by Anthony Frajman
25 years ago, the Wachowski siblings’ game-changing, Aussie-made sci-fi, The Matrix was released in cinemas.
Following its release, the feature would become studio Warner Bros’ highest grossing film of 1999, taking over $460 Million. It remains ingrained in popular culture. The Matrix left an indelible mark on sci-fi, transformed VFX, helped launch Australian effects studio Animal Logic overseas, and arguably opened the door for Hollywood productions to regularly come to Australia.
Dedicated Australian crews, and the distance of Sydney from Hollywood, gave the Wachowskis increased creative freedom, and Australia became key to the success of The Matrix.
“So many things had to come together,” recalls Andrew Mason [left], executive producer of The Matrix, and a producer of Dark City, Boy Swallows Universe and Lee, who played a key role in getting the project to Australia.
“It was difficult to greenlight it, because it just didn’t fit easily into any of the (typical studio film) categories. The greenlight process at a studio is naturally complicated. It usually involved all of the foreign departments of that studio estimating what revenue they think that film can generate in their territory. So, if it’s outside the square, then those territories can be conservative and then the numbers don’t add up”, Mason says.
While The Matrix had strong support from Warner Bros executive Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who had already approved budget for VFX tests, the film was nonetheless considered a risk.
One key figure who helped enormously in getting the film made, was Greg Coote, the founding president of Village Roadshow, and who was a big early supporter.
“(Greg) read it because Lorenzo gave it to him, and he was a fan. And he was ready to push (The Matrix) as a project that they would take on when they started Roadshow.
“There was an agent I knew at ICM who represented the Wachowskis, (Jeff Robinov, future WB President). He took an exec job at Warner Brothers,” Mason recalls.
“He called me – his Friday afternoon in LA, but a Saturday morning here – and I was at my kids’ softball. He said, ‘I’ve got this script that people here have trouble understanding. Let me send it to you’.”
After reading The Matrix, Mason was immediately excited by its potential.
“At that point, we were in late post production on Dark City, and I’d also read Andrew Niccol’s The Truman Show before it was bought by Paramount and set up with Peter Weir directing… But this was a quite different take on the ‘what if everything isn’t real’ puzzle. We’re in the second half of the nineties, clearly a period when the zeitgeist is focussed on the nature of reality…
“I called Robinov back and said ‘you could do that here in Sydney, and he said ‘ok, come on over and talk to the Wachowskis’.”
Despite the many jigsaw pieces, The Matrix had finally begun to come together. Mason fondly remembers his first meeting with the Wachowskis [below].
“It seemed like we all got on famously because we had many of the same heroes from the comic book world. I suggested that they should come to Sydney and have a look. The Wachowskis came out and we introduced them to a bunch of potential heads of department, and gave them a short sharp tour of possible locations in Sydney, as well as a quick look at facilities on the Gold Coast.”
While unfamiliar with the laidback Australian style of filmmaking, the Wachowskis quickly became convinced they had their location. “The (Warner Bros) chairman said (at a meeting after), ‘what do you think?’ Larry said, ‘Well, Andrew has convinced us that Sydney’s the filmmaking paradise of the world’,” Mason remembers with a laugh.
The Aussie dollar to US dollar exchange rate had reached a peak at the end of 1996, but during 1997, while these discussions were underway it was still hovering around 75c, so the equation still wasn’t attractive enough. But Mason had been able to initiate an investment strategy for the production of Dark City which Warner Bros were interested in utilising again.
“I got knocked back for Dark City’s qualification under division 10Ba of the Australian tax act.”
Qualification would have allowed investors to benefit from tax concessions… The authorities said that it wasn’t Australian. “Although I argued this was science fiction, and straight out of the twisted brain of Alex Proyas, an Australian, they still denied it. So, I read all of Section 10 of the Tax Act and thought, ‘Hmm, that division 10B looks interesting’. And I worked out what I thought was a way in which investors could still have a useful tax concession. I also sought advice from legal mastermind Ian Phillips, who was at (top law firm) Allens at the time (now Chief General Counsel for News Corp),” Mason recalls.
When I relayed all this to New Line (the studio funding Dark City, and part of the Time-Warner organisation), they brought in an expert in these deals, and the result was that New Line were able to share risk with local investors.”
So, when considering whether The Matrix could be made in Australia, that same structure was an important element in reducing the risk for the studio.
The positives were lining up: making The Matrix in Australia would be more efficient in operations than in the US (partly because of differing union rules); there was an advantage in the currency difference (which would actually get even better through 1998); the investment structure would help reduce risk; and Village Roadshow were coming on board as co-financiers.
As to the question of the local skill set – “the Warners production people had all seen Dark City, and they all said, ‘oh, well, clearly the team is present to do this level of work’. There was one particular person who needed to sign off on the plan and that was a bloke by the name of Steve Papazian, who was the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Feature Production.”
It was another incredible Australian connection which got The Matrix over the line.
“It happened that Papazian had been with Warner Television in the past and he’d been overseeing productions with Roadshow, Coote and Carol when they were making TV in Queensland for Warner Brothers. So, he already knew the capacity of production teams in Australia, and when he gave his blessing, it was all systems go,” Mason recalls.
Since the project had to qualify under Division 10B, Mason urged a conservative approach to ensure the Australian requirements were met – and in the process managed to create an additional reason to keep the major production roles in Australian hands.
“Nobody actually understood what you had to do to qualify under Division 10B. I thought it best if I was the only conduit to the Department of the Arts and the studio agreed. With that more cautious approach in mind, Mason pushed to limit the number of non-Australian personnel coming to work on the project.
“I figured, of course the Wachowskis would want to work again with Zach Staenberg, the editor from Bound, and Bill Pope, who was their cinematographer, but the rest of the production team could certainly be found in Australia. So, Owen Paterson was hired as production designer, Kym Barrett as costume designer, Steve Courtley and his team to do the special effects. Glenn Boswell as Stunt coordinator, David Lee the sound recordist, Ray Brown and team for grips, Reg Garside and team for Electrics, and so on.”
Mason also pushed for some of the visual effects work to be undertaken in Australia. “Peter Doyle and the team at D-Film had done splendid work on Dark City, and Animal Logic (started by old friends Zareh Nalbandian and Chris Godfrey) had an amazing combination of gifted designers and technical genius. So, this whole group of people got to work on the film partly because the studio and everyone accepted, we needed to ensure the production was very Australian. Worked out rather well really.”
Another figure who played a key part in The Matrix, and had an Australian connection, was American producer, Barrie Osborne (whose resume included Apocalypse Now – production manager, and physical production of many large productions following).
“Barrie Osborne had been lined up to do a different project but that fell over, and he was suddenly free, and Steve Papazian said, ‘Barrie’s available and Joel [Silver, producer]’s okay with him’. Barrie already had a huge reputation, and I knew that he’d been the physical producer on the ground during the making of Rapanui with Kevin Reynolds directing, which was made on Easter Island and had a predominantly Australian crew. Everyone went slightly mad in that production – that’s a whole other thing.
“He knew and loved the idea of Australian crew. And he had great connections in the Hong Kong action industry. The Wachowskis knew the work of all those people, they knew Yuen Woo-ping’s work backwards. Barrie was an important part of bringing that team into the equation.”
With production set to go in Australia, the location provided other advantages which had a huge effect on the Wachowskis. One of those benefits being that the siblings had additional creative freedom.
“The Wachowskis were very happy to be here because they understood pretty quickly that the distance to Sydney would result in reduced supervision. Joel Silver was the producer. But Joel was also somewhat occupied in LA making Lethal Weapon 4. Because that film had a super tight release date, they overlapped shoot and post, and delivered the film barely six weeks after the end of their shoot. By then, The Matrix shoot was already halfway through. All of which contributed to the relative independence the Waschowskis enjoyed.
“You couldn’t have executives on set every day, and I think that was a blessing for Larry and Andy, who trusted in us and trusted in not just the visual effects crew, but all of the Australian crew to take on something that was really a very big Hollywood movie,” Zareh Nalbandian [left] says.
Mason believes making the film in Australia lent it renegade energy, one he believes rubbed off on The Matrix and contributed hugely to its success.
“Once production got rolling, everyone was excited to be working on the film,” he recalls.
“I’ve always been a believer that you cannot hide the on-set vibe in a film. This set had a kind of joyous, rebellious vibe. There was that sort of feeling of being allowed to do something without the teacher in the room. That’s able to be felt in the final film. And, it wasn’t just (because we were in) Sydney, it was the attitude of everybody working on it: ‘wow, how cool is this? We get to do this?’,” he adds.
He recalls the Wachowskis themselves were incredibly collaborative and focused at all times.
“They had each other to talk to. They tended to have worked out things in great detail already, whereas often many of those conversations would happen between director and head of department. But they were constantly discussing with each other and refining ideas in advance.”
“They were very laid back. They were incredibly focused. They had a very clear vision. It’s just who they were. No unnecessary conversations,” Nalbandian remembers.
