Face to Face with Michael Rymer
Face to Face director Michael Rymer talks about his new film, working on a low budget, and the Australian film system’s accountability.
To sci-fi nerds around the world Michael Rymer might best be known as one of the driving forces behind Battlestar Galactica’s resurrection, directing 22 episodes and producing 40 episodes. To Australian audiences, he directed Angel Baby starring Jacqueline McKenzie and John Lynch.
Rymer’s new film, Face to Face is an adaptation of a David Williamson play about conflict resolution in the Australian workplace. It’s a tightly woven script based on real conflict resolution transcripts. “It has big ideas and it’s a microcosm of Australia, dealing with workplace relations, race, sex and class. I don’t believe it’s a small film, it’s a big film done inexpensively.”
Despite names like Sigrid Thornton, Vince Colosimo and Matthew Newton, the film was made on a low budet – unable to access the producer offset, is all the hint Rymer will give on the budget – that and it was made for less than the craft service budget of Australia, he half-jokes.
Shot on the Canon DSLR 5D series, Rymer says, “I like to think we were the first Canon DFSLR film. There were some technical challenges. We didn’t have cinema lenses which allow for an easy way to pull focus and we had a crew of novices that hadn’t shot a feature before. Soon realised to sweep on dolly shots wasn’t going to work. So I said ‘we’ll settle down and shoot this way rather than that.’ There was some software we were waiting on called the 24P Patch to let the video image look more cinematic but it never arrived so we had to switch to the 1Ds which weren’t as beautiful an image but was faster so I could shoot in lower light, which was advantageous because we were shooting in the Trade Hall in Melbourne which has these three bay windows so the light was great but the big part was continuity because the weather would change every half hour… but if people notice those things you know you’re in trouble.”
While it was based on a play, little rehearsal was done beforehand. “My experience rehearsing movies, you only have time to pull it apart. You don’t have time to put it back together again. You work on some technical stuff like accents but I don’t like to work the texts until you’re on the set.” The other reason for no rehearsal was to take up as little of the actors’ time as possible. “People ask how I got them on the budget we worked on. I said I’d get them in and out quickly.”
Compared to working on a big budget American TV show, the film’s fast shoot on a low budget meant “there’s no margin for error. No time for reshoots. If something screws up you can’t throw money at the problem. A part from that and the food wasn’t as good, everything else was a plus. Face to Face is easily the most personally story since Angel Baby, it’s so pure and intimate with a crew of friends and young enthusiastic people not there for the paycheque, and I think it shows on screen.”
One big difference between Face to Face and Angel Baby is a modest distribution. “We made a mistake with Angel Baby. We were very proud and opened too wide and as a result it didn’t have the life it should have. The film should sell itself, if you can hold the theatres, audiences will find the films.”
From a marketing perspective, “we’re really counting on social media and word of mouth. People are responding so positively and engaging passionately. We’re the little engine that could so we’re hoping the word of mouth is strong. It’s important people go quickly to get the numbers up and it expands and becomes like Kenny or My Big Fat Greek Wedding, not that it’s one of those films, but that it takes a grass roots campaign.”
Similarly, Rymer says Red Dog is a huge boost to Face to Face. “Suddenly it’s safe to see Australian films again and we have made, not necessarily bad films but films that don’t connect with an audience and people get burnt. It’s expensive to see films in Australia and [the audience] think ‘why would I invest my time and pay for a babysitter if I can see a big American film, some eye candy with shit blowing up?’”
Screen Australia didn’t see the potential in Face to Face, despite the strong source material from one of Australia’s greatest playwrights and a commercially successful director. “We got no support from Screen Australia, they rejected the project, they said it wasn’t a movie. [However] They’ve been rejecting our greatest filmmakers for years… and so they should. I personally think Fred Schepisi, Peter Weir and Bruce Beresford built this industry and whatever they want to do they should be allowed to do, but at the same time the quality of the project and the viability of the market ought to be as an important factor as who is making it.
So does the system work in Rymer’s mind? “There is a lot of support for Australian films from the government. There are very few countries that have this level of support. But how decisions are made have been problematic for many years. We tried to get filmmakers to do the assessing. We tried getting distributors and bureaucrats, but I do question it. I questioned it when they rejected me. I said, ‘well I hope you make better films this year’.”
“The big problem with the system is that they are not accountable. In the business world in the studio system and European studio system if you decide to make films and they flop, you don’t get to make films anymore. The bureaucrats who get to make these decisions are very slow to take responsibility for those decisions and they are generally gone by the time the films come out. It’s not a meritocracy if you look at the results given the individuals making those decisions.”
As a first time feature film producer, Rymer will be looking to build on the hopeful success of this film for his next, with strong source material already read and an eager, similar crew but admits it becomes harder as a filmmaker to find finance moving into the five-ten million dollar range. “The market that fed Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Muriel’s Wedding, and Strictly Ballroom has evaporated. There used to be 20 American distributors with bidding wars on those films but because the independent film market has contracted, all our specialty divisions have gone. Fine Line has gone, Samuel Goldwyn has gone. There is a new crop coming up but it’s a much more contracted market. Australian filmmakers behave like that’s not the case. It used to be the case Australian filmmakers could go out and get presale from foreign distributors. That doesn’t exist anymore. We really do have to build their confidence back. We just came from Cinefest and people kept saying, ‘I felt so proud this was an Australian film’. Well I haven’t heard that in a long time.”
The industry is not doomed – Rymer is optimistic by the selection of feature films in pre-nomination for the AACTAs, to which Face to Face is included. “There’s some good films and they are very diverse. We just need to keep making better films and that relies on screenwriting. We need a literary culture and competition is a part of that. It’s hard to compare the US system because they have 20 thousand scripts written a year. But more like the UK system where the English seem to produce better screenplays and we need to ask ourselves why that is and I’m guessing the answer is a sense of literary community and I think we need to get past the tall poppy system where if someone does well they are resented. Every Australian film like Red Dog benefits little films like Face to Face and big films like The Eye of the Storm. We can all lift up together – I know that sounds incredibly hippy-ish.
Face to Face is in cinemas now.
Loved Face to Face! All the variables came together. Great script, direction, and cast. Go and see it!
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Face to Face is the best Australian film I have seen in years so it boggles the mind as to why Screen Australia rejected it and said “it’s not a film.” Yeah, sure it’s based on a play but Rymer does a great job in the cinematic adaptation of it.
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“The bureaucrats who get to make these decisions are very slow to take responsibility for those decisions and they are generally gone by the time the films come out. ”
I’m afraid that this is very sadly NOT the case. There should be set terms imposed.
3 years seems fair with a renewal of a further 2 years based on performance of films selected. Seems ‘market place’ fair to me.
There is one executives there who have been around since the likes of ‘Kick’ bombed!!!
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