![]() ![]() Esben Storm on the set of Stephany (1972). So that’s why it looks a bit rough… and I started on a film Stephany (1972). I shot In His Prime as I had a background in photography and acting. He was making something about Asian students for the first time in ten years after being blackballed as a Communist while we were at the Commonwealth Film Unit… We weren’t (Left-wingers) we were just filmmakers – stupid kids just trying to make films!… We tried to make these two films about our own teenage angst, conflicts with sex, power and religion… I was a great believer that the first film should get it all off your chest or get it all out and get onto your second one… Esben made a short film called In His Prime (1972) which was a faux documentary current affairs film about the life of a successful businessman/bureaucrat who ends up getting the sack and it shows what happens to him for the rest of the day as his life collapses. ![]() Anne Thomas, Haydn Keenan, Malcolm Richards (Director of Photography) and Esben Storm making Doors (1969. There was Keith Gow (1921-87) from the Waterside Workers Film Unit and a chap who became very much a mentor of Esben’s and mine – Cecil Holmes (1921-94) – who had made Three in One (1955) and Captain Thunderbolt (1955). There was what I also came to realise later, a solid strand of Communist Party people. There was the most marvellous department with Donald McAlpine in the camera department, Dean Semler who went on to win many awards. We were shit-kicking assistants and Richard Moir was also one of those shit-kicking production assistants but at the same time there was Peter Weir who was there directing documentaries about art galleries or whatever it was you were assigned to. ![]() Where did you meet Esben Storm and Richard Moir?Įsben and I went to school together in Melbourne at University High School and we were all in one way or another involved in drama and in our little group there were people who did photography and that sort of stuff and while we were still at school we formed Smart Street Films… we lied about our age because you weren’t allowed to be under 18 and run a company… and our articles of association entitled us to run amusement arcades, circuses and theatrical performances and to make films… Esben’s first short film was Doors (1969) which I starred in with my first girlfriend and my first film was One Man Bike starring his first girlfriend… they were well received, they were the type of thing that cost 1500 or a couple of thousand dollars… you can see there’s no sync sound in Esben’s film but we moved forward slightly… there’s more sync sound in my film… I think we did those two… we had made short films at school with virtually all our school friends using 16mm… there wasn’t a huge amount of work going on in Melbourne and Esben got a job at the Commonwealth Film Unit (in Sydney) and then I got a job at the Commonwealth Film Unit… around 1970 and we came up and worked at Roseville in the most fantastic, stimulating and educational environment you could imagine…. ![]()
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