quick window to streaming – meanwhile the film goes on to take out Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay – I accept the three Oscars with practiced humility, the film then gets another run in the cinemas, and I´m then signed by Warner Bros to direct a Marvel spinoff movie for a directing fee of $7.5m with 5% from dollar one.

I like that scenario.

haha

The reality is that first we have to finish the movie then we have to get distribution then we have to market the film very carefully. I’ve seen too many good films fall through the cracks to be complacent about all this stuff. It´s a delicate and complex process making a movie – it´s even more delicate and complex selling it.

If you have anymore questions contact me at: CaminoFilmProds@gmail.com

Oh and by the way, I am going to be blogging more regularly so please follow me here to ensure that you get these incredibly witty and insightful missives.