NineteenHundred Brendan Heffernan: January 2014

Well I'm off to face the heat wave at the studios at Docklands, Melbourne. I leave on the 28th of Jan and taking the family with me on this little adventure.

For the past few months I've been concept artist for a the production Called 'The Moon and the Sun' from Producer Bill Mechanic and Director Sean McNamara(Soul surfer).

Up until now I've been based at home in Wellington, NZ but for the next few months I will join the Design team led by Michelle McGahey in Melbourne for Pre production.

We're making some very cool art and design. It's a privilege to be part of it. :) Below is a link to some info about the project.

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/mechanics-moon-finally-set-to-rise-in-oz-1200672608/

Last year my script 'Minos' was shortlisted for NZFC funding by Blue Harvest. The Blue Harvest team supplied Marc and I with extensive script and production notes. Marc quite wisely kept them from me until after a bit of a holiday:). I've had a chance now to absorb and make revisions. I've just today sent a second draft of the script to Marc as well as a first draft on a treatment. We have until the 7th of Feb to continue our revisions and make our final submission after which time we wait a week or two for the final decision on funding.

The work is great fun and is feeding our feature film project immensely... as well as all my other work :).

I cannot share with you the script at this time but I thought I might post my treatment for your interest.

Please note that this may change for our final submission. Also I have left out the final paragraph which speaks directly to a feature film project which must remain confidential at this time. Hope this sparks a bit of interest and discussion.

Minos – Director’s Treatment 17 Jan 2014

One question has stayed with me since the pitch of ‘Minos’. This treatment is a chance to address that question again and discuss the central element of this story, ‘The hero’.

Steve asked me, ‘how does this story relate to the story of Theseus?’ At the time I half answered the question. I related to the metaphor of the maze and beast through the setting, conflict and trauma of war. What was under developed in my answer was the ‘Theseus’ element that, I think, Steve was hunting. The central figure of any story is the Hero and the final draft of ‘Minos’ aims to bring that concept home.

I believe most of the script notes relate to this question and therefore so do my revisions. McIntyre is the central character of the film but each of the other 4 men are heroes in their own right. Each faces the enemy with equal bravery and self-sacrifice. What makes this story human is that each character carries with him both a light and shadow side. In each of them is the potential for equal amounts of fear, despair and rage alongside, selflessness, bravery and compassion.

In the story of ‘Theseus’ the king’s daughter Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of thread that helps him find a way out of the maze. In classical story telling terms woman often represent the archetypal ‘light’ qualities the hero must embrace for success. In ‘Minos’ those qualities are within our characters. They are most obviously present in the scripted moments of stillness.

All of the characters in Minos have an unwavering self-belief. They are fighters that believe in their own physical ability, skill and intellect. They never call on help from anyone. One by one though the men fail. They all fall victim to their own bravery. It is only once all avenues of personal strength are exhausted, when our hero finally gives up on his self-belief and resigns to his failure that a way out finally presents itself.

There is no Ariadne character in this story but her qualities are within our central character just awaiting the chance to be recognized. Audiences are ready to embrace characters in contemporary storytelling that contain not only the light and dark but also qualities that can best be described as masculine and feminine. Instead of separating out the archetypes to tell stories I here have the opportunity to bring those archetypes into the one character. As a director it is my ambition to avoid archetypal stereotyping and create human characters that reveal truth. This script will allow me to do this.