Green film making? By accident, maybe

Making a film is hard work; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But with the Crackheads, the way the story is designed, there is a little bit of “wriggle” room re: getting things absolutely perfect. In essence, I have actually designed around having no to low budget. Admittedly, it is hip to be a recycling, reusing greenie scrounging up materials to a certain extent I am using this to my advantage. But it is also about meeting budget, making... Read More

The Crackhead’s Get Rocked

As you know, Richard Berndt has donated his time and talent to creation of the musical score for the Crackheads. I can now share with you a sample of that hard work. With the Crackheads film, we toyed with the idea of taking off two well known songs- namely the “Home and Away” theme (changing it to “Homo and Away”) and “Fishheads” (changing that to “Crackheads”) ala Weird Al Yankovic. But unfortunately,... Read More

From the Puppeteers Pencil

Fear not, the puppet project is still alive and kicking, well as much as their stumpy little footsies will allow anyway! It’s just been a little hectic of late on both the commercial and creative levels. The potted history of puppet events are as such: Paul has pretty much finished building our stage, with the exception of a hinge or two. Next comes the backgrounds and how to deal with them Rich has been composing for the background ads and music,... Read More

Puppet on a Shoestring: The Story of Birthing a Puppet Film

From moving to script to actually getting things done is a pretty hard process. It is rewarding though. Time consuming, at times very overwhelming, and punishing because you finish on task and several more sprout up like snakeheads on Cerberus. I am learning as I go along. Music and Sound Anyone who has ever done anything remotely linked to sound will tell you if you screw up the volume or the mix, it just won’t work in your favour. Thankfully,... Read More

The Crackheads: Profiles!

Maybe I spent way too much time in the dating industry to truly shake it off, but when it comes to getting to know my characters, there is nothing I like to do better than prop them up on the singles couch and ask them what they think their answer would be to common dating profile questions. Original Crackhead Age: What’s it to ya?   Location: Sunny fuckin’ Redfern   Height: Does it matter when ya on ya knees?!   Body Type:... Read More

Socialising with Crackheads? Ewww!

Social media makes life so much bloody easier for creative people. It really does because you can share your ideas, have a platform to publish, and have a way of reaching a much wider audience than what you would usually do. For The Crackheads, I have spent a lot of time wrestling with the idea of character driven versus marketing driven content and what is best for the promotion, and also what is best for me as a creative person. I could be all “marketing... Read More

My inner child is actually a dirty, filthy bunch of puppets

As a kid, I was the one with the bowl haircuts of fine brown hair, gauche decorated strings hanging from my glasses, pencil in hand writing stories as Miss Piggy or Kermit was tucked under the free arm. I made ball-gowns for my felt tips out of tissue and cello tape and had them dance all night with eye toting socks whilst Barbie stayed dusty on the toy shelf. I preferred wood and wool to plastic and metal. I spent a lot of time willingly inside cardboard... Read More