By Lleyton Hughes
In an interview with Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival director Greg Dolgopolov, Jaggi attributed his recent success with the Netflix series Dive Club and films such as This Little Love of Mine to the pandemic.
“This Little Love of Mine … was the first film in Australia to go back into production during COVID. And when the press release went out about that … within 24 hours I got an email from Netflix … asking how quickly I could go into production [for] Dive Club,” said Jaggi.
“And so, COVID’s been really good for us because it’s been our opportunity to break through, whereas as a small Australian company, we wouldn’t have been able to break into that market.”
Jaggi took full advantage of the opportunity that had presented itself and completed a full season of Dive Club and produced three more films with his company, The Steve Jaggi Company.
“Last year, in the space of six months, we made three movies and a 12-part high concept series,” Jaggi told Dolgopolov.
Jaggi attended the Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival in June to screen two of the films that his company produced during these six months including This Little Love of Mine and Kidnapped.
An excerpt of the interview with Greg Dolgopolov is below.
As a film maker, you’ve had your hands in a whole load of different areas; you’ve edited, you’ve directed, you’ve produced, you’ve written. Anything you haven’t done?
“It’s very kind of you to say that; I wouldn’t say I do any of those roles really well. My career started when I was in the UK and I got into film by accident and started off working in film sales and also film financing, and so I was very fortunate to come into it from the business side of things … most of the global international sales companies that sell films and finance films actually operate out of the UK, not out of LA. It’s confusing, the commissioning is out of LA, but the cheap money is usually out of Europe because of tax structures and whatnot. So, I had the opportunity to work on that side of filmmaking which gave me a real overview of the business side of it and at that point I then decided to go to film school and figure it all out.
“I’ve been very fortunate over the last 10 or 12 years to work on a range of projects and I have dabbled in directing here or there, but very much my focus has been on returnability, in terms of being able to build a company and be able to make a living from this. The first couple of years I was really dabbling around, trying to figure out how to crack that, but certainly as I move more and more forward, I really have just been focusing on producing and then most recently show running.
“I just did a TV series for Netflix called Dive Club. It’s on 10 Play at the moment. So, channel 10 were our local commissioner, and it’s a Netflix original series for the rest of the world, and I was a show runner on that.”
Tell us a little bit about Dive Club. It’s set locally, in far north Queensland, shot there, and the world of diving…
“Yeah. Aimed a little bit younger, but it’s about four young women out on the reef on a fictional island, so set in Australia but on a fictional island off the coast of Queensland, and they dive for treasure on the reef and a cyclone comes in, one of their friends goes missing and then they find her phone a few days later and it turns out that she may have been murdered. So, murder most foul. Over the course of 12 episodes, they have to unravel this mystery of what happened to their friend, and in the meantime, of course they’re still having to deal with all the hot boys that are on the island and all their teen problems that you deal with.
“I’m very proud of it. And the great thing is, even though … it was my first series, coming from a film making background, we shot it like a movie. So single camera, it’s very cinematic, it’s very Netflix, it’s not like broadcast television.”
You were saying something about the look of it, can you tell a Netflix production without knowing it?
“Oh, 100%, yeah. It’s shot on film cameras as an example, the lenses. Again, we had film directors and not television directors. The great thing with working with Netflix is structurally we didn’t have to adhere to any rules, so we really were able to structure the story out the way we wanted to.
“It was amazing working with Netflix, because they loved the concept, and were like ‘Okay, go make the best version of this’. They protected the creative vision rather than meddling with it.”
So, you came up with the concept, what was the process then?
“Yeah, it was hard. Breaking into series is like breaking into movies but ten times as hard so I came up with the concept, I had to hire writers, I had to cashflow development myself which is very expensive. We went and pitched it, everybody said no to it. We then shot a teaser, which we then went out and Netflix were kind of interested but still passed on it. And the reason they were passing at this stage was the teaser looked great and we had the director we wanted to work with and whatnot, but I had no experience, my company had no experience in series.
“And then COVID hit, and we were in lockdown in Brisbane, and nothing was happening and then it looked like the COVID restrictions were going to ease here, and we actually went into production on a film pretty quickly, This Little Love of Mine, was the first film in Australia to go back into production during COVID. And when the press release went out about that, I got a phone call, I kid you not this is what happened, the press released went out, within 24 hours I got an email from Netflix asking how quickly going I could go into production Dive Club.
“Dead serious. Because what happened was globally nobody was making anything. And as soon as we proved that we could go back into production, the fact that I’d never made series before…”
Didn’t matter?
“I’m sure it mattered but it was the second … the machine needs content. And so COVID’s been really good for us because it’s been our opportunity to break through, whereas as a small Australian company, we wouldn’t have been able to break into that market.”
So you really need to gear up? So hang on, talk me through the logistics. You’re making This Little Love of Mine? And all of a sudden you’re going into pre for a 12 part series?
“And we had two other films after. So last year, in the space of six months, we made three movies and a 12 part high concept series.”
