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Young Director Participates in Feature
A filmmaking course offers aspirants a chance to helm feature film.
21-year-old Dagan Herceg (pictured with actress Arabella MacPherson) enrolled at Participate Film Academy (PartyCp8) to see if his lifelong passion for film went further than the posters on his bedroom wall.
After mucking around with a camera for a couple of years, Herceg decided to apply for the filmmaking course based at Australia Technology Park in inner city Sydney.
Participate Film Academy gives students the chance to make their own feature length, professional-grade film and is the only school in the world to do so.
Students write, produce, direct, shoot, edit, promote and release an original 90-minute feature during the course that spans over one year.
"I didn't even bother to apply to any other courses, Participate was the only one I wanted to do, because it's so hands on," says Herceg.
And the Academy did not fail to deliver the hands on experience that Herceg was after. Dabbling in everything from editing, lighting and even learning to wire camera cords, the students had a go at everything."We didn't get much sleep this year," Herceg laughs.
For the main part of the year, students work on their major assignment, a feature film. After auditioning for the staff, Herceg has taken the spotlight as director of the romantic thriller Horizon Crossing.
Having aspired to be a director, he jumped at the opportunity to helm his own feature film.
A film described as a love story and psychological thriller blurring the line between imagination and reality, Horizon Crossing is the story of Abby played by Arabella MacPherson who is haunted by the voices and visions of two lovers, Theodore and Marie. Developing an obsession to save them, Abby begins to slip away from her own partner Tomas, with her increasing emotional distance and bizarre behaviour straining their relationship.
Participate Film Academy has turned out four films to date, including last year's Sweet Marshall, 2008's Green Fire Envy and the inaugural year of the school production, Battle Therapy, which was delivered in two versions, comedy and drama.
Each member of the small class, which this year included 8 students, works together on the same project after taking classes from industry pros, such as Tony Tilse (Underbelly). Interestingly this year's class started with closer to 20 students enrolled, but "people just found it too demanding," Herceg explains.
That's the crux of Participate; even though it gives you the opportunity to have your name up in lights it requires hard work, reflecting the reality of the film industry.
Horizon Crossing will premiere on May 26 and the students are struggling to meet deadline, always having something to tweak or reshoot, and Herceg is mindful that they need to set aside a couple of months for editing.
Fingers crossed everything will come together nicely and Herceg and his fellow classmates will have a film credit to their name. Whether it gives them a push into the industry or not is yet to be seen but for now Herceg says that "it's a massive plus to add to the resume."
Even though it was more challenging than he ever imagined, Herceg has enjoyed every bit, and by the end of the course he will surely know whether his passion for filmmaking lies any further than his bedroom walls.
For more on the Participate Film Academy, head to their website.