rob innes

Short film: 12 minutes, comedy

Director: Rob Innes

Writer and Producer: Luke Stephens

Main cast: Luke Stephens and Alinta Chidzey

Editor: Aleck Morton

DP: Chih-Kuang Tu (Sean)

Synopsis: Firing your personal trainer isn’t as easy as it seems, especially when he’s as committed as Pete is.

Festival selections: Kahbang Film Festival 2013.

Film’s website: http://www.couragethefilm.com/

Check out the Facebook page by clicking here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Courage-short-film/279561202111059

Music video

Band: Crossing Romeo

Song: No Need For Names

Label: Independent

Director: Rob Innes

Producer: Rachel Jessica Tan

Director of Photography: Hugh Turral

Editors: Vince Bufalino and Nick Kozakis

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Crossing Romeo Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/crossingromeo

Live TV talk panel show discussing topics surrounding the AFL Dreamteam and Supercoach competitions.

Season 2, complete with 22 episodes, is now finished. You can find replays of the shows on the Footy Tragic website (link is below).

Director: Rob Innes

Producer: Steven Greenwood

Airing: Thursday nights, 9pm, Channel 31 Melbourne

Link: footytragic.com

Short film: 17 minutes, drama

Director: Rob Innes

Writer & Producer: Rachel Jessica Tan

Director of Photography: David Williams

Editor: Aleck Morton

Music composer: Simon Watt

Art Director/Production designer: Tess Tickle

Cast: Rachel Jessica Tan, Alfred Nicdao, Amanda Ma, Kate Williams, Grace Tanner, and Judy Johnson

Shoot location: Melbourne, Australia, and Singapore

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Synopsis: Evie remembers her Father playing guitar to her when she was young, and the special bond they shared throughout her childhood. When he leaves the family unexpectedly, it takes her all her teenage years to deal with his absence, until she’s finally ready to reconnect with him as an adult. She journeys to Singapore to find him and rediscover the bond they once had through the love of playing guitar.

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Film official site: foreviethefilm.com

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2452090/

Like the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ForEvieTheFilm

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Awards/Screenings

ACS Victorian 2012 Awards: Silver in the ‘fiction short film’ category

[twoseveneight] is an online video magazine showcasing the independent arts scene, ranging from filmmakers to musicians, artists, comedians, writers and all that fall in between. Created and produced by Britta Drevermann for ‘The B Side’.

I’ve directed video segments for issues 1, 3, and 4.

Check out the site and current issue at twoseveneight.com and the Facebook page.

Irresponsible Service of Alcohol (ISA) is a trailer for a web series that was entered into the 2011 Movie Extra Webfest competition. It finished as a top 15 finalist.

Writer, Director, Producer: Rob Innes

The Series

Irresponsible Service of Alcohol is a comedy series about Tom, who after being cut off from his parent’s money fund gets his first job as a bartender at his local pub. When Tom starts he has never had a proper job before, let alone worked in a pub filled with such a crazy mix of people. The staff, who range from the bitter and twisted bartender Max, to the customer service focused straight laced Tony, to gossip queen Katrina, to the Sherlock Holmes wanna-be security guard Harry, and to the chef who is referred to as Warlord for the way he runs his kitchen, all lend a helping hand (or not) in trying to teach Tom the skills of the job. But Tom is more interested in winning over the affections of Erin, whom he instantly falls in love with. The requirements of the job and the situations he finds himself in only work as obstacles in his path and he soon discovers that if he is to keep his position and have any success with Erin, learning how to deal with everyone is a lot more difficult than trying to just pour a beer.

Project page: http://www.substationmedia.com/2011/09/09/irresponsible-service-of-alcohol/

ISA Web Series homepage: isawebseries.com

ISA trailer -watch here:

Irresponsible Service of Alcohol -trailer from Rob Innes on Vimeo.

ISA bonus scenes 1: Meet The Cast

ISA- Bonus ‘get to know the cast’ scene from Rob Innes on Vimeo.

ISA bonus scenes 2: Bar’s Closed

ISA presents: Bar’s Closed from Rob Innes on Vimeo.

TV talk panel show discussing topics surrounding the AFL Dreamteam and Supercoach competitions.

Rob Innes: 1st AD, and episode director

Airing: Thursday nights, 9pm, Channel 31 Melbourne

Link: footytragic.com

5 minute short film. Co-production with ‘pick me up productions’.

Official festival screenings: Dungog Film Festival 2011

Written and directed by Rob Innes

The awkward moment when you have to meet up with your ex and swap your house keys back…and realising that breaking up with them was definitely the right choice.

Project page: http://www.substationmedia.com/2010/12/03/sandwich-2010/

Watch full film:

Sandwich (short film) from Rob Innes on Vimeo.

14minute short film

Official festival screenings: Dungog Film Festival 2011, Made In Melbourne Film Festival 2011, Comfy Shorts June 2012

Written, Directed, and Produced by Rob Innes

Peter is on his way to his first overseas trip, Maddy is on her way home from her latest trip, she’s a seasoned traveller. The city is just a stopover for Peter, but for Maddy it’s her last grasp before returning to the realities of home. She takes him under her wing, teaching him the way to travel without a map, to be spontaneous, and to live in the moment, because when you’re travelling, that’s all you have. A film based on the strong bonds and connections travellers make when on the road with each other, experiences that light up like sparks, and end just as quick as they start. Travel doesn’t always go to plan, and sometimes when it doesn’t, it can be the time you remember most.

Project page: http://www.substationmedia.com/2010/07/17/one-moment-2010/

Trailer:

Full film:

One Moment (short film) from Rob Innes on Vimeo.

I’m directing a new short film called Burn. It’s an action/martial arts film, based around a team of assassins who are on a mission to rescue a hostage, but are double-crossed by a team member. We’re aiming to do some pretty special stunt and fight scenes, and have lined up a talented cast and crew. We’ve got everything from guns, blood, candy glass, to explosives, sparkies, and even an Uzi! Should be a load of fun.

Director: Rob Innes

Writers: Clyde Boraine and Rob Innes

Producer: Clyde Boraine

Action Director: Paul Andreovski

DOP: Tom Savige

Editor/VFX: Matthew Smith

Cast: Clyde Boraine, Desmond Chiam, Tomoki Miyamoto, Melissa Urbano

Armorer: Paul Nortan

I’ve been commissioned to direct a corporate promo video for a health food company, further details to follow.

Director: Rob Innes

Producer: Rachel Jessica Tan

Camera/Colour grade: David Williams

Sound: Nick Brocklehurst

Editor: Rob Innes and Vince Bufalino

Shoot: Early March 2013

Delivery date: First week of April 2013

Projects/scripts in development as of January 2013

Please contact me for further information, or to register your interest. Scripts are available on request when completed, and are available to be optioned.

TV/Web series

Irresponsible Service of Alcohol

Playing North

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Short/Feature films

2x feature film scripts (titles TBC)

Paradox (short)

The Giant Tree (short -based on the short story by Amy Han)

Hotel (short)

Guilt (short)

Itinerary  (short)

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Books/Novels

1x title in early stage (related to solo backpacking)

Feature film in development

Screenplay by Rob Innes

Director: Somchay Phakonkham

I recently received a production grant from the online competition site Mofilm, to produce a video entry for their Unilever brand competition. The brief is to create a 60second doco style TVC interviewing kids from 8 to 12 years old on their thoughts and ideas around sustainability. This was a dream brief for me, especially as I’m a firm believer in sustainability and listening to our younger generation. We shot the video last week, and have almost finished the edit process, and I have to say it’s looking very special. Directing kids for an unscripted interview was a challenge, but probably more challenging was having to go through the full legal process of employing children in the state of Victoria! We were very lucky to land a great group of 8 kids, and then their parents were amazing and kept a positive and friendly attitude all day on set. The rain held off (mostly), and we had plenty of help from our crew who willingly gave their time up. The TVC mixes the interviews with cutaways to the kid’s own drawings about the environment, the kids hanging their drawings up at a playground, and then some special animations over the drawings to bring them to life. I’m really excited to submit this video to the competition, and hope that the judges and people at Unilever feel as positive about it as I do! I’ll post further updates once the video has been submitted.

Special thanks to MP Talent who helped us cast our group of kids (Mia, the Agent and Manager, is a good friend of mine). mptalent.com.au

For now, here is the synopsis for the video that I created, and you can check out production photos at the Mashup Pictures Facebook page: facebook.com/mashuppictures

Synopsis:

Young children are our future. In that precious age they are free to think, to imagine, to believe. When we talk about the environment, our planet, and sustainability children give all types of answers, all without the corruption that adult life brings upon them. We will ask children their thoughts on sustainability, what it means to them, how we should be treating the planet and our environment, what their ideas are for the future, and what they currently do at home to live a more sustainable life. We’ll then ask them to illustrate their ideas and thoughts in drawings, where they are free to let their imaginations give us a visual idea of what they are thinking, how they feel, and how they see the world. Children may lack the vocabulary to truly express their thoughts, but by including the pictures they can draw and express what it is that they want to say, and to also have a bit of fun with it too. These drawings will be used over the top of the audio from the interviews to paint a picture of what sustainability means to our younger generation.

Today I received some exciting news from the producer of a recent short film I directed called Courage, that the film has been selected for its first film festival over in the U.S! The festival is the Kahbang Film Festival, and we’re very happy to be screening there. The festival runs in Maine during August, and they will be releasing their full program very soon. Exciting times. Sometimes all it takes is for one festival to pick your film up and suddenly the invites and selections start to come flowing through a little more steadily. I’ll update this with more information as further details are announced. This was also the second film to be co-produced by the production company I recently started with Aleck, and now including our producer Anita.

After several months of development, I’m very excited to announce a creative collective founded and directed by Aleck Morton and I, with Anita Rozankovic-Stevens lending her skills as a producer. We’re looking to use Mashup Pictures to produce creative work that interests, inspires, and excites us, from a whole range of different projects. We’ve already got short films and a music video done, and now looking to continue to build our film portfolio further, and we’re working on an exciting event for 2014. Mashup Pictures will look to develop projects internally, and be used to give us the chance to do the projects we passionately want to do. We welcome submissions from bands and music artists regarding their music video requirements.

Check out our first website at mashuppictures.com

I’ve just directed and produced a video for the Genero.TV competition to make a music video for The Barenaked Ladies. Check out the video here, where you can watch it, comment, or like it on Facebook.

http://genero.tv/watch-video/35969

The video was a lot of fun to make, and marks the first music video made under the banner of Mashup Pictures, a creative collective I’ve started with Aleck Morton.

I first heard the song when I had just signed up to the Genero.TV website, and wanted to have a go at one of their music video competitions. As soon as I heard the song Boomerang I instantly started seeing images of two people spending time apart, but only to end up at the same point, and then repeat the process. After working out where to shoot, David (the DOP) and I went on a location scout down The Great Ocean Road in Victoria, and to the towns of Torquay and Lorne. I already knew a few of the spots I wanted to get, but this helped us visualise some of the shots and lock in exactly where each scene was to take place. A story started to evolve for the video, and I wrote a shot list that would capture that story we wanted to tell. Only a few days later we trekked down there again, but this time with cast and camera gear in tow, and within one day we managed to shoot the whole video -which was quite a shoot! Leaving my house at 7.30am, we returned just after 7pm at night, and had shot at over 10 locations within the day, including a motel, cafe, and on a bus. Special thanks goes out to the Sandridge Motel in Lorne, Kafe Kaos in Lorne, and McHarry’s Buses (based out of Geelong). It’s now up to the band and the judges at Genero.TV to work out if the video is worthy of being a finalist, and then a winner. We wait with our fingers crossed, but if it doesn’t, we’ll be looking for a band to re-edit the video for as we’re all very happy with how it come up.

Directed and produced by Rob Innes
Director of cinematography (plus colour grade) David Williams
Edited by Aleck Morton
Cast: Isabella Jane & Josh Saks

Unfortunately the short film ‘Burn’ I was directing (along with Paul Andreovski) has been halted due to a pretty serious issue with the location, and now we are unable to finish the film there. The whole story was set around this one venue, so no we’re a bit stuck with a film that is one third finished, and nowhere to shoot it. Our team are putting our thinking hats on to see if we can save the project, and work in some new script changes to incorporate what we’ve shot already but move the rest of the story somewhere else. Adding to our list of issues are cast and crew availabilities (or lack of), such is the life of independent short film productions! If we’re unable to complete the project as a short film, we’re going to look at creating a high end trailer instead, and then using that trailer to raise interest and funding for a full feature length version. Hopefully a solution will present itself soon as the footage we already have looks pretty special and I was pretty keen to complete a short film, but then again, a feature film debut sounds very exciting!

The cast, crew, family and friends screening of short film Courage was a great success, with two screenings going ahead on the night due to the large numbers of people who attended. The film was really well received, and as always I really appreciated the support of so many people. Thankfully the audience laughed and giggled in the right parts, and everyone left the cinema with a positive vibe. I knew the film was funny from my point of view, but you never know how an audience will react to it, especially as Courage was never designed as a laugh out loud film, more of a dark comedy, something where you can watch with a smirk across your face during the whole film. Now we’re onto film festival submissions, here we go again.

Plus, there’s a poster for the film too! Check it out below.

There’s a new poster for short film For Evie, check it out below.

The new short film I’m directing, Burn, starts shooting this weekend (13th April), with five nights of late shoots. We’ve managed to pull together a very talented and crazy group of people for the cast and crew, and we’ll be using some even crazier stuff for a short film like guns, machetes, blood, candy glass, knives, fight sequences, explosives, and an Uzi. You wouldn’t have an action film without an Uzi right? Ha. All up we have six nights of shooting, five now and then the sixth in a few weeks time at a different location. Shooting on the Red Scarlett, we have our work cut out to make sure this film looks amazing. If you’d like to stay updated then please follow the Twitter account by clicking here.

Now that the short film Courage is finished, the producer (Luke) has organised a very generous cast and crew (plus friends and family) screening on Sunday the 7th of April, at the lovely Palace Cinemas in Balwyn in Melbourne, Australia. We’ll be projecting in full DCP, the new digital standard for cinemas around the world, and the test screening looked and sounded great. It’s not only an exciting feeling, but a nervous one, as it’ll be the first time we see the film in front of an audience and being that it’s comedy, I really hope people find it at least a little funny! It’s so much harder to make people laugh then it is to make them cry. We have now started the festival submission process, a process that is built with frustration, money, and then eventual happiness once you get that first festival selection!

It was around this time last year that something inside me clicked, it changed. Maybe it was my ‘Saturn returns’ kicking in as I approached turning 30, life was trying to tell me something and I realised it was a warning that at some point soon my film directing/production aspirations and my fulltime job as a talent agent would collide, and that I would need to choose between which one I wanted to pursue as a career. 2012 was a busy year for both career paths, and being able to balance them both became quite a hard task to do. I ended up turning down directing jobs as I ran out of free time, out of annual leave, and had committed to too many projects in my limited available time while I held down the fulltime agent job. It became apparent that the choice I knew was coming had already arrived, and that by putting it off I was actually just avoiding the inevitable, and that the delay was having a detrimental affect on both sides. Arriving at that point came like a solid hit to the head, it was like BAM and the crossroad appeared. There was no turning back, or buying of more time,  or anything else to think about. It ended up being a conversation I had with my boss at the time that in effect forced me to make the call earlier than I had planned because he had seen it coming too. He saw my crossroad and he knew I needed a little push. I’m incredibly grateful to have had that conversation with him because once I explained what I was feeling, he gave me some good advice and sent me away to think about it and get back to him. I mulled over the decision for a couple of days, do I quit my safe and stable job of nearly six years and throw myself into the great unknown to pursue something that has no guarantees? It’s a leap of faith, a feeling of letting go and seeing if you can fly knowing there’s every chance you will fail. Strangely though, the decision in the end was easy, of course I was going to take the leap! Crazy yes I know, but when presented with a moment like this, what else could I do? If I stayed the safe course then I’d always play the safe game, I’d die wondering ‘what if’, and forever the decision not to embrace the moment would haunt me. I know I would have been happy to remain a talent agent, but could I live with that nagging feeling inside me?

The choice seemed so natural that when I realised I couldn’t do anything else but quit, it was like a fog had been lifted from my view. But if making that choice was natural and in the end easy, quitting my job was not. Working as a talent agent is not like any other office job, it’s so much more than that, especially when you have just three fulltime staff in the office, they become like a family rather than people you work with. Then there’s the clients, you’re the guy in the corner for people who are sensitive and must deal with rejection on a daily basis. When everyone and the world appears to be against them, you’re on their side, fighting the fight. You feel the up’s and down’s with them, I didn’t know how it was for other agents but I felt so emotionally involved that I had to peg that back some days. Of course it wasn’t always like that, but the relationships I had formed were strong and I felt a passionate bond for so many of the clients that the thought of leaving them and not being in their lives was actually really hard to grasp. Funnily enough, it was them who understood my decision the most, because I was becoming like them. Living on a hope and a dream, following my passions, not knowing when the next job will come, and trying to maintain an unshakeable self belief. The responses from them, my boss and workmates, the general industry, and my friends and family was really heart warming and gave me a lot of strength in the decision.

There were good days and bad days in the four months between making the decision and my final date at the agency. Some days I would struggle with it, questioning and examining the decision, constantly fighting grand wars against my own internal fears, and always trying to remain positive even when my bank account suggested otherwise. Life is what you make it, and I realised that I’d rather regret not making the decision than regret a decision made that failed. I realised that if I worried about things like money etc or waited for the ‘right time’, I would always be waiting, the only right time is the time you do it! Sometimes if you put something so strongly out into the universe, it’ll be reflected back at you twice as strong. But if you want it, you first have to put it out there. As it’s often said there is no reward without risk, and hopefully one day in the future I’ll look back at this moment as the moment that changed everything. Fight your fears and go after what you want, surely there’s no other way to live right?

I’m going to write more on this new path in my ‘Changing Direction’ blog series, hopefully you’ll join me on this crazy new road.