by Dov Kornits
What are your inspirations as a filmmaker?
My inspirations are many. I am a film lover; I really do live and breathe movies on multiple levels. Whether it’s writing, producing, directing, casting or even acting myself, I find it all very rewarding. When I fall in love with an actor, I like to go back in time and watch their entire catalogue in order, not only to see how they’ve progressed as an actor, but also to see what decisions they’ve made in their career, and whether that hurt them or not. I do the same with directors. Recently I fell in love with Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy and Beyond the Black Rainbow. I’m huge on movie soundtracks and very much like the work of Nicolas Winding Refn. Both filmmakers use music as a large character in their stories and I resonate with that. At least half of my films are accompanied by a theme song and music video. I love the cross referencing of the medium too. I’m also a huge fan of the action figure and movie memorabilia and can be a real nerd with such things. I try to keep the child-like spirit alive and it helps me to stay on track.
There are a number of Australian filmmakers that cite the not-long-ago coined Ozploitation films of the ‘70s/’80s. Is that an inspiration?
When we talk about Ozploitation movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s, I must admit that at the time I was more interested in American B-movies and exploitation ones. My first job was, in fact, at a movie warehouse as a late teenager, and I had access to all of the VHS tapes one could get. We supplied films to all the video libraries so I really was a kid in a candy store, including the preview tapes, so we would watch movies before they even hit the cinema here. I always felt like my movie Tomboys (2009) would have sat perfectly next to movies like I Spit on your Grave. It really was inspired by these types of cult genre exploitation films. Recently an American distributor put out a 2-disc Blu-ray with 4 of my genre films on it titled ‘Ozploitation Massacre’, and even went as far as to make 100 limited edition VHS tapes of my work! So that was loads of fun to be a part of.
How do you go about financing your projects?
When you’ve been making films for as long as I have, the readily available crew, equipment, locations, facilities and even actors, becomes second nature. It doesn’t have to cost a lot if you’re smart about the process. The big costs come in post production. For example, a 5.1 sound mix is very costly, if that’s what you’re intending to do. In the past, I have had private investors, even distributors themselves putting money into my projects, and more than once my own money. However, I do work in the low budget/low risk area, so this doesn’t hurt me, as I’m passionate about making films regardless of their – if ever – financial success.
Do you have any particular strategies in place for getting your films to their intended audience?
As far as strategies are concerned, I think in this day and age, if you don’t have a deal with Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime or any of the big streaming platforms then you’re in trouble. For me, I’m a very sentimental filmmaker so the fact that some of my distributors still have the power to get films released on DVD and Blu-ray anywhere, is a real treat to me. Mostly now, that is done by pay on demand. I think this is more reasonable considering most of the physical media opportunities in stores are almost obsolete. For an independent film, once you’ve barcoded it and manufactured your 1000+ units, and they sell out, then it’s over. I’m a big fan of pay on demand as your title can stay on there for as long as you/the customer wants it.
Do you hope to one day work with a sizeable budget, and what would that bring, good or bad?
I do wish to be hired one day to work with a sizeable budget, not just for my own personal gratification, but to deliver an exact vision. By this I mean to serve the vision of a story in its truest form, and not a watered-down version because of the budget constraints. The one time I got very close to making this a reality with one of my scripts, my lead actor died, only days before the shoot was to begin and this left a big scar on me personally. I slowly came back, making lower budget projects to essentially climb back up the hill, no pun intended.
You can say that with big budget movies come more responsibilities and more drama, but as they say, no pain, no gain. I think I’m more ready now than I’ve ever been to tackle this sort of opportunity. The movies I’ve made so far have been one giant learning curve. In fact, it was Producer friend John Hipwell (Mad Max) who recently said to me, “The apprenticeship is over Hill, time for the big one.”
Do you have regular collaborators, and if so, is part of the fun collaborating as much as the finished product?
I don’t have regular collaborators in a broad sense. The one or two loyal team members that work on my films often would be Jamie Murgatroyd (Composer), Alex Scott (Art Director), Nick Levy (Screenwriter) and I quite often go for a female DOP. I do like to mix it up and work with new people because it keeps it interesting. Also, because of the fact that timing is so hard, most of the times my guys are overseas working on something else. And sometimes depending on the genre of the movie, it speaks or calls for different crew people. I’d say with actors I’d be lucky to cast someone twice, ever. The exception being Jane Badler. My catalogue is broad in a casting sense and I like to keep it that way. I never want to bore with the same faces.
You’ve done a fair amount of acting – was directing initially a way to give yourself roles, or vice versa, and can you expand about what drives you to keep creating?
In the beginning, all I wanted to do was direct movies. I really believe it was a calling of mine. However, when I was in high school, the only thing that I was ever really good at was English Literature and Drama Studies. So naturally I attended all of the drama classes and ended up getting most of the lead roles in school plays as an actor and that’s where my roots lie. In the past, when I wasn’t able to finance a movie on my own, I would choose to act in other people’s movies and through my agent found that I could make good money doing commercials. My methodology was, if I can make money out of an acting job then I could invest it back into one of my projects that I wanted to direct.
The fact that I’ve acted in about half of my own feature films comes simply from budget constraints and sometimes because I ‘could’ act in a role that suited. I am realistic though, if the character is not believable as me playing it then I never do it. We have to go back in time to when in the early 1900s, if a stage performer wrote a play, they were generally expected to act in it also, to convey their story through their eyes for the audience. That’s kind of how I’ve worked. However, I am very much looking forward to the day when I have a bigger budget and I can simply just direct a movie. Definitely putting all of the energies into ‘one’ job is how I think you get the best product. So far, I’m probably like a small piece of butter spread out over a large piece of bread, which is not always the best choice. I am very realistic though, I’ve never big noted myself and I’m very honest with the boundaries of low budget filmmaking and what someone can expect when they embark on these types of endeavours with me.
What’s next?
In the next 12 months every movie I’ve ever made is being released on some form of media, or being re-released. My first ever film, SOV, from 25 years ago has just been made available on DVD to purchase, and my most recent film I, Portrait is currently at the tail end of post production. I was recently speaking to a colleague at Screen Australia who mentioned how cool it would be to do a commemorative box set of all of my films as I’ve just completed directing my 9th feature film.
