Be humble

It's easy to reconcile being humble with doing the quiet job. It takes the same humility though to take on louder more public roles. It takes humility to follow well as it takes humility to lead well.  Roles, as seen through the lens of humility, are connected through similarity rather than difference. Hierarchy fades away. Superiority or inferiority become the same thing and therefore loose any significance we might attribute them. What is left is contribution to common goals. Humility brings equality, contribution, community and quality to our craft.

Anzac Day

Two concept paintings I produced last year of NZders at the 'Battle of Crete' Second World War. The first the German paratroop invasion. The second the evacuation from Sfakia village. I took inspiration from the Romantic Mythical paintings of Eugene Delacroix and to some extent Goya. Today is a day to remember.

Repetition as a design tool.

Repetition of a line of dialogue in a script is a wonderful tool for revealing character. Through the characters relationship to the line the storyteller reveals how that character or their situation has changed.  Think of Johnny Deep as Donnie Brasco. His first delivery of 'Forget about it' reveals his naivety and the potential risk he has taken in entering a foreign environment. As this line is revisited in the film it reveals the character's confidence in his deception and then at how lost and distant from his family he has become. The reveal comes through the actors delivery of the line and his relationship to it not through the line itself.

This technique of repetition and relationship to reveal change is of interest to the designer. Often we place colour, form and object in a design for practical reasons of creating believable space.  These are used to create a world of depth and reality or to act metaphorically.  It is important to be aware of characters relationship to this space, colour and object. Throughout the film this relationship can be utilised at critical moments to inform the story or the audience of character in an indirect way.

Often it is only in returning home that we see how far we have travelled. By comparing our past to the present we see the change.  The designer can serve this concept throughout the film in subtle ways. Through appreciating the relationship between character and space and the repetition of visual elements a designer can not only create space for staging performance but space that can serve the performance and the telling of the story.

Fear

Fear is the greatest enemy of the artist and the arts. Therefore it is of great concern to me that I develop ways to work that eliminates fear, condemnation and discrimination of creativity amongst artists and our audience. The artist constantly faces insecurity and a critical audience. This goes hand in hand with freethinking and the criticism freethinking encourages is actually a welcome tool toward growth. Of greater concern is the flow down of secrecy and fear resulting from corporate structures that do not encourage creativity and therefore are overpowering our artists.  The first result is underwhelming work. A secondary result is audiences are becoming less accustomed to change, free thought, free speech, debate, criticism and confrontation. Audiences are becoming so accustomed to the status quo that to step outside the norm is often condemned. This is an extremely saddening trend when the artistic form of thinking we are stifling is exactly the approach that will help grow the social richness and commercial wealth we all desire. 

Summer Sketchbook P.5

Eric Lepionka

On the short film 'The last Night' my team and I had the privilege of working with the producers father and director's father in law, Eric Lepionka. Eric joined our construction team from day 1, It could be said the team was built around him.  Eric, born 1936, evacuated Poland with his family, travelled through Kazakhstan to Siberia to evade German occupation. In 1944 along with 732 other polish children Eric came to a refugee camp here in Pahiatua, New Zealand where he lived for 4 1/2 years before becoming a citizen of NZ.  He has lived his life here in NZ and has made what can only be described as a massive and generous contribution to the NZ Polish community and broader community as a whole.

For the film we built the mud hut of an Afghanistan Warlord . Eric was quick to tell us of the small hut where he lived in Kazakhstan in detail right down to door height. His memory of those events was vivid and rich. His was a wonderful presence on the project and a reminder to this designer of Mies van der Rohe's famous words 'God is in the Details'.

I must commend David(director) and Wanda(producer) for the environment they created on this project. Every member, their story and their art was welcome and valued. My gratitude must also be extended to my team. Brett Blenkin, Ross Hoby, Hamish Wain, Lucy Bowden, Raoul Darlington, Michael Simpson, Aaron Huriwaka, Jo Williams, Crystalynne Willis, Antony Goodin, Neil Cromie, Jack Cromie, Duane Williams and Sonia Murray.  This team delivered great art.  They followed the lead of the director and grew an environment that held our stories and community together.  Without their work we would have never heard the story of Eric and been privileged with a stronger connection to our heritage and our New Zealand story.

There will always be new things to learn about this craft of making film. This team though has nothing more to learn about how to hold that craft. Well done everyone!

The last Night - Short Film Prod Design

'The Last Night' Directed by David Strong is in the studio for the next 2 days after a great location shoot since Monday.  I've production designed with a great art department in support. Fantastic job once again from everyone.  I look forward to sharing some pics of construction and the shoot very soon. The set build, texture, paint and dress were amazing.

The past six weeks have been extremely busy so looking forward to slowing down and taking stock of everything that has been achieved and where it leads now.

UFO - Stills from last weeks shoot