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Priscilla director looking to break into ad world

Australian feature filmmaker Stephan Elliott, director of  The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is looking to break into the ad industry.

Elliott, whose most recent film A Few Best Men opened strongly at the local box office, has tried to get into advertising before, but movie commitments have held him back.

Now ads are his primary focus, he told Mumbrella.

The 47 year-old has joined the stable of directors at Susie Douglas’s production company Film Motel.

Elliott said: “It’s all happened in a week or so. Film offers have rolled in left, right and centre. But I’m sticking with this. I’m saying no to all feature work.”

His motivation to break into advertising came while working on A Few Best Men as a ‘gun-for-hire’ director, having not written the film.

“It was the first time I took a gun-for-hire job,” said Elliott, who will be appearing at Circus’s Battle of Big Thinking. “I’ve never done that before, and an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders. It was fascinating to walk in and walk out.”

“I don’t get behind the camera enough. I love directing. But I don’t want to wait another five years between films.”

The technological turn-over the screen industry is seeing, by making a film every five years, “you’re behind the eight ball when it is time to make a feature,” he added.

Susie Douglas, executive producer at Film Motel, told Mumbrella: “I think his immediate commercial strength is comedy, as he brings the best out of people. But as a drama director he’s extraordinary. Once I crack him into the commercial market he’ll do well.”

In January, Elliott told the Australian: “I’m trying to break into the advertising industry and I can’t get in. They won’t have me with a bar of soap.”

However, Douglas said: “I don’t think that’s the case at all. He was with a production company, but was never really available. He’s now available – he approached me.”

Elliott acknowledged he comes to the commercial world with baggage. “It will mean starting at the bottom. People will be frightened of a features director, with the time and money we have. A lot of people ask how fast I am.”

“Creatively it’s going to be interesting. I have a billion ideas. I am quite looking forward to it.”

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