INTERVIEW: JIMMY JACK

11 May 2008

Exploded View

We ask Jimmy Jack a.k.a Jimmy the Exploder, the co-writer of Australian indie hit The Black Balloon, to talk about the film and what’s next for him.

The Black Balloon is set in Queensland in 1992. However, local film heads know it also has strong WA connections. Director Elissa Down spent her formative filmmaking years here, actor Gemma Ward did children’s television series and co-writer Jimmy The Exploder developed his craft in Perth. Currently, Jack is artist-in-residence at a café in Murray Lane, Perth, and this was the location for the interview.

Before The Black Balloon, Jack wrote, co-produced and acted in the short HMAS Unicorn (2001) which Down directed. He also produced the award-winning short Fade which was directed by Chris Frey. He is proud of both films.

Jack and Down began writing The Black Balloon in 2001. “The Black Balloon process and The Aurora (Script Workshop) in particular taught me how to write. Aurora was where we got hammered by all the advisors on that. It was a long, long process.”

The Exploder credits the input from a whole team of people for getting the script right. “Kelly Lefever was the script editor. We also had a creative producer (Tristram Miall) and script consultant Duncan Thompson. Duncan is very smart. He would always talk about what scenes get into his gut rather than structure and building the dilemma. He’s magic, I think.”

Surprisingly, Jack doesn’t paint the usual tale of adversity when describing the film’s genesis. “Our process was relatively hassle free. It happened quickly – we never had any impediments whatsoever. We applied for funding and got it. So it was a smooth six years.” Then a moment of reflection. “One every six years,” he says, “God.”

At the time of the Interview the Film had already premiered at Berlin and won a Crystal Bear. Jack had also been at the recent Sydney Premiere. As he explained, “The Screening in Sydney was a little bit different because for photography reasons they wanted to hold it at Dendy Opera Quays. Who Weekly were doing the after party. There was the Harbour Bridge and Opera House in the background for the photographs. No one was interested in anything but (actor) Gemma Ward. It was nuts, they tried to rip her apart.”

He goes on to draw a picture of him, the director and the other cast members holding off a pack of photographers, “They were screaming at her so she would look at them and they could get some sort of photo. She was brilliant. And you could tell in that situation why she was a star. Rhys (Wakefield) the main actor in the film hated it. The other guys were feeling really uncomfortable as well. She was the one who in that circumstance said, ‘Okay guys look over here,’ It was like she was directing the photo shoot herself.”

The Exploder does have other projects on the go. One is a zombie rockumentary he’s working on with producer James Grandison. Titled Zombie: Sex, Brains And Rock n’ Roll, the story is about a dissatisfied Zombie who wants to improve and decides to pursue a musical career. As Jack explains, “At the start he can’t talk so he has to take speech therapy, then he has singing lessons and learns to play musical instruments. He forms an all-zombie rock band and they struggle while they’re ascending the Rock n’ Roll ladder. They’re struggling not to eat their groupies. They don’t want to be outed. They start looking like Andy Warhol. Their faces are falling apart but they have to wear wigs and makeup, to try and look normal. Their manager has to make excuses – No – they’re just drug addicts.”

Jack’s other project is more personal. “My dad grew up on a dairy farm in Victoria, he was one of four sons and there was a fatality, one of the sons was killed and he was meant to be taking over the farm.” The project has been gestating for some time. Jack has interviewed family members to create a fuller picture of events. “At the moment its called Archimedes Screw,” he says, “ But it’s only recently that I felt it was something I could do now – I’ve got a bit of confidence after how The Black Balloon is performing. I think I could handle a drama of that intensity.”

Jack has been researching Archimedes Screw with a series of interviews. “I’ve been doing it over the last few years- because it’s my family members and it was a pretty difficult period. I started off with my grandparents – I’d interview my grandmother at the same time every Monday night. She wouldn’t be tell me things like, ‘In June of 1969 this happened’. She’d be giving me great stuff like, ‘I remember he sat on the bed, and he said this word to me that he’d never said before, he said Mama’.

“She would say stuff with really useful specific details – the colour of the dress someone was wearing or the fabric – which as a screenwriter is really great. Then I would interview someone like my Uncle and he was much more “this happened and this happened.”

Jack admits he has more research to do. “I’ve built up over four interview subjects but I’m yet to interview the main protagonists which are my Mum and Dad. They’re a little bit more hesitant – this is a period of their lives they’re not comfortable with. So I’ve had to go around (laughs) and get everyone else first. But I know my Mum in particular since seeing The Black Balloon is more comfortable to participate in this.”

He is still debating whether or not to go with the title Archimedes Screw. “The farmer was a smart, inventive guy. He wasn’t happy with the government issue dairy designs, so he designed himself his own herringbone dairy and people would pay him to do theirs. At one stage he devised an irrigation scheme for the farm which would work better and basically need no pumps and run water uphill with this Archimedes screw device. There’ll be a line of dialogue from someone else – he’s trying to fight gravity.
That’s the metaphor in the film. It’s a Prometheus sort of thing. I really do see it like a family epic. A tragedy. A Greek tragedy sort of.”

Finally, we just had to ask, How did the writer formerly known as Jimmy Jack come to be credited as Jimmy The Exploder? That incendiary three-part moniker has been provoking questions from all who see THE BLACK BALLOON.

“I don’t want people to think it’s an intelligent choice,” he says laughing. “If you do something ridiculous like changing your name – especially to Jimmy The Exploder – any other risks you take seem more normal.”

Jimmy the Exploder is also overseeing the completion Five Guys Called Moe, a no-budget feature set in a Mr Whippy Van. So he has quite a bit on his plate, currently. However, he is clear about his goals, “My main priority now is working with James Grandison and getting ZOMBIE right.”

An excerpt of this article appears in The FTI News Vol 12, Number 1, May 2008