Sam Barrett's low budget feature breaks all the rules

14 February 2008

Organisation

Director Sam Barrett’s first feature ‘No Through Road’ is a low budget horror thriller that has no shortage of special effects. This tale of home invastion proudly aims at a mainstream audience and accurately hits the target .

How would you describe your new film ‘No Through Road’?

‘No Through Road’ is a bloody urban thriller with a 1970s sensibility.

Who else was involved in making this film?

At the core of the production team is my co-producer David Karsten and cinematographer/editor Ivan Davidov.

Other collaborators include co-writer Robbie Studsor, composer Ash Gibson Greig, sound designer Michelle Tate and first AD wunderkind Dayne Blundell Camden.

This list leaves out the finest cast I’ve ever worked with headed by James Helm and Megan Palinkas. I can’t begin to outline the staggering contribution of these individuals and the rest of the Nakatomi production team in the making of this film.

*They say if you want to make a low budget film, keep the setting contemporary, film it during the day, keep the number of actors low. Your film is set in the evening, did this present a challenge for filmming? *

Shooting in the evening is much more difficult in comparison to day shooting. Due to the irregular schedule and its affect on the body clock there is a significant drop in productivity in comparison to shooting during the day.

Adding to the frustration we shot during summer and that only leaves about 8 hours of darkness before the sun comes up. On the flip side I despise shooting during the day and hope to make films that mainly occur during the evening. Daytime brings cloud coverage and with that comes constant waiting around. I also find from a visual point of view that evening provides more control for lighting.

The shoot itself was an indescribable experience filled with hard work, laughter and tears. Basically your average shoot.

How did filming a feature film compare to your previous experiences in making short films?

The two forms are wildly different and most of the tools that helped me shoot shorts were obsolete on the large canvas.

What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

The biggest challenge for me came in the rough cut stage of the editing process. You and your editor have seen the film a hundred times and now it is time to seek some outside advice. So you show the film around to friends, colleagues and third parties. The film is in a malleable state where it can be changed to suit different audiences and I found it difficult to sift through all the opinions and ideas to find the “right” one. Of course that one doesn’t exist.

This month’s ENCORE magazine calls for a return to genre filmmaking, what are your thoughts on this? Is the era of the Australian genre pic upon us

There shouldn’t be a need to call for it. Cinema was founded on genre films. Howard Hawks, Hitchcock and Kubrick all made ‘genre’ films. Film IS genre.

What’s happened is somewhere after the Australian New Wave we created the ‘important and fundable Australian film’ genre and tricked ourselves into thinking that it was somehow more honest and real than seemingly more low brow fare.

Audiences are bored with it and so am I. People across the globe have been making intelligent, successful and entertaining genre films for 100 years now and I hope that this is Australia’s year to join in once and for all.

How have people reacted to your film since it’s first screening?

The reaction has been quite positive overall. The strangest thing is that no one has accused me of being a right wing advocate considering the bloody vigilante style revenge of the hero.

I need to see it with more audiences but the people I have watched it with so far have revelled in its orgiastic display of violent justice. Which is nice.

In your opinion, What do you consider to be the role of a Director?

The role of the Director is to control the creative vision of the film. Unfortunately that always sounds arrogant and awful when said aloud.

As a Director I try and provide my initial ideas but still be open to suggestions and allow people to express themselves creatively. Nothing gives me more joy than someone presenting an idea or extrapolation that I would never have thought of.

While most filmmakers rely on government grant for films early in their career, your team has been more proactive in raising your own money, even holding quiz nights for filmmakers, does a self funded film give you more freedom?

Definitely. I was initially interested in private funding because based on the type of films that receive government grants I believed there was no way that the films I wanted to make would get funded.

As I am also a fan of extremes (here and there) I was nervous at the thought of someone forcing me to curb the bolder elements of the story which is what I think makes it unique.

Film is about compromise and the more money you have and investors you have to appease then the more compromises you will have to make. The more money you can secure yourself then the more creative decisions you can control, simple as that.

What’s next for your team?

We just finished the shooting of our second feature, a film noir thriller entitled ‘Esoterica’ so we’re about to embark on another year of post production.

Strangely, it appears this one broke all the low budget rules outlined above. It’s set in (a possible) past, It’s mostly at night and there’s about 25 people in the cast.

‘No Through Road’ screens at the Fremantle Outdoor Film Festival on Wednesday 27th February. The WASA Wednesday’s highlight films nominated in the upcoming WA Screen Awards

To read more interviews with filmmakers click here

Image: behind the Scenes on ‘No Through Road’.