Animal Kingdom: fierce creatures

First-time feature director David Michôd tamed the beasts that inhabit his Animal Kingdom; a Melbourne crime thriller that is the Australian success story of 2010. Miguel Gonzalez reports from Melbourne.

I/E GUS’S CAR – DAY

J looks down the street. It’s empty. Gus puts the car in drive and moves off. J cranes

around to look out the back window, down the street. Then –

CRACK. The car is clipped hard from the front. It spins wildly, then comes to a rest. Through the window J can see Pope behind the wheel of Darren’s car, undoing his seat belt. Pope’s car is jammed between Gus’s car and another parked in the street. Pope can’t open any doors – he’s trapped inside.

J clambers into the backseat, past Gus who is dazed, blood trickling down his forehead. J stumbles out the backdoor into the street. He looks back. He locks eyes with Gus, who looks back at him, vacant. And then everything slows. J notices moments – a neighbour in a dressing gown. J runs. MUSIC CUE…

Thornbury, Victoria. 9 February 2009. First time feature director David Michôd is running out of time to shoot scene 130.

The stunt is one of the most expensive in the film and it can only be done once, but one of the two 35mm cameras has stopped working. It’s getting dark in northeast Melbourne, and the pressure is on.

It’s after 7pm when the problem is finally solved and the cameras start rolling. In one take, Michôd and his cast and crew know they have created one of the key moments in Animal Kingdom, but nobody present at the Wilmoth St shoot that night knows just how far this film would go one year later.

FROM SPRINTS TO MARATHON

Animal Kingdom was born from Michôd’s interest in the Melbourne underworld from the late 70s through to the 90s, particularly the work of Tom Noble, a former police reporter for The Age.

Michôd and agent/producer Bec Smith were part of the Screen NSW script development workshop Aurora with Animal Kingdom in 2004 – when it was called simply J. Producer Liz Watts (Porchlight Films) was also participating that year, with another project.

In 2007 Watts served as a mentor for Michôd’s short Crossbow. The director later approached her because Smith was going to LA, and asked her to look at the Kingdom script. She did, but it wasn’t a story of unconditional love at first sight; she saw the potential, but felt that the script needed more work.

“It needed more characterisation and structure, which he kind of agreed with. It was important to me that he recognise that there was still work to be done on it,” recalled Watts, who came on board as producer.

Michôd went through a number of other drafts, which he gave to people to read. Being his first feature, he thought he’d never know if the script was truly ready, because the drafts kept coming back with copious amounts of notes.

“I did, eventually, write a draft where I noticed a very marked difference in the amount of feedback I received. And it felt good.

“The first draft bares almost no resemblance whatsoever with the shooting version; it’s as if over those years I was teaching myself to do it right. You have to practice before you can consider yourself ready to inflict your work on the world,” he said.

In the meantime, Watts raised the $5m budget in 2008. Although she admits it is “tricky” to finance a first time feature, it became possible because the project had appeal outside Australia because of its genre (crime thriller) and Guy Pearce’s commitment to play the role of Detective Lockie. Screen Australia, Film Victoria, Screen NSW and Showtime Australia all contributed to make Kingdom happen.

The film tells the story of 17-year old J (James Frecheville). Following the death of his mother, he goes to live with her family, the criminal Cody dynasty. A revenge plot gone wrong will make him question whose side he’s on.

“It’s an ensemble piece, but very early on in the process I worked out that a kid on the verge of manhood, who is entering a world that is new for him, was the easiest and clearest way into the story. He’s a character who’s easily manipulated and influenced by all the various players around him, good and bad.”

While on paper some of the characters lent themselves to larger-than-life performances, Michôd ensured his actors turned down their tone to keep it real.

The director knew Kingdom was a big project for a first feature, with its many characters and locations. It was “a lot more money to play with” than he’d ever had for his shorts, but there were still very real budget and logistical limitations. Luckily, the relationship with Watts helped him overcome some of the stress.

“Liz has reminded me on a regular basis to keep pacing myself, to let the setbacks go and concentrate on what’s coming next; remember that this is a marathon as opposed to the sprints I’ve done previously,” he said.

“Whether or not the thing as a whole works remains to be seen, but as individual moments, I’m watching great performances come out of something I wrote, which is really exciting,” he confessed.

Watts added: “For many years so it’s been just David and the page, and now it’s a big circus that takes a lot of readjustment in the way you’re thinking and reinventing the film. Dave has been great in terms of being open to invite collaboration.”

Australia has always had a strong connection with crime stories, one which has been solidified by Screentime’s Underbelly franchise. Although Watts concedes that there is an audience crossover between the TV series and this film, she believes Kingdom is “much more contemporary”.

“There are no real life characters, and a lot of the film is from the point of view of a boy who is 17, looking at this world and then at the police world,” she explained. “There are gunshots and cars and things like that, but the appeal is also based in really fantastic characters like the matriarch, Smurf (Jacki Weaver). The thriller aspect of it is more about suspense than the criminal world that it’s set in.”

But production designer Jo Ford knows that, although it’s a completely different beast from Underbelly, Kingdom could benefit from the appetite for crime stories: “Obviously that audience is out there and you’d be silly to ignore them at this stage in the game.”

CREATING THE KINGDOM

Cinematographer Adam Arkapaw says there were two references that Michôd was fond of: Heat (“a crime film that’s timeless and classic”) and Magnolia (“his reference as how an ensemble piece can work”).

“There’s so much crime drama out there that there’s always the danger of making something with big dolly moves or making the lighting super theatrical,” explained Arkapaw.

“But we decided not to fall into that trap and just simplify things and trust that the script had everything and do the right thing by that – and that the power of the written world would come through,” he added.

Arkapaw wanted the film to feel hot. He tested Fuji and Kodak stock, and chose to go with the latter, partly because of a neutral quality that made it easier to control the lighting across such a varied number of locations. He used 3Perf 50D for exterior day scenes and interior car day scenes; 250D for interior day scenes; and 500T for all the night scenes.

Arkapaw also employed a number of filters; the police station used an AD1EF filter to provide blue tones in all the shadows and contribute to the ‘sterile’ feel, and many scenes employed cool white tubes to give “a lovely blue sombre tone”.

Cody house scenes were mostly hand-held work, due to their violent nature and their slice-of-life type dialogue, while the police station was shot from a tripod.

But according to Watts, it probably would have been easier to shoot digitally: “David wanted it to feel cinematic and it had been designed in his head as a 35mm film. We were quite keen to keep it on 35mm, and we made the right decision, but realistically, it will probably be the last one we do on film.”

Kingdom was shot entirely on location over a seven-week period – except for the police command centre, which was built within the loading dock of distributor Madman Entertainment, located next door to the production office – due to budgetary reasons.

Michôd’s design brief was about the things he did not want to see: Melbourne’s best known features: trams, alleyways, Victorian architecture. Plus, three quarters of the film take place indoors, so the challenge for Ford was to dress the real life locations.

The police elements were the most expensive because “we had to make sure it looked authentic because there’s so much on television about police and how they work and operate”, but the houses were a matter of combining pre-existing dressing with the production’s own elements.

“The best thing that can be said about this film, production design-wise, is that you don’t really know if there’s an art department onboard. It should look like you’ve just walked into that environment and it just happened to fit the character,” she said. “These interiors are defined through architecture, of course, but especially lighting to create the different shades of character, so it’s a close collaboration with the DOP.”

In terms of costumes, designer Cappi Ireland wanted to keep it realistic and simple and, above all, timeless. Most clothes were bought, and many came from op-shops

so they’d look like they’d been worn for a while.

The main purpose was to avoid the stereotypes of other criminal families that have been portrayed on screen.

“For example, Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) has got a bit of money and is covered in tattoos, and rather than covering him in gold chains and making him look ostentatious, we’ve given him one silver chain and just simple t-shirts. No eye-catching motifs,” she explained.

“Smurf is nothing as ostentatious and over the top as some matriarchal characters you’ve seen in other films. Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) is daggy, like he’s been dressed by his mum, and Baz (Joel Edgerton) wants to fit in and not be recognised, so he’s the guy next door. That makes it even more sinister; you could be living next door to murderers and big time robbers, and they just look like the average guy in polo shirt and jeans.”

While it is clear that someone will get hurt when they’re characters in a criminal drama, safety on set becomes a priority. Stunt coordinator Zev Eleftheriou was in charge of supervising the film’s shootings.

“Any time guns are on set, safety is always there. We must check everything, including ear protection, eye protection, etc., and ensure that everyone is in the right place, where they should be,” said Eleftheriou.

“No one is going to get hurt. Not on my shift.”

Nobody did, and when principal photography wrapped in Victoria, post-production took place in New South Wales at Efilm, with sound work taking place at Soundfirm, Supersonic and Big Ears.

A KINGDOM BECOMES AN EMPIRE

One year after our initial conversation with Michôd and Watts, Animal Kingdom premiered at Sundance and won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize. It’s been sold to the UK, Italy, France, Canada and Eastern Europe, as well as to Sony Pictures Classics for an August release in the US and Latin America – The New York Times named it one of the summer’s most anticipated releases.

Kingdom’s destiny was no longer mere speculation but a reality, so we sat with them once again to discuss how much life can change in just 12 months.

“The first time I got a true and clear sense that I felt good about the film and how well it was working was at the premier at Sundance,” admitted Michôd.

Before that premiere, Michôd was no stranger to the festival, where Crossbow had screened years ago. This time, a team of publicists had been working hard on making the film visible and generating word of mouth while receiving positive feedback from advance reviewers and international distributors.

“There was a clear indication that people in positions of influence over there were liking the movie,” recalled Michôd. “It’s not enough to get into a festival; you actually need to position yourself.”

Sundance caught the interest of the Australian mainstream media. For a vast majority, it was the first time they heard Michôd’s name, and this achievement may have seemed like it was an overnight success.

“That’s why the prize was good, because it galvanised the press back in Australia to a broader audience. The industry was getting feedback but not the press as a whole,” said Watts.

Internationally, it created such awareness that, when the trailer premiere was announced on the Facebook page, the first comments came from people in Chicago who said they couldn’t wait to see it.

It is this audience response that matters more to Watts than the prestige and position that the project can give its creators amongst their peers.

“Whatever the hierarchy in the Australian industry, I don’t really care about that. I care about getting as many people as possible to see the film,” she said.

The combined achievements of Kingdom, Luke Doolan’s short Miracle Fish (nominated for the Oscar) and Nash Edgerton’s 2008 feature The Square (released in the US in April) also made the global industry pay attention to Blue Tongue Films as a force to be reckoned with. But according to Michôd, there’s nothing about Blue Tongue that is different from any other collective of filmmakers who are also friends.

“Films are too big, expensive and hard to make to do all by yourself. The advantage of Blue Tongue is that it has a name, which means people can make direct connections between all of us, so whenever one of us gets press, the others’ projects get mentioned all over the place too.”

Right after Sundance, Michôd told Encore he didn’t want to ride the Kingdom wave for a year and instead, he wanted to start working on a new project. A couple of months later, however, he’d changed his mind. “Now I want to ride around,” he joked. “I’m free of the Kingdom anxiety; I worked so hard to get this thing made, that I do want to enjoy it and travel with it, and not get lost in the panic of trying to work out what I’m doing next. I’ll figure out a way to do both.”

Another consequence of success is inevitably becoming a role model who’s asked for advice on ‘how to make it’ by emerging creatives. Michôd has only one answer for that: “Don’t be dispirited if the process takes 10 years. Not only can it take 10 years, but in many ways it should take 10 years. You should spend a lot of time honing your craft before you expect to be given the millions of dollars it costs to make a movie,” he finalised.