Picture of the month: October '12

Riverview Street, Concord - Packed to the Rafters

Teaser trailer for new Aussie movie

9Lives Films are very proud to bring you the first official teaser of their biggest project to date - a self-funded, mid-length, action film titled "Hunt for Hiroshi". It's been a long road and they hope these first images will prepare audiences for what is in store. The run-time of the film is expected to be around 25 minutes in length, with planned releases at International Film Festivals in 2013. The film is also destined for a YouTube release next year.

Synopsis for "Hunt for Hiroshi":
In this city, Hiroshi is king and the head of a criminal organisation with the authorities in his pockets. But the man who has it all is now being hunted.
After a series of attacks on his businesses, he sends an elite tactical team to capture the unknown perpetrators. What Hiroshi will soon discover is that his tainted past has finally caught up with him. Ancient memories will resurface and vengeance will be undertaken.

The movie stars Takehiro Abe, David Vuong, Laurent Boiteux, Moustafa Dennawi, Joseph Carbone.

Written and Directed by Sam Gosper
Produced by Sam Gosper, Ali Kadhim, Mehran Rows
First Assistant Director Mehran Rows
Cinematography by Ali Kadhim and Simon Huynh
Editing and Grading by Sam Gosper and Ali Kadhim
Visual Effects by David Vuong and Sam Gosper
Makeup by Soph-Ea Moeln, Yoshimi Kumai and Rania Abbott
Sound by Jean-Marc Serret and Karen Otero
Set Design by Rohini Laxmanalal
Script Supervision by Mary Tran
Lighting Assistants: Justin Kilic, David Vo, Jimmy James Pham, Mohammad Al-Mayahi
Stills Photography by Thoradox Creations

You can keep updated by following the project at
http://www.facebook.com/huntforhiroshi

or visit:
http://www.facebook.com/team9lives for more upcoming films!

Teaser song by Mish -- Resilience (The Entrance Album)

To hear more from Mish visit:
http://www.facebook.com/mishband

© 2012 9LIVES FILMS / TEAM 9LIVES

The man that got away

August - Picture courtesy of The Star Observer

The Star Observer reports

Sydney-born, US-based actor Murray Bartlett’s career has spanned almost 20 years now, but there’s one role in particular he’ll be eternally remembered for: that of Oliver Spencer, Carrie Bradshaw’s new gay best friend (poor Stanford) in a 2002 episode of Sex & The City.

“It was my first acting job in the USA and seemed to come out of nowhere. Suddenly I’m sitting at a table opposite Sarah Jessica Parker, in a show that I was very familiar with. It was surreal,” he told the Star Observer.

The actor ‘plays gay’ once more in August, writer/director Eldar Rappaport’s 2011 independent drama that’s just been released on DVD here in Australia thanks to that champion of queer cinema, Love Films.

Bartlett plays Troy, the former lover of Jonathan (Daniel Dugan), and he arrives back in Los Angeles to find his ex happily partnered up with Raul (Adrian Gonzalez). Before long, Jonathan finds himself tempted by the former lover he’d long ago relegated to the past.

The film touches on a familiar, niggling question for many: ‘What if he comes back’?’

“I think most of us can relate to a situation like this – that feeling of wondering what our life would be like if we’d ended up with that person we had a crush on, or were in love with, or had a fleeting but intense connection with. And often these feelings can be very powerful, there’s some seductive sort of pain in it which we set out to explore in the film,” explained Bartlett.

The Aussie actor finds himself cast as the ‘other man’, intruding on another couple’s life. Was he conscious of making Troy a likable character, given some of his actions are perhaps not entirely honourable?

“Absolutely. I think he’s a much more interesting character if it’s hard to define him as good or bad. And I think it makes the situation much harder for all involved, and probably more realistic, because situations like this are rarely black and white.”

Rappaport makes no secret of the fact that August is very much drawn from his own life experiences – in particular, an intense summer fling with an ex that ended on a sour note. Bartlett said that despite this real-life inspiration, his director wasn’t entirely beholden to his initial vision, instead allowing the actors to contribute.

“He wanted us to feel the personal connection that he has to the story and I think this collaborative approach really helped us do that.”

August has already screened at several international queer film festival, and Bartlett said he’d been following the audience feedback with interest, as viewers decided for themselves whether or not Troy was the villain of the piece.

“It’s been good to see that viewers have struggled with it. Their responses to the characters have tended to be complex – like the situation and characters themselves.”

Come into my world

"Spinning Around" … from "singing budgie" to hugely successful pop queen, Kylie Minogue has come a long way. Photo: William Baker/Darenote

The Sydney Morning Herald reports

She was once derided as "the singing budgie", only to be resurrected as Saint Kylie. Despite the wild swings in her public approval, not to mention her battle with breast cancer, Kylie Minogue remains "hopeful and realistic". Jane Wheatley meets her in London.

Who could have predicted that Kylie Minogue, aka Charlene, the miniature grease monkey of Neighbours, would one day sit, bemused and delighted, in a Cannes movie theatre as wave upon wave of a standing ovation breaks over her head? The applause is for Holy Motors, in which she has a critically acclaimed cameo role, and triumph has bathed her in its glow.

As a result, Minogue has been spending a good deal of this northern autumn in the company of the film's French director, Leos Carax, entertaining audiences and media in a series of interviews.

They make an odd couple: Carax hunched in black duffle coat and sunglasses, an unlit cigarette held between long fingers; Minogue sitting beside him, chic in cream Burberry, crossing and recrossing perfect legs, smiling encouragingly.

Getting the director to shed light on his surrealist film - variously described as "brilliant", "deranged" and "bonkers" - is like pulling teeth. "Leos is always being asked to explain his work," Minogue tells me when we meet, "and he doesn't. He just kind of mutters and smokes, which is fascinating to me because I spend my life doing the opposite, going blah blah blah."

The pairing of perky pop princess with the enigmatic intellectual auteur was a shrewd move by the film's promoters: Minogue is a drawcard for those who might otherwise give this bizarre offering a miss.

Arriving for our 3pm rendezvous, I am told by a friendly but puzzled waiter that the kitchen has already closed. When I say I am meeting Minogue, his brow clears. "Ah," he exclaims, wreathed in smiles, "for Kylie we are open 24 hours."

A few minutes later she is ushered to a table curtained off from the main dining room, a tiny vision in a sparkly wool coat, tasselled high-heeled ankle boots and slim black pants. The restaurant is just around the corner from her Chelsea home. "I call it the office. I'm in and out of here all the time." She has a cold and has been saving her voice: "I've only spoken 15 words today." She is just back from Brazil and will be off to New York the next day for another film screening with Carax: "So I have to be fine, no choice."

Asked by one interviewer why he cast Minogue, the director said simply: "I thought she was the angel I needed." How did it happen? "Apparently," she says, "all he knew of me was my duet with Nick Cave." The ballad, Where the Wild Roses Grow, recorded in 1995, was both erotic and violent, ending in Minogue's character being battered to death by Cave - suitably weird, then, to appeal to Carax.

She nods, "Yes, but the ironic thing is I'd been saying for a few years, after being involved in the wrong sort of film projects, that what I really need is the Nick Cave of the film world to go" - she beckons with a finger - " 'Hey, you, come with me. Trust me, I know what to do with you.' "

It is a telling choice of words: for years people knew what to do with Minogue, from the publicists who ferried her to shopping centres to be mobbed by Neighbours fans, to the fabled UK music producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman, who turned her into a bubble-gum pop princess; from British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, who got her to strip off and mime along to a castrato voice, to her long-time stylist William Baker, who rejoiced in being able to "project all my fantasies onto her".

How does that make her feel? "Well," she says calmly, "I like being malleable." But she once said she felt like a manufactured product. She nods:

"I was." Didn't it feel, well, a bit masochistic? "No, but sometimes I can sense the balance has tipped too far and I need to pull back some control.

I learnt how to do that a long time ago."

She says she never went looking for work, it always came to her, but this may be a touch disingenuous. Contemporaries from her early years in Australia recalled that she was always "driven and very focused", and these days there is little doubt who is in charge of Brand Kylie.

This year, she has sung at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in front of Buckingham Palace, wearing a jewelled military cap and waving to the cheering throng in The Mall; performed pop favourites for the classical music crowd at the BBC's Proms in the Park; recorded a new album (The Abbey Road Sessions, out on October 29, reworks her greatest hits with full orchestration) and published a book, Fashion, reprising a quarter century of Kylie-wear, from Dolce & Gabbana evening frocks to the famous hot pants from her Spinning Around video (YouTube hits: 5.7 million).

There are now four Kylie waxworks at Madame Tussauds - only the Queen has more; and at Sydney's Mardi Gras earlier this year there were four floats, each dedicated to a different version of Kylie (Showgirl Kylie, Cute Kylie, etc), and hundreds of people dressed as Australia's favourite gay icon. They serenaded her with her own Love at First Sight as she watched from a balcony: "I felt like Eva Peron," she says.

Last May, the 2011 Sunday Times Rich List estimated her fortune at £40 million ($63 million), she outsells her one-time heroine Madonna, and she is the only solo female artist to score a No. 1 album in four separate decades. She is much more successful than her avowedly fame-seeking sister Dannii and, following a tussle with breast cancer, a "brave" post-recovery tour and the White Diamond documentary, in which she was "reborn", Kylie has had near-deity status bestowed upon her. She is often represented as other-worldly - nymph, goddess, Venus, Virgin Mary, astral being, bathed in light: "Her sanctification has progressed beyond parody," academic Peter Conrad has observed in The Monthly.

Success has not always followed Minogue. She was 19, with three smash hits behind her, when the backlash came: Australian radio refused to give air time to the relentlessly chirpy I Should Be So Lucky and British DJ John Peel interviewed a cardboard cut-out of her on the grounds that it had more personality.

She thinks she was a victim of tall-poppy syndrome. But the flak came not only from Australia. "Oh I know, there was loads everywhere," she says. "I think I would need to reach a state of enlightenment - which I doubt I will - in order to really let go of that tiny, tiny little red light that tells me I'm still ticked off about all that. I forget about it most of the time, and all those insecurities that stuff played on - I'm over them, anyway. But still a bit of me goes, 'Why? Why were you all so nasty?' "

When she began live stage shows she was, she says, "absolutely annihilated by the critics. But I kept going and kept going - to the point that it's what I'm known for. I've overcome a lot of fears."

In the early years, under contract to Stock, Aitken and Waterman, she wanted to write her own songs but was discouraged: "Rightly so, probably," she says, "I wasn't very good." But now, she says, she writes about a quarter of her material. "And I love it, absolutely love it. You start the day with nothing and by the end you have a song. Not that most people would pick the difference [between the songs she's co-written and those written for her] - only super fans know, really."

A waiter comes to the table with a pot of four baby carrots apparently "growing" in dark soil. "Dirty carrots," he announces. We each take a tentative bite: they are crisp, cold, fresh and coated in chocolate. "Wow!" says Minogue, going in for another dip. "Bravo!" She licks her lips. "Sorry, where were we? I can't concentrate."

Does she get things off her chest by writing a song? She laughs: "Oh yeah, definitely. I don't always realise it at the time. Now when I listen to some of the songs on Impossible Princess - actually, my least successful album - I think, 'Wow, you weren't very happy then, were you?' "

For years, Minogue has suffered the label "unlucky in love" thanks to a series of relatively short-lived relationships and no wedding bells. French actor Olivier Martinez supported her through breast cancer, but they split in 2007. She has been with her current partner, 34-year-old Spanish model Andrés Velencoso, for four years: "Yes!" she exclaims, "four years - really! I'm like, ding! Ready to ring the bell. It's a record."

Probably the most intense, most unlikely and certainly most influential relationship of her life, though, was with Australian rock god and INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence. They first met at a music awards ceremony in Sydney, when Minogue was dating Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan. At the after-party, Hutchence famously lurched up to her and said, "I don't know what we should do first - have lunch or have sex." Neither happened, but a year later they started dating and very quickly the carefully packaged girl-next-door Kylie was transformed into sexy, pouting Kylie in black PVC, barely-there slip frocks and bleached blonde locks - Hutchence supposedly wrote the song Suicide Blonde in honour of the new hairdo.

But image was the least of it: 30-year-old Hutchence opened doors for the Melbourne girl, barely out of her teens. "Oh, he broadened my horizons," she says, "gave me my first European experiences, taught me about fine food. He was often referred to as a bad boy. Yes, he was, but he was also poetic and smart and cultured and inquisitive. He watched me grow and blossom."

The relationship lasted for 15 months; Hutchence died six years later. "A good friend of his told me that just a very short time before he passed, he was talking about me and talking about getting together again." She gives a tiny shrug. "I don't know, but who's to say what might have happened. I truly believe he didn't stop loving me. And the same goes for me."

So why did they break up? "I think that he went back on the rock'n'roll road and he couldn't take me. I think it came from a good place." What does she mean? "That ..." she hesitates, "what goes on tour stays on tour. I think he had to go on his path."

She remembers the night a girlfriend rang her with news of Hutchence's death in a Sydney hotel room, and then flying in to Australia for the funeral five days later, a hot summer afternoon, the casket piled high with brilliant blue irises. "Typical," she says with a small, wry smile. "I had so many first experiences thanks to Michael - and this was my first funeral."

Life has dished up a good few more experiences since then, including a brush with her own mortality: "I have never felt such terror," she says of her cancer diagnosis. She took a year off for treatment. "My mum was with me most of the time; I don't think she could let go, and I didn't want her to."

She is free of cancer now - as free as you can be - and of the medication she took for five years after treatment. She has been a generous ambassador for breast-cancer charities, credited with raising awareness of the disease among young women.

"Breast cancer really affects your sense of femininity," she says, "and how desirable you feel. And there's still a little bit of that, because I'm not what I was. But I pulled myself together and I'm no less attractive to my current boyfriend than I would have been before cancer."

Minogue has lived in the same London street for 16 years - does she miss Australia? "What I miss most, apart from being on home soil, is being able to drive over to my parents' and have a cup of tea. But Skype and FaceTime are a blessing: I can keep in touch, see the changes in my nephews." Her brother Brendan has two sons and sister Dannii has a two-year-old: "His language is just going through the roof," she marvels.

And babies for Kylie? "Possibly," says the 44-year-old evenly. "Who knows? I'm hopeful and I'm realistic. That's how I feel about babies."

More immediately, her involvement in Carax's film has made her want to do more acting. "I'd had film projects that frankly would have been better if they hadn't happened, and I'd started to think that maybe there's a reason singing keeps me so busy," she says. "But Leos has reignited that little flame of desire. I'm a sucker for experience, I'm like a puppy: 'Hey, yeah, yeah, I'll do that.' "

At home with Roy Billing

Central casting ... Roy Billing at his Coogee apartment. Photo: Jacky Ghossein

Rachel Browne, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

One of the most familiar faces on Australian film and television screens, this former New Zealander thrives on his work. Which is just as well - at 65, he has never been busier.

He may be best known for his portrayal of slightly shady characters, but Roy Billing has a soft side.

While playing drug baron Robert Trimbole on the set of Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, he took pity on a stray cat he eventually took home to his Coogee apartment.

He did the right thing, having the animal's microchip scanned in an attempt to track down the owner, but this proved fruitless.

''So we ended up keeping her. Isn't she a beauty?'' he says of Minette, a long-haired feline who saunters about the living room with that air of nonchalance particular to the species.

Billing shares the flat with Minette and his wife, Linda Tizard, a former entertainment industry executive who runs her own business selling production music for film and television.

They bought the place 13 years ago before deciding on a whim to try the sea-change experience, buying a five-bedroom house on 1.6 hectares overlooking the Shoalhaven River on the south coast in 2001.

''We were going to have our city pad in Coogee and our country retreat on the south coast, but in the end it just wasn't practical,'' Billing says, taking a seat on the couch.

''We would find that we would go down there for the weekend and spend the whole time mowing the lawns or chainsawing trees that had blown over and it just became like a really expensive holiday house that we weren't using.''

They sold the house in 2007 and they have been happily ensconced in their art deco beachside apartment - formerly used as accommodation for ambulance staff and their families - ever since.

Coogee, he says, is central to his many interests. He loves the beach (''in summer I can just throw a towel over my shoulder and cross the road'') and enjoys fishing off the rocks. He's an ambassador for the Australian Turf Club up the road at Randwick and for the Sydney Swans over at Moore Park. An avid traveller, he points out that Sydney Airport is also a short drive away.

''It's all very convenient,'' he says. ''We travel a lot for work and pleasure, and with this place we can walk out and lock it up. We have a lady who comes around to look after the cat and we don't have to worry.''

Raised in Ruawai, a country town in the North Island of New Zealand, Billing likes to get back to his homeland regularly. He and Linda, also a New Zealander, also like to go to Chile, where his daughter, Kelly, works as an English teacher in Santiago. His son, Simon, tragically took his own life in 1995 at the age of 20.

He and Linda are pondering the idea of moving to a house with a garden for their retirement, but that doesn't seem to be on the horizon any time soon.

''It's interesting. I find that the older I get, the more work I get,'' he says. ''There is a certain attrition rate among actors, of course, but as a character actor, there are all sorts of different roles you can play.

''I seem to be busier now at 65 than I have ever been in my life. I've always worked regularly but Underbelly just gave me another huge boost.''

Television audiences have seen a lot of Billing this year, as Judge Jordan in Rake and as the archetypal colourful racing identity Harry Strang in the Jack Irish telemovies on ABC1.

Autographed copies of Peter Temple's Jack Irish books are on the coffee table in the living room.

''[Temple] is very pleased with the way it turned out,'' Billing says. ''We have been emailing each other and he was very happy with the character. That's always nice that you got it right.''

Billing has been ''getting it right'' for about 35 years, as a small collection of acting trophies on his sideboard attests. His voice-overs for Crimsafe's radio advertising campaign, which follows the concerns of an overprotective father with his daughter Kimmy, have lifted sales by 60 per cent since it started four years ago.

''It's this ongoing soap opera,'' he says. ''When Kimmy had the baby, I believe people sent flowers to the head office of Crimsafe. It's extraordinary for a radio ad campaign to have that much effect.''

Voice-overs and film and television work have afforded Billing a comfortable living, and he clearly enjoys some of the finer things - a painting by Fred Cress hangs on the wall and his library is extensive, with everything from Les Carlyon's The Great War to Harry Potter on the shelves of his study. An equally impressive collection of recipe books line the shelf in the kitchen.

Clearly a keen cook and an enthusiastic reader, he also has a passion for puzzles. A copy of The Sydney Morning Herald lies open on the kitchen table, where he has completed half the Target and will tackle the cryptic crossword after we leave.

He's also involved in supporting his industry as a spokesman for the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft and as a board member for the equity section of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

''I like doing those because it's putting something back into the business; I feel like I have got a lot out of it,'' he says.

Billing came to acting later in life, after working in advertising in New Zealand in his 20s.

''I was 30 when I started. I got offered a full-time job with a theatre in New Zealand and I jumped at it. A lot of my friends at the time said you're mad. They don't say that now.

''I took a huge drop in income at the time but it was something

I never regretted because I thought if I don't do this now, I'll never get another chance. My first professional job was in 1977 and I've never stopped working.''

Indeed, he has amassed 99 film and television credits in Australia and New Zealand since 1980, including The Dish, Rabbit Proof Fence and The Chronicles of Narnia. Television appearances include Packed to the Rafters, All Saints and Blue Heelers.

He's currently trying to get his life story down on paper in an autobiography titled Why Don't You Get a Proper Job?.

''It goes from New Zealand days right through, but I'm just wrestling with the dilemma of when it should finish. With an autobiography, when do you say stop?''

No doubt it will be a colourful read. As he observes, his midlife career choice has brought many benefits, not to mention the odd stray cat.

''It's a bloody good lifestyle. I get to do a job I really love, I get paid well for it and I get to have a lot of time off. What's not to like?''

Director mounting film on Gallipoli hero

David Wenham (right) will play journalist CEW Bean.

Garry Maddox, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

A roll call of Australia's leading actors is falling in line for a new film on the well-known story about Simpson and his donkey to coincide with the centenary of the Gallipoli landing.

The producer, Danny Mackay, is hoping to shoot the $14.5 million film early next year with a cast that includes David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Sam Neill and Don Hany.

Yet to be cast is an actor to play the young stretcher bearer who has become famous for bravely ferrying wounded soldiers by donkey in one of the enduring stories from the Gallipoli campaign that has taken on mythological status.

In the three weeks before he was killed by enemy fire, John Simpson Kirkpatrick courageously brought many injured soldiers from the frontline to the beach for evacuation.

Mackay said the filmmakers were establishing ''a solid ensemble'' of actors while finalising the last $5 million of fund-raising.

Simpson is to be directed by Peter Andrikidis, best known for The Wog Boy sequel, The Kings of Mykonos, and the TV dramas Underbelly and Bikie Wars, with a script by Sam Meikle, who has written for Home and Away, Neighbours and Wild Boys.

''It seems to be the story that symbolises the invasion,'' said Mackay. ''If Simpson had been an American, you would have had six versions by now … We just haven't had the chance to do it yet.''

Wenham will play the journalist C. E. W. Bean, with Bryan Brown as Major-General William Bridges, who commanded the 1st Australian Division at Gallipoli, Sam Neill as the field hospital's Captain Buchanan and Hany as the Turkish commander Ataturk.

While Mackay concedes there are gaps in what is known about Simpson's life, the script has drawn on research from the many books on the Gallipoli landing and the army's history unit.

Two TV projects are also planned for the conflict's centenary in 2015 - a Gallipoli mini-series for Nine and a Foxtel mini-series on the journalists who covered the landing.

 

 

Turkish commander Ataturk (left) will be played by Don Hany.

Vampire's after-dark escapade

Twilight's Robert Pattinson has arrived in Sydney for a promotional tour of Breaking Dawn - Part 2. Source: AAP

The Daily Telegraph reports

Drowning his sorrows or celebrating a reconciliation?

After flying into town on Sunday, vampiric heartthrob Robert Pattinson wasted little time in seeing the after-dark sights of Sydney, hitting Kings Cross once the sun set.

Following dinner at newish Greek noshery Apollo in Potts Point, the British-born stud arrived at Hugos Bar Pizza with a small entourage at about 11.30pm, according to our night owl know-it-alls.

Despite having to front a full day of media early yesterday, R-Patz "chilled out" in a sectioned-off area and before long was joined by a gaggle of about eight girls and bottles of Grey Goose vodka.

"He was just hanging and chatting to people over a few quiet drinks - it was far from out of control," said a spy.

"He seemed a bit tired. Some of the crew from the Black Keys were there too, I think, and the Madden brothers came by earlier."

US reports say Pattinson - in town promoting The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 - has reunited with love rat girlfriend and co-star Kristen Stewart after she was caught cheating on him with Snow White & The Huntsman director Rupert Sanders in August.

However our source stressed the 26-year-old didn't seem to be "with" any of his female admirers.

"They all seemed to be just mates. Nothing serious was going on. They all left about 1.30am," said the insider.

"He seemed in good spirits."

K-Stew, meanwhile, has become a hate target for Twihards the world over and is said to fear for her safety.

Rusty nails fans with political tweeting

Russell Crowe in The Next Three Days. Source: The Courier-Mail

The Daily Telegraph reports

Russell Crowe's decision to take a break from his regular exercise updates and tweet some support for US president Barack Obama has delivered the actor some not-so-friendly feedback with anti-Obama Twitter fans bombarding him to express their displeasure.

The actor, who normally sticks to documenting his daily workout regimen, attracted some mixed responses over the weekend when he wrote; "Villagers, I don't endorse politicians. Not my thing. However, Obama is the light & the future. Keep going towards the light. Put America first," adding; "Complex time for the world. America needs to continue the Global awareness that Obama has set. A healthy America means a healthy planet."

However the Oscar winner found himself targeted by some abusive Obama opponents who responded in turn.

"And you've just jumped the shark. Unfollowed," as well as; "You think he is the light? You are the dark on my movie screen, tv, twitter & everyone I know. Got your American Citizenship?"

"Nooooooooooooooo please stay out of politics. I BEG you. Too many actors say things that 1/2 their fans don't agree with."

"You have no idea what you just said, do you? Just 100%, Grade A, USDA Choice leftist bulls***. Typical Hollywood clown."

"Wow. What an idiot."

"You KNOW NOT THAT WHICH YOU SPEAK OF so please stop."

He tweeted soon after: "I'm going to leave all the abusive tweets up on my time line because I think it tells its own story", and "I'm 48 years old, a tax payer and a union member. I don't care if you don't agree with my opinion, I'm still going to have my opinion."

Meanwhile, Jack Vidgen joined in yesterday, tweeting "Go OBAMA!!"

Gravity of star power

Keith Urban: Happy to have snagged $3 million to appear on American Idol.

Craig Mathieson, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

Ed St John has visited Los Angeles numerous times during the past two years, and with each trip the veteran Australian music-industry executive follows the same plan: he drives up and down Wilshire Boulevard visiting the managers who look after some of the world's leading singers, and then he ventures up into the hills to meet their famous clients and offer them a new career path.

St John, who has previously overseen the Australian arms of several multinational record labels, is a casting consultant who has become a specialist in a new field: matching successful musicians to the television shows that crave their status, their experience and their celebrity. His marquee client is Channel Nine's The Voice, the hit reality singing show whose June finale drew a staggering national audience of more than 3.2 million people.

A major element in The Voice's breakthrough was the wattage of its judging panel: expatriate Nashville superstar Keith Urban; Australia's adult pop princess Delta Goodrem; Joel Madden, the frontman for American pop-punks Good Charlotte; and British balladeer Seal. As a group, they were strong enough to carry the show's launch marketing; as individual coaches they won over vast ratings.

''On The Voice, the coaches are the stars of the show,'' St John says. ''You're watching as much for what they say as what the contestants sing.''

Whether the discipline is singing or cooking, reality competition series have become some of the key television franchises of the past decade. One of the things that almost invariably separates the champions from the cancelled is the impact of the collective who pass judgment.

''It's very difficult for a show to work without the right judging panel,'' says Margaret Bashfield, who as executive producer of MasterChef Australia is able to rely on the trio of food critic Matt Preston and restaurateurs and chefs Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris.

''When you watch a show you want to enjoy the interaction between the people you're watching, and that's the special thing we have with our three boys.''

But as the genre has evolved there's been an escalation - slow at first, swift in the past few years - in the composition and cost of judging or coaching panels. Some people in the televisions business call it an arms race, and it went nuclear in 2011.

That was the year The X Factor here in Australia replaced shock jock Kyle Sandilands with former Spice Girl Mel B (Melanie Brown), who brought a large degree of likeability and 75 million album sales to the series. Brown went on to co-host another Channel Seven show, Dancing with the Stars, and her presence on The X Factor alongside Irish singer Ronan Keating added significant importance to the judging panel, which was then raised further by the launch of The Voice in America.

"There's always been a certain sort of person networks and production companies have booked for talent shows and without wanting to insult any of those previous people they aimed their sights a little lower - people with an industry background or who used to be a star," explains St John. "What changed is that there was a decision made to step it up and bring in superstar level talent."

The US version of The Voice put the multi-platinum likes of pop singer Christina Aguilera and Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine in those spiffy revolving red chairs. That show's success, and the boost it provided to its judges' careers, meant that Ed St John was taken very seriously when he came calling on behalf of the local production.

''Part of it is that even the biggest music acts have to be broader in what they make their money from; they don't make it from record sales like they used to,'' he says. ''Part of it is that these shows don't damage the artist's credibility and, in fact, they introduce them to a huge new audience.''

A recent two-year stint on American Idol reinvigorated the career of Jennifer Lopez; Britney Spears is being paid $US15 million to sit alongside Simon Cowell on The X Factor; and chefs who successfully judge can find their reservation book quickly bulges. But those who assemble the panels insist you have to do far more than merely connect famous names.

''Machiavellian TV producers can cast as much as they like, but unless there's genuine chemistry there, unless something happens that transcends the sum of the parts, it doesn't work,'' Channel Nine director of development Adrian Swift says. ''You also have to cast for personality - in our case we had Delta, Australia's sweetheart, Keith was our professor, Joel was our clown, and Seal was our alpha male.''

Bashfield says her crew's MasterChef casting stories are ''legendary'', both for the number of people and mixes tried and the ease the chosen trio shared in front of the camera. ''It was extremely obvious when the right combination was found,'' she adds.

Still, issues remain in getting stars in the show's field to become nationally televised judges.

The medium's demands can be taxing, and the newly elevated can sometimes become overexposed as they grab every subsequent opportunity.

Just how rarefied the celebrity air prospective judges have to breathe might soon become known. The Voice has to replace Urban, who was so impressive he was poached to sit next to Mariah Carey on American Idol, and Channel Ten is rumoured to be opening next year with an Australian version of the successful British spinoff MasterChef: The Professionals. The names being bandied around to host the latter include superstar international chefs Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal.

St John says the dream team of potential music-show judges includes Robbie Williams, Rihanna and Michael Buble.

''I've made the trip to Katy Perry's manager's office several times and he's very nice about it but they say no to everyone,'' St John says.

But does the desire to net a Buble mean that mere experts no longer have a chance to be cast regardless of ability? Bashfield is adamant that if Preston announced himself now, he would still make the grade.

But former Australian Idol judge Ian Dickson, a record company executive who did the first of his five seasons on the show in 2003, doesn't believe he would get a look-in these days.

''I doubt it,'' Dickson says. ''Putting an unknown, slightly jowly 40-year-old British bloke on a judging panel was a big call, but that was 10 years ago. The judges have to have star power now.''

Still, the judge who successfully built the ''Dicko'' brand from scratch believes the securing of big names is just a trend, albeit a very expensive one with no end in sight. At a certain point, Dickson says, the viewing public's taste in judges will move on.

''The second someone breaks from the pack and does something different and it works,'' Dickson says, sounding just like a television show judge, ''I'll guarantee you everyone will think we no longer need superstars.''

Off schedule, over budget: is new Mad Max film in trouble?

Mel Gibson in Mad Max 2.

 

 

Garry Maddox, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

Australian director George Miller's road to making a new Mad Max movie is proving hazardous. Hollywood studio Warner Bros is concerned enough about the production of Mad Max: Fury Road veering off schedule and over budget that it is sending a representative to the set in Namibia.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, studio head Jeff Robinov flew to the African set a few weeks ago to evaluate the fourth Mad Max movie, which had fallen at least five days behind schedule.

It has now dispatched producer Denise di Novi to the set as ''the eyes and ears of Warners''.

Robinov told The Hollywood Reporter he is optimistic the production, which has a budget of more than $100 million, will still wrap on schedule in November.

Fury Road has been shooting in Namibia since July with Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) taking over from Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky. Charlize Theron has shaven her head to play the one-armed villain Furiosa.

With only limited film services and infrastructure, Namibia was always going to be a challenging place to film. It was chosen after consistent rain, which made the desert too green and covered with flowers to pass as a post-apocalyptic landscape, twice delayed filming at Broken Hill.

Almost a decade ago, Miller came within weeks of shooting Fury Road in Namibia before financial issues and the Iraq war intervened.

Before heading to the set earlier this year, cinematographer John Seale told Fairfax he was excited about what Miller was planning.

''This one I swear won't disappoint,'' he said. ''It's going to be a very deep and meaningful film as well as an astonishing action film.''