Cara Nash
Having earned many a fan creating some killer gaming parodies on the web under his pseudonym “Timtimfed”, Michael Shanks considers YouTube to have constituted his “film school” of sorts. “It’s the best playground for weird ideas and concepts that don’t necessarily have a place in any other platform – and of course it’s so accessible, both as a creator and as a viewer.”
And he’s taken another one of his “weird ideas” and transformed it into a series that has just been picked up by SBS2. The supernatural comedy, which Shanks co-wrote with his friend Nicholas Issel, follows Jack the Wizard who’s fed up with the Magical Realm’s obsession with fantasy warfare and decides to migrate to Melbourne’s Western suburbs. In order to assimilate, and fearing a backlash, Jack swears off using magic all together, which proves problematic.
If this crazy premise is sounding pretty topical, that was never the agenda. “The show draws some pretty obvious parallels to hot-button political issues and regardless of what side your flag flies I think you’ll agree that these hard-hitting ideas are best explored in a zany, supernatural comedy series about a silly wizard… The core concept of the show relies upon Jack migrating across realms so naturally there are some real-world parallels, but that was always incidental to our agenda – which was to make dumb jokes.”
As well as writing, directing, composing the film’s music and co-creating the special effects (“I haven’t left my house for the 36 weeks of post-production and I think I’m now legally classified as a vampire!”), Shanks also headlines the production as Jack the Wizard. Around him, he’s assembled a cast of emerging and established comedians including Mark Bonanno, and industry legends like Guy Pearce, Bruce Spence and Samuel Johnson.
“Guy and I know each other from some music video projects we’ve worked on,” explains Shanks, who directed Pearce’s music video “Storm”. “People like Bruce and Sam, we essentially just reached out to, and were as surprised as anyone when they agreed to come on board. It’s been fun taking these guys and casting them in some weird roles – Bruce plays a dead, alcoholic wizard who’s trapped in a living oil painting whilst Sam Johnson – the quintessential Aussie voice – lends his vocal talent to ‘Terry’, a talking shark-man.”
While Shanks has recruited some impressive star talent, he always envisioned the show as a web series to free up his artistic license and also to tap into his already existing fan base. “Our scripts didn’t have to be shaped by TV programming blocks, we could just write our episode arcs in the way that best fit the narrative. The concept alone is probably too goofy for a feature film so short form 15 minute type episodes seemed the best.”
Luckily, Shanks found a very receptive fan in Screen Australia and the writer/director was one of seven recipients of Screen Australia’s Multiplatform Drama grants. “I think because we’re all very precious artistic types in a business based on creativity, you really expect for the keepers-of-the-keys to be sinister, soulless suits making me write sibilant sentences. In reality, they were sold on the series because of its quirks and they were so comfortable with us doing the weirdest, least typical stuff in the show.”
While the show has been picked up by SBS2 (“a great payoff”), this multiplatform funding remains crucial for giving these projects legs in the first place. “They’re too strange to exist in conventionally high budget spaces, yet impossible to achieve on no money at all,” Shanks says. “Through the funding of Screen Australia, we were able to employ so many hard working, young Australians working in the creative trades and together we’ve made some content that has the potential to have a really wide appeal… Amongst weirdos.”
The Wizards of Aus will premiere on SBS 2 over three nights from Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 8.30pm. The entire series will also be available via SBS On Demand immediately following its premiere night.
