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Producer Yingna Lu on festival strategies, applying for grants and building a slate
66 Plays1 month ago
The first episode of Breaking Screen features Yingna Lu of Spaceboy Studios, a creative producer who discusses everything from festival strategies for short films, to her advice when it comes to applying for grants and initiatives, and different takeaways from producing online series, short films, television and features.
Yingna has worked across a variety of formats - on online projects including the Instagram and Tik Tok series Love Bug, short films such as Voice Activated which premiered at Tribeca, television series including the second season of ABC’s The PM’s Daughter and films like the currently-in-development feature Keep Walking, which is supported by Screen NSW’s Short to Feature Fast Track initiative.
Yingna and Steve Anthopoulos co-founded Spaceboy Studios, which was a recipient of Screen Australia Enterprise funding in 2023.
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction & Acknowledgments
00:00:03
Speaker
to Breaking Screen, a podcast about the Australian screen industry and the creative people within it. I'm your host, Karis Buzaka, and I'm thrilled to welcome you to the very first episode of this podcast.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'm recording it from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and I'm very grateful to be a visitor and be able to work on these
Episode Overview
00:00:21
Speaker
lands. Always was, always will be. For the very first episode, we say inaugural?
00:00:29
Speaker
I feel like I can say that. So... Yeah, for this inaugural podcast episode, and know I'm going to give you a bit of a rundown of what to expect.
Guest Introduction: Ying Na Liu
00:00:38
Speaker
To start off with, a little news wrap with some of the headlines in the past fortnight.
00:00:42
Speaker
And then we'll jump into the interview with today's guest, who today that is producer Ying Na Liu. And we've got a fun little segment to end with called Pay It Forward, which I'll explain later.
00:00:54
Speaker
It's fine. Don't worry about it for now. Just know it's coming. I'll keep you in suspense till then. Also, a big thanks go out to Shara Parsons for the incredible logo design and to Seb, Sabotage, Gavrilovic for those nostalgic tunes.
Industry News Update
00:01:09
Speaker
Love an arpeggio. Okay, so first up is some news. I want to say breaking news, but as a former journo, none of this is technically breaking, but then again, it does sound nice.
00:01:21
Speaker
So when it comes to breaking news recently, there was a lot when it came to funding announcements. This first one is for all the genre and horror filmmakers. So the Wake and Fright Trust has, along with Umbrella Entertainment, Sanctuary Pictures and Actor, they've launched the Wake and Fright Development Initiative, which is $30,000 of funding and development support for a thriller or genre horror script.
00:01:47
Speaker
Entries are open to writers across Australia. They open on July 1st with applications closing August 12th. I just mentioned July 1st, also happening on July 1st, is the launch of the new Screen Australia guidelines.
00:02:02
Speaker
So these were announced at Screen Forever and more recently they held a webinar with Director of Narrative Content Louise Gough, who talked through some of the key changes. I listened to that webinar, which you can find on their website. It goes for around an hour.
00:02:17
Speaker
But some of my takeaways were how from July, the two narrative programs will be development and production, and they will be platform agnostics. So before you used to apply for online production funding or children's television drama, feature film production and enhancement, that's all just production funding now.
00:02:36
Speaker
For development, the story development generate and premium funds won't exist and instead it's all just one portal for development. Again, platform agnostic.
00:02:48
Speaker
So it seems online, TV, features, they're all being assessed against the same criteria. It's worth watching the webinar because there's a lot of specifics and there's also ah new documentary guidelines coming out as well.
00:03:02
Speaker
um But the guidelines are going to drop on July 1st. So yeah, looking forward to reading through them when they do. And just lastly, ah it is the 72nd Sydney Film Festival ah is set to open this week.
00:03:15
Speaker
Australian director Michael Shanks' feature film debut Together is the opening night. They've announced rom-com splitsville from Cairns as a closing night. And there's just a great lineup of Australian work with retrospectives like Muriel's Wedding, Somersault and Mullet.
00:03:30
Speaker
There's 10 docos vying for the Documentary Australia Award. Amy Wang's film Slanted will be at the festival. There's animated films like Lesbian Space Princess. There's a shark serial killer combo with dangerous animals.
00:03:45
Speaker
So there's plenty to see. It's running from the 4th to the 15th of June. And that's your news wrap up for now. Highly recommend heading over to Inside Films, Green Hub or any of the other trade publications for more.
00:03:57
Speaker
Now to chat with our first guest.
Interview with Ying Na Liu
00:04:00
Speaker
We're joined today by Ying Na Liu of Spaceboy Studios, a creative producer who's worked across online projects like the Instagram and TikTok series Lovebug, short films such as Voice Activated, which premiered at Tribeca, television series including the second season of ABC's The PM's Daughter, and films like the currently in development feature Keep Walking, which is supported by Screen NSW's short-to-feature Fast Track Initiative.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yingna talks to everything from producing those various formats to festival strategies for short films, her advice when it comes to applying for grants and initiatives, and much more. um So here's that chat.
00:04:39
Speaker
Music
00:04:42
Speaker
So the question that I'm asking everyone first is, you know, we talk about inciting incidents a lot in the screen world. ah What was your inciting incident in your career, do you think?
00:04:55
Speaker
I mean, like really going back to when I was a kid, I wasn't known for writing stories because particularly. It was something I really enjoyed, but I love to present them.
00:05:08
Speaker
I would sneak a little program under my sister's bedroom, which I've created myself, which would just talk about the production that I would be presenting to my audience of my sister.
00:05:23
Speaker
um And I remember just really enjoying the weekly handouts. Like I would give her this new program of a new story that I wanted to present. And usually they were just knockoffs of like,
00:05:34
Speaker
the Lion King or the Little Mermaid and it was just me reenacting them. So yeah, that was probably the origins of maybe my interest in wanting to tell stories.
00:05:45
Speaker
But I think it was in uni when I studied at UTS, the communications degree, and it was a film degree. It was a really practical film degree and everyone wanted to be a director and I just didn't have that same drive.
00:05:59
Speaker
And by the time we were doing our capstone projects, our final year masters delivery, everyone had their own projects that they wanted to direct. And I just opted out of that, ended up wanting to pursue more of the music side of things.
00:06:13
Speaker
But then people knew that I was good at organizing and then they pretty much told me do this final year subject, but don't actually do the subject, just produce our projects. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:26
Speaker
All the directors were like, yes, there's a producer in our midst. There's a producer in the midst. Exactly. And I think it came from me organizing all the parties and social events. And so they thought, okay, that's the same thing as producing a film. And so then I ended up being a producer.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah. So that was it. and why then producing? Did you just kind of fall into it because you were super organized and people wanted you to make their short films? Yeah.
00:06:55
Speaker
That's how I fell into it But what I really loved about it eventually was I didn't have the pressure of needing to mind my life to write a story.
00:07:06
Speaker
i could work with stories that came to me and I just so happened to have the skills of organizing and bringing everyone together and collating it all and also being really quite in tune with financially balancing projects as well.
00:07:24
Speaker
It just came it became clear to me that it fit my personality, but I also loved telling other people's stories. And I loved being able to pick out the gaps in a story and be objective and imagine I'm the audience. It's easier for me to imagine I'm the audience and you know, hearing a story for the first time than me needing to actually write down everything and mechanically make it work. Yeah. and okay, so you kind of are drawn to producing then. What are some of the projects off the top of your head? Can you reel off some of the ones that you've produced?
00:08:03
Speaker
Well, yeah, I have produced film, TV and a few things in between around the digital arena. So a TikTok series, a multimedia festival and a video installation.
00:08:16
Speaker
So these are the broad categories that I've dabbled in. um I started off doing music videos, short films, web series. So it was very much a lot of the short film content that we could self-fund ourselves or get crowdfunding for.
00:08:32
Speaker
There was a wacky dating series that really kicked it all off with my business partner and I, and that was called Wingman. That was a YouTube series. And then I went into drama interstitials with Matilda Brown and Brian Brown.
00:08:45
Speaker
And that got onto ABC and Presto, which was pre-binge era, part of Foxtel. um And a number of shorts, including a mother-daughter drama that's called Tangles and Knots and comedies like Voice Activated.
00:08:59
Speaker
And most recently, i produced the second season of PM's Daughter. Amazing. It's interesting, like looking across your kind of past work because you have done all of these different formats, um, which we will, we can get into that in a little bit because I would be interested to know like your thoughts on the, on producing in those different formats. But, um, how many of these projects were part of Spaceboy Studio?
00:09:27
Speaker
A lot of them initially was, as in it is, yeah, we've got a few projects that hark back to that first web series, ah few short form content that we applied under Spaceboy for.
00:09:44
Speaker
and various developments that we got some financial support from. So yeah, it's a mixture of stuff that I've created with Steve, but also projects that I've brought in with other directors that I've worked with.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah, okay. And so Spaceboy, can you tell me a little bit about it? Like when did it form? How did it kind of come about? What what kind of projects are you looking for?
00:10:11
Speaker
Spaceboy Studio, it began a little over 10 years ago with my business partner, Steve Anthopoulos and i It really kicked off when we started to put things into production,
00:10:23
Speaker
Mostly the studio was a means to access government funding and that was to develop projects just to get funding for writing. Then as we started to build up the credits,
00:10:35
Speaker
We decided to go full-time with it, particularly when we managed to receive the Screen Australia Enterprise funding last year. And that's when it became really, really evident that this wasn't just a hobby company anymore. It was something that we could...
00:10:53
Speaker
viably use and continue to sustain our career with. So yeah, the stories that we generally are drawn to are really attention grabbing stories that might be wacky, or they have concepts that are a bit sticky. And I really love trying to find ways to make these initially ah sticky subjects, sticky stories and find ways to make them accessible and commercial.
00:11:20
Speaker
And I'm also a sucker for rom-coms. So that generally tends to pass our slate. And relationship dramas between parent, child or lovers.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, I really love creatives who aren't afraid to be risque or dark. Yeah, definitely. And um yeah, love a good rom-com. Yeah.
00:11:44
Speaker
And so you started 10 years ago or so, but were you saying it was only really with enterprise that you've kind of been able to go really full time with this? Yeah.
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah. It's been part time since the day it started until about 2023 when we got the funding and then we could work into 2024 now a really hone in and fixate on our slate because it was just not something that we generated profit from.
00:12:13
Speaker
It was something that we got money for and then we ended up using that money completely on just getting the scripts done and um while we were still maintaining our part-time jobs and day jobs.
00:12:25
Speaker
And so then what do you think the hardest part of starting launching a production company is? Yeah, I think at the very beginning when you're trying to keep overheads really low, you are balancing development, which is keeping scripts going and finding writers with being in production.
00:12:45
Speaker
So the moment that you get greenlit or the trigger is pulled because we're getting on set, there's only two of us at this company. And so one of us does get pulled out and then the other has to keep up the biz dev, yeah taking the meetings, going to the markets, festivals and keeping in touch with writers or finding more writers, finding content that would love to produce and adapt.
00:13:11
Speaker
That's probably one of the hardest things. It's also about making sure, yeah, you do start a company with the right connections. And that means you need to have writers in your books. You need to have relationships with the agents of those writers.
00:13:24
Speaker
It's a big, big, big part of the puzzle when you're trying to build a slate. Yeah. Okay. And, and that's, um, that's like a period of years that you're slowly building that up until the point that you yeah can apply for something like an enterprise funding.
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, and like it came organically. It was just from the moment we left uni because I met my business partner at school at uni and then slowly needing to find more crew and then through those projects you end up building your connections.
00:14:01
Speaker
As a producer, you start to – you know, access agents to try and find cast and those kinds of relationships continue to build. And then you end up at markets like Screen Forever or events and conferences where suddenly you're meeting those agents that you've been emailing and then you have someone to finally talk to at those events. And then you start to build more projects and then you revisit those connections. And that's kind of the thing that,
00:14:31
Speaker
helps you to easily get a project up. And that's the biggest thing you're trying to do when you're getting a production company going is getting those projects up. Yeah, definitely. i mean, um like if you're fine with us talking about it, um ya called you um asking for some advice about something last year, which was that there was a opportunity to apply for something ah with a short film.
00:14:57
Speaker
And as a writer, I was like, oh, I don't think um the idea is ready yet, but like, I really want to apply for this opportunity.
00:15:08
Speaker
um Would you mind rap repeating what you told me when i said, what do you, what do you think I should do? I think that we've spent a lot of our early days as a business chasing those grants and pencilling in the deadlines for submissions, whether that be for talent labs or for government funding or for initiatives.
00:15:33
Speaker
And, you know, often we might find that we're actually eligible. There are times when we we look up an initiative and they're like oh, you've got to have two TV credits or something.
00:15:45
Speaker
And at that point in our career, we didn't. So then you just sort of cancel it out. But it's like instead of searching and being urgent about trying to find those grants, hone in on writing or getting that that story more developed and get it to the stage where you've got the scripts ready.
00:16:04
Speaker
And then it will just so happen that in a month, in six months or maybe in a year, which isn't that long in your grand scheme of life, like you'll find that there's something that actually is ready, is perfectly aligned with your projects that you genuinely developed and you genuinely know the story for.
00:16:26
Speaker
Because then when they ask you to fill in the development plan and to talk about your director's vision, or you talk about the market interests that you have to have attached, you've already been marinating on this project and maybe you've been talking to people already about it.
00:16:41
Speaker
that it will already have its own timeline that you can easily just plonk into the application and you don't have to fabricate connections that you have to attach at the last minute. Cause it's like, Oh, I don't have a producer. or Oh, I don't have, you know, a casting director that has good connections. And then I'll just quickly call someone and tell them, hey can you be attached and write me a letter of interest? It's like,
00:17:05
Speaker
These people were organically interested and invested. And anyone who's reading this application will already feel the momentum and realize, well, this is going to get made with or without me.
00:17:19
Speaker
I have no reason but to say yes to this project. And that was the biggest thing that I learned instead of trying to fashion something for an application. Just trust that there will be a grant for it.
00:17:33
Speaker
if you work on it long enough and you realize the characters well enough, then there is probably some weight and some leverage and therefore interest for it. and And there's probably also helpful in that, like when you were saying and you go to a market, like if you're doing that with a couple of different ideas and they're, you know, if someone says, oh, we've actually already got ah show that's about X, Y, Z, like what else do you have on your slate? You already have yeah the the next one like ready to go.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, of course. And that's something that we've learned. i think everyone hears this when they start in this field, whether it be through uni or through the first script editors or producers you meet. It's like, yeah, you always want to have a few things up your
Working Dynamics at Spaceboy Studio
00:18:19
Speaker
sleeve.
00:18:19
Speaker
Because i think people, if they get to know you and they really love what you do, they genuinely just want to try and find slots to to fit your work in. So of course, it's some matter of probability of having more in your back pocket than there's more likelihood of someone being interested in it. It's sort of math.
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah. But even before that, it's just, I can't even underline how important it is that when People are going to work with you. They're going to invest in you as a personality, as a person before they even read your log line and decide, oh, this is right for us.
00:18:55
Speaker
They want to be able to get in bed with you, so to speak, for the next however many years. And it doesn't matter if if it's one project or the next project, like the probability of any of these projects getting up is so slim that like you'll have a couple of projects that will collapse before you even actually make it to the finishing line with this contact. Like, so they're going to want invest in you more than the project. So have multiple scripts. Yes. But like, just get to know people first.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Building the networks, like you said, like yeah building a kind of group of people you actually want to work with. Yeah. Yeah. And it'll make networking so much easier when it's just about what people are obsessing about rather than what are they trying to make you buy? Yeah. yeah Yeah. Fair.
00:19:45
Speaker
And with Spaceboy, because you you were saying you're business partner earlier. So Steve steve's a is ah kind of creative, is on the directing side of things. Is that is that correct?
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, you know, we were able to present Spaceboy as this company made up of creatives who are producer, writer, directors.
00:20:10
Speaker
So we can generate our own material in-house. We can have scripts ready to go. We don't have to go out and find writers immediately. That's how we've set up. But now we're like very, very interested in trying to find more writers to add to the books.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, Steve is an all-rounder really. He started off in writing and then made a living in editing. And we both got into like the advertising and so he started directing and stuff.
00:20:42
Speaker
and Yeah, he's always been ah self-made filmmaker, so that makes you a producer and he's got the brains for it. So together, we like to strategize how our projects go from development through to distribution. And there's few of of our projects that he's written.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah. And... as a team, you know, you were talking about earlier, yeah things like funding applications or grants, things like that, and how you did kind of pencil them in the calendar. And you were saying that you're a very, very organized person. um i was wondering, like, how much do you plan ahead for these kind of, yeah, things that are happening throughout the calendar year?
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think the more that you've run through your year, the more that you're working in the industry, you already know in your mind where the big markets land. So the Screen Forever is going to be March, April, probably in the Gold Coast.
00:21:38
Speaker
Hopefully one day back in Melbourne. I really love it. Loved it when it was back then. But um yeah, and you start to know Content London's around December, you know that AFI is around end of year. So these are the things that we do have in our calendar. Once we set it in there, we sort of let it run routinely each and every year. So we sort of know when to expect it.
00:22:02
Speaker
We stay subscribed to newsletters so that they tell us if we forgot to market, it's going to be coming around and they'll be asking you to buy tickets. And yeah, the same with festivals, which are also the other thing to keep in mind whenever we're getting our films out, you just sort of know, okay, Cannes is going to be in February.
00:22:21
Speaker
In terms of the deadline for submissions?
Festival Strategies & Experiences
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah, like yeah in terms of deadlines for submissions, yeah. So these kinds of things we... do pencil in and we kind of once it's in there then it continues to roll every year yeah so the general public is like oh yeah Cannes like May that's when people go but in your mind you're like no it's February because that's when the submissions are due yeah yeah I mean more more prevalent than mine when I've got a project that's going through the festival route which is what I'm doing now knowing that submissions for Sundance were late last year like
00:23:00
Speaker
needing to hit those ones for our post schedules. Yeah. And so one of your shorts that did the film festival rounds and i think premiered at Tribeca was Voice Activated.
00:23:12
Speaker
Could you talk a little bit about how you planned out that festival strategy, how important it was for that short? Yeah, I mean, we knew that we wanted to get a good premiere for it. That's such an an important thing for any film production.
00:23:28
Speaker
This one, we were already attached to Sydney Film Festival because of the Screenability Fund. That wasn't a given. We still had to submit, but we knew that there was a pretty good chance of starting there and then that would take our world premiere, our Australian premiere, and then going through the rounds for MIFF Melbourne Film Festival. And at the same time, at that point in the year, we knew we needed to try and get into South by Southwest or Tribeca and hoping to get a good international premiere.
00:24:05
Speaker
that's Tribeca was one of the first international premiers that we received that we were lucky enough to get in for and that ended up becoming our North American premier or actually our New York premier.
00:24:20
Speaker
And so for anyone that's listening that doesn't know about kind of the premiers and how it works, could you explain that a little bit? Yeah, so festivals are all about trying to create buzz around projects, but also to bring in punters to watch films before they see it anywhere else, whether it be at other festivals or on the screens in cinema.
00:24:49
Speaker
And so it's really, really integral for them as programmers to try and be one of the first people to actually distribute or release the film to a certain audience. And so each festival usually does prioritise world premieres. And that means being the first country to screen it, even if it was an Australian film.
00:25:13
Speaker
We really love to look towards the big tier, the top six festivals to take on our world premiere, but it then localizes after that.
00:25:24
Speaker
It might be the first Australian premiere. Then there's the North American premiere, which means could be Canada or anywhere in America that could take your premiere and then offering the European premiere for Berlin, Rotterdam.
00:25:41
Speaker
Clément Ferran in France. So these kinds of festivals, you can sort of, you can sell that status to each of these different festivals.
00:25:51
Speaker
if you're lucky enough to be able to choose which ones you can go to. yeah because there's some that only take a world premiere or something like that as well. Yeah, I think ah certainly there's requirements.
00:26:06
Speaker
Sometimes they they need you to be the North American premiere. Even locally, if you're looking at Queensland and there are certain festivals that they need to be the first Queensland festival to be screening your film, it can go quite state-local.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so obviously it's um something that you need to be able to strategize because if you've got multiple festivals that are running up against each other, you know, we had our film be accepted to Cleveland first, but then we heard back from Tribeca and they were running pretty much a few months apart from each other. And we started to think, oh my gosh, we really want to go to Tribeca, but Cleveland, we've already accepted Cleveland and these kinds of conversations you have to really take seriously.
00:26:53
Speaker
um And we ended up saying that we'd like to screen at Tribeca, but we wouldn't want to go against our word of going with Cleveland.
00:27:03
Speaker
And then it turns out Cleveland and Tribeca programmers are friends anyway, and they both love each other's selections. So Cleveland kind of gave us the blessing to go with Tribeca and still be screened at Cleveland. and So it ended up becoming a really great
Short Film Storytelling
00:27:19
Speaker
situation. Amazing.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah. And so it goes to show like be upfront with the festival programmers and they know how competitive is, but also know that they're all probably talking behind our backs anyway.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yes. that They all know each other. They know each other in the sense that, yeah, that they're talking about which films are great and It's a small industry. Yeah. And um yeah, so we were talking earlier about the different formats that you've worked in. So shorts, television. Yeah. Would you be able to pull out some examples and talk to maybe some of the things that make working in that space unique to that particular format?
00:28:04
Speaker
Maybe starting with more of the online projects. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, its something I probably haven't tapped into in the last few years, but it was such a big part of how we started our slate, you know, built our first projects in the online sphere.
00:28:22
Speaker
Working with Steve, it was a really, really good chance to tap into it. direct audience communication interaction. This was 2013, 2014, and YouTube was a different space. And we use Reddit quite a bit, and that's also a different space now. But it really taught us about how reactive people are and being able to create self-contained episodes so that we can distribute content.
00:28:50
Speaker
but have it come back to a story that had an overall arc as well. And so that was the first lessons that of building short form, short series, and to some degree how long form TV worked.
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, so knowing that we needed to make the right choices in other publications, online distributions, tastemakers that could really speak to the project and help to push it along, the early influencers, which were basically bloggers and having the right articles be released. and And we were trying to straddle the online community with also our own industry contacts, trying to make sure that this was a good calling card for us as creatives, but also serving the online community with stories that had clear intentions and constant conflict intention that would
00:29:44
Speaker
carry the episode forward within five to ten minutes yeah which is a good setup then for when you moved into tiktok storytelling I suppose yeah that was your experience of reactive kind of but oh my gosh things then yeah lovebug was initially ah facebook series it was just on facebook lovebug was a project that I did with a really talented writer a director Imogen McCloskey And she created the first season and then that got the attention of Screen Australia.
00:30:19
Speaker
I think it had about 30,000 views on basically around the Facebook community because it came through the AFTRS online group. So Screen Australia got wind of it and asked us if we would like to consider a second season. And then we applied for funding and ended up getting it to create the second season, which was initially actually framed to be an Instagram show.
00:30:42
Speaker
and that was early days when Instagram was thinking about getting vertical shows up This was just before stories really became a thing, just definitely before reels.
00:30:53
Speaker
So that was an interesting exercise because it was a story about dating and the apocalypse. And also how to deal with a breakup when you can't even talk to people in real life. It was during COVID. So it was a bit of a pandemic show, but that was an Instagram show initially. And then it didn't quite work. The algorithms just weren't set up for people to watch things that had an overall arc. It needed to be more bite-sized. It needed to be more episodic.
00:31:23
Speaker
And so we decided to reformat it and try its hand at TikTok, which at that point was, yeah, still relatively new to this kind of narrative show.
00:31:35
Speaker
And it didn't always work. It was just about understanding how the process could be. And now this is all really old school. I think there's like all these different ways storytelling on TikTok now, but Yeah, so we tried our hand at TikTok and isolated a few of the episodes, made it more topical, and then just hit the audiences and tried new things. And it was a constant like rework of what the but content, how it could land, how it could reach audiences.
00:32:02
Speaker
which, you know, if it it can feel like this is still, I'm sure, a work in progress of trying to create anything narrative like that on these kinds of platforms. um Yeah, like it has it pros it has its pros and cons.
00:32:16
Speaker
ah Yeah. And so then, you know, pros and cons leading into another format. What's unique about something like a short film that separates it? Is it really just like a mini feature ora Is it its own unique kind of beast?
00:32:34
Speaker
I personally see it as a very contained story that is a snapshot of life, an excerpt of a mood. I think a lot of the time people do try to create bigger stories than what people's attention allows for.
00:32:54
Speaker
Not because a 15-minute film won't work or a 25-minute film won't work, i think it's just needing to be super discerning about how you've set up that story in order for it to land in whatever time period and voice activator was an interesting example of a film where there was a beginning middle and end and so there was a there was a three act situation in the short and so there was a big payoff and that felt like that's why succeeded in the sense of being able to create a sense of real conclusion and therefore pathos
00:33:30
Speaker
I certainly think there are some really great movies that just center on one one single, singular idea. Like one of my films, Tangled or Nots, is about the breakdown of a relationship when a mother gets close with her daughter's friends.
00:33:46
Speaker
And it's just diving into a ah sticky relationship and understanding the feelings and how that lands when you just center on like that one singular concept or emotion.
00:33:59
Speaker
So as I've said, I guess I've told you two ways that a short film can function, which is like a short capture of something or, you know, a three act structure mini feature.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah. So I guess the answer is it can serve in both ways. It just needs to be really considered. You need to have many drafts to really ensure that you're telling it in the correct way.
00:34:23
Speaker
And also I feel like in what you were talking about there, it's also like what is the goal of the short? Like what is it it is it a proof of concept that you want to like expand on or is it really like something that's very self-contained?
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah. Look, like even on that note, we've got proof of concepts which feel like an excerpt of the feature. but then we've also got proof of concepts that have completely different stories and completely different – characters and set in a different period but it's thematically the same so you're actually showcasing the director or team and how they can tackle this kind of subject matter ah yeah it's like what's the kind of purpose behind it what are you wanting to achieve yeah in addition to making a great story um yeah it goes without saying for sure i think um
00:35:18
Speaker
It's just understanding if you're going for funding for proof of concepts, needing to show why there's doubt on the feature to begin with or the show, what is it that you haven't been able to showcase in your reel that you can try and do with a bit of small investment?
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah. And so then um moving on, television, features, what kind of stands out to you? um think with television, someone said to me recently it's kind of like the middle point between advertising and feature films.
00:35:52
Speaker
And i agree? i've I've come from advertising, so I've learnt so much stakeholder management through that, and so that's what I do carry through to my TV work.
00:36:05
Speaker
And yet it's not quite, there's a bit of freedom, I think, in creating a story with a first-time feature director, for example. But that's different when you've got first-time TV
TV vs Feature Film Production
00:36:18
Speaker
directors. I think there's just a little bit more that you've got to prove.
00:36:22
Speaker
o Because you are, I think, no matter what, it comes down to how much budget is getting invested in. If it's a small investment, then there's a little bit more freedom to create. try new names and new faces are at least a little bit more reassurance that it's not going to be too big of a ah money.
00:36:41
Speaker
so maybe the appetite for risk is really dependent on what the budget asks. Yes, for sure. Look, and also it's more than advertised, like TV is closer to features in that it's a longer story.
00:36:55
Speaker
and we've seen over the last, ten years how features can be adapted to become TV. So there's that room to explore and to expand in on worlds and to really dive into multiple storylines. That's a beautiful part of long form and it's fast paced.
00:37:14
Speaker
We definitely shoot a lot very quickly, which is in some ways closer to commercial. You can really be a lot more, I think, considered with your time um maybe in feature filmmaking.
00:37:28
Speaker
depending on the budget, obviously. Okay, Karis here. obviously Obviously, it's my voice. um Jumping in, ah but recorded a long time after this interview was made, ah just to talk about this little segment that's coming up because I didn't do it in the interview.
00:37:43
Speaker
um It's call pay it forward. Essentially, each guest is asked a question from the previous guest. Yingna is the first. So I just ask her a regular question.
00:37:55
Speaker
But Yingna comes up with a question which will be played in our next episode for our next guest. ah So here is Pay Forward. So the last segment of this.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah. So unfortunately you are the first person. So I can come up with. Yeah, okay. You hit me with the Karis original.
00:38:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pay It Forward Segment
00:38:20
Speaker
So my question for you, because apologies, you are the first person to be doing this, is what genre is,
00:38:31
Speaker
of storytelling would you love to work in that you haven't already worked in? I reckon I think I would love to really go for a solid tropey rom-com.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah. Like even on top of that, I think it'd be fun to do a Christmas rom-com for sure. I wouldn't mind a good Christmas comedy. And the reason why is because i never grew up with Christmas And it was something that came to me later in life.
00:39:02
Speaker
And so I've got this like warped view of Christmas and I think I could really tell a good version of it. Yeah, yeah. I love that. Watch this space. Maybe man Christmas movies in your future.
00:39:16
Speaker
Absolutely. I'm keen. Well, i will leave it there. But thank you so much for chatting today, being the first guest on this podcast. Really appreciate it. popped the cherry.
00:39:28
Speaker
i I've been revealed. This is probably, don't have many podcasts in my day, as in I don't have experience too much of being on a podcast. so thank you so much for having me.
00:39:42
Speaker
That was producer Yingna Liu and a big thanks to her for joining us on the very first episode of Breaking Screen. If you liked this episode, please hit that subscribe button and leave us a review. We'll see you in a fortnight.