Aaran Creece
Insights from Australian Filmmaker Aaran Creece on starting out, longevity and horror in film.
16.11.18
16.11.18
Aaran what got you into filmmaking and what is about Filmmaking that is so special?
This is both an easy and hard question to answer. I got into filmmaking because of my dad. Peter Creece loved movies. He was a big fan of Marilyn Monroe’s and he loved musicals and comedies from the 50’s and 60’s. I think it was dads love of movies and his overall knowledge about the actors, directors, writers, costume designers that initially sparked my interest. We bonded over film. As a young kid we watched a lot of films together. When I was a teenager I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. At one stage I thought I was going to be a Policeman. Then I went to a few open days at various colleges and Universities. The course I was drawn to the most were film and television related. I wasn’t old enough to go to the Australian Film, Television & Radio School and I didn’t have what it took creatively to get into Swinburne, which is now VCE in Melbourne. Instead I applied for a course in Applied Arts Film Television & Audio Production in Wagga Wagga. This course and college is now part of Charles Sturt University. My family lived in country Victoria and back in the late 1980’s there were very few film and TV courses so this one was perfect for me and I was lucky enough to be accepted. After graduating I moved to Melbourne and was able to get work at the ABC. This is where I met a guy by the name of Darrell Martin. We got on like a house on fire. He was a cameraman and I was his assistant. At the time I met Darrell he and a bunch of his mates were making a low budget comedy horror film called Dawn of The DMF’s. It was about, you guessed it Zombies. He was making this film on weekends around Melbourne and needed volunteer crew. I was out there helping faster than student at an all you could eat buffet. Darrell and I have been friends ever since and he shot MUSCLECAR. In my professional career I have worked on a lot in television programs but there is nothing quite like film to get the creative juices flowing. For me movies are special for a whole range of reasons. I love stories and throughout human history we have told our stories verbally, through the written word and in pictures. Films or movies do all of that and have become the way in which we tell our stories. For me a film has a magical quality. I remember dad telling me about the first time he saw the Wizard Of Oz and how the film starts in Black & White and then when Dorothy finds herself in OZ and she goes through the door of her house and the film transitions from Black & White to Colour this blew his mind. For me that moment happened when my Grandmother took me to see The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad. I was amazed at the special effects and what I know know to be the work of legendary visual effects artist Ray Harryhausen. Although what really blew my tiny mind and started a lifelong love of Sci-Fi happened in 1977 and was called Star Wars. I will never forget how it captured my imagination by taking me to another world and another Universe. Thats the power of film and thats why I think it’s so special. |
What is your take on the horror genre? What is your favourite classic horror movie?
I love horror films because collectively we love to be scared. Horror means a lot of things to a lot of people. There are ‘jump scare’ films like ‘Paranormal Activity’ and there are gory horror movies like ‘Saw'. I suppose the only type of horror film I’ve grown out of are the full on gory films like ‘Hostel'. Torturing people for me isn’t scary. A good horror film has to capture your imagination and in many ways you have to almost insert yourself into the situation. Thats why Zombies films just keep on giving. People like those end of the world films where society has shut down and now everyone has been turned into a Zombie. Well I guess not everybody. I haven’t seen a film only about Zombies and no people. Horror films are often a reflection of how society is feeling at the time. That sense of the end of the world and isolation. It’s been part of our storytelling lore for 50 years. Just look at ‘Mad Max’. Horror films connect with us on both an emotional and intellectual level. There are some great horror films out there right now. Just bear in mind many horror films are R Rated for a reason. It’s not so much that they’re gory, (we all know it’s a film right) but some films can hang around in your mind and permeate your nightmares for weeks even years after you’ve seen them. If you want to see a great take on the Zombie genre watch ‘Train To Busan’. Its a Korean film that was huge a few years back. Both ‘IT’ and ‘Get Out’ offer something old and new in the horror genre and ‘Hereditary’ is very creepy. I loved the ‘Conjuring’ sand ‘Insidious’ series of movies but then again I enjoy pretty much anything by Aussie filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Then there are films like ‘The Purge’, which take horror to the streets and offer that dystopian world view that things just aint quite right. Did I happen to mention the ‘Final Destination’ series or what about ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street’, the original not the remake oh and how could I forget ‘Halloween’. I think horror has the ability to stay with you and create long lasting memories that enter popular culture. Even Jaws was a horror movie. Even now people know that music even if they haven’t seen the film. I love the horror genre and even now there are some great series coming out on Netflix and various SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand) platforms worth tracking down. But what about my favourite horror film? Well there are a lot that I love for a wide variety of reasons. Alfred Hitchcocks ‘Psycho’ and ‘The Birds’ are brilliant thrillers that took horror to a whole new level of 60 years ago. The great Stanley Kubrick took the horror master writer Stephen Kings novel ‘The Shining' and created a haunting masterpiece. Who could forget the elevator full of blood, the dead naked corpse in room 237 having a bath and the great line from Jack Nicholson as he puts and axe through the bathroom door behind which his wife and son cower and then he growls the line ‘here’s Johnny!’ But my favourite horror film, and at the time when it came out it wasn’t very successful is John Carpenters ‘The Thing’. He created some of the best horror films of the 20th century including the original Halloween, The Fog, and Christine. It’s ‘The Thing’ that is without doubt my favourite horror film ever. If you haven’t seen it then its on Netflix. No excuses for not watching this. A bunch of scientists working in the arctic suddenly find themselves trapped and infiltrated by an Alien that takes on the form of anyone it comes into contact with. Some top notch gore effects, brilliant cast and its a fantastic psychological thriller to boot with an ending even William Shakespeare would have been proud of.
I love horror films because collectively we love to be scared. Horror means a lot of things to a lot of people. There are ‘jump scare’ films like ‘Paranormal Activity’ and there are gory horror movies like ‘Saw'. I suppose the only type of horror film I’ve grown out of are the full on gory films like ‘Hostel'. Torturing people for me isn’t scary. A good horror film has to capture your imagination and in many ways you have to almost insert yourself into the situation. Thats why Zombies films just keep on giving. People like those end of the world films where society has shut down and now everyone has been turned into a Zombie. Well I guess not everybody. I haven’t seen a film only about Zombies and no people. Horror films are often a reflection of how society is feeling at the time. That sense of the end of the world and isolation. It’s been part of our storytelling lore for 50 years. Just look at ‘Mad Max’. Horror films connect with us on both an emotional and intellectual level. There are some great horror films out there right now. Just bear in mind many horror films are R Rated for a reason. It’s not so much that they’re gory, (we all know it’s a film right) but some films can hang around in your mind and permeate your nightmares for weeks even years after you’ve seen them. If you want to see a great take on the Zombie genre watch ‘Train To Busan’. Its a Korean film that was huge a few years back. Both ‘IT’ and ‘Get Out’ offer something old and new in the horror genre and ‘Hereditary’ is very creepy. I loved the ‘Conjuring’ sand ‘Insidious’ series of movies but then again I enjoy pretty much anything by Aussie filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Then there are films like ‘The Purge’, which take horror to the streets and offer that dystopian world view that things just aint quite right. Did I happen to mention the ‘Final Destination’ series or what about ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street’, the original not the remake oh and how could I forget ‘Halloween’. I think horror has the ability to stay with you and create long lasting memories that enter popular culture. Even Jaws was a horror movie. Even now people know that music even if they haven’t seen the film. I love the horror genre and even now there are some great series coming out on Netflix and various SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand) platforms worth tracking down. But what about my favourite horror film? Well there are a lot that I love for a wide variety of reasons. Alfred Hitchcocks ‘Psycho’ and ‘The Birds’ are brilliant thrillers that took horror to a whole new level of 60 years ago. The great Stanley Kubrick took the horror master writer Stephen Kings novel ‘The Shining' and created a haunting masterpiece. Who could forget the elevator full of blood, the dead naked corpse in room 237 having a bath and the great line from Jack Nicholson as he puts and axe through the bathroom door behind which his wife and son cower and then he growls the line ‘here’s Johnny!’ But my favourite horror film, and at the time when it came out it wasn’t very successful is John Carpenters ‘The Thing’. He created some of the best horror films of the 20th century including the original Halloween, The Fog, and Christine. It’s ‘The Thing’ that is without doubt my favourite horror film ever. If you haven’t seen it then its on Netflix. No excuses for not watching this. A bunch of scientists working in the arctic suddenly find themselves trapped and infiltrated by an Alien that takes on the form of anyone it comes into contact with. Some top notch gore effects, brilliant cast and its a fantastic psychological thriller to boot with an ending even William Shakespeare would have been proud of.
How did the idea for Musclecar come about? What is story behind Musclecar?
MUSCLECAR is an original idea by writer director Dwayne Labbé. Dwayne and I met in New York in 2005 at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. I had entered a documentary and Dwayne had entered an animation. Dwayne is an Emmy award winning animator who has worked for companies like Disney, Warner Bros, and Hanna Barbara just to name a few. Dwayne and I have been trying to make films together for years but were never able to raise the money. MUSCLECAR was a very simple idea and was something we realised we could do on a very low budget. Ostensibly it’s a film about a girl called Bambi who loves American muscle cars and when she buys a big red dodge phoenix she hatches a plan to use voodoo, blood and an Ox Heart to try and bring the car to life. films are inherently expensive to make and they are time consuming. We hatched a plan to shoot MUSCLECAR in a touch over two weeks. What we couldn’t do on location Dwayne animated so the style of the film ends up looking like a comic book with live action sequences. Its taken us 8 years from inception to release, which goes without paying is a long time. we encountered numerous hurdles mostly cashflow. Each aspect of the production process required seperate funding models. The shoot cost us around $60,000 and the post production process around the same amount. During this time we changed editors, encountered a lot of technology issues, and spent years tracking down musicians who worked on the songs that we used in the soundtrack. Whatever you do be careful of getting proper music rights and releases or your film wont see the light of day. I certainly know that a comic book style story where a young woman kills people so she can use their blood to run her car is a unique idea for a film.
What are some of the challenges of making a horror feature film?
The challenges that relate to making a horror film can be applied to making any film. Your story has to be believable not in a real world sense but in the logic of the world that you create. If you're a first time horror film maker then often the simplest ideas are the best. You should be a student of horror movies and you should certainly be passionate about your film because if you aren’t don’t expect anyone else to be. Apologies for being a bit technical and boring here but if your making a feature film just be careful not to injure anyone in the process so you may need some form of Public Liability insurance. Certain councils, state or local authorities might require this before you can shoot. Most distributors or sales agents will want proper releases signed before they take your film. That will include releases for all your cast and crew, locations and oh yes music. That means you need to make sure that if you shoot in a public place or even in your own house you need a release to say you had permission to shoot there. Now that some of the boring stuff is out of the way can I just say FEED YOUR CREW. It might sound like a simple thing to say but if people are working for free or deferred payments then the least you can do is feed them. I know you might want to use your mates but wherever you can try to get some professional crew on set. The thing about pros is that they know whats expected. Your friends might not turn up on time and they may not like it when you keep telling them what to do all the time. Scheduling is important so a good 1st AD is a pivotal person on set. They can help you plan your shoot and keep the ball rolling. Try not to yell at people. Being aggressive might be cool in the movies but it aint cool in the real world of movie making. yes it does happen but its not a great way of building trust and confidence. If people aren’t doing what you want, then you need to be a better communicator. Directors that scream and yell are not cool. Everyone needs to treat each other with respect. Sometimes the hardest thing about making a horror film is changing stride midway. If a location falls through or it starts to rain or get dark then you have to go with it. Sometimes modifying your ideas can be the best way forward. Be open to suggestions. If you have limited or no experience why are you the oracle? Horror is often quite scary and violent. Make sure your cast and crew know what they’re in for. Remember the camera is your friend. you may want to shortlist or storyboard your scenes. Particularly the ones where you have to scare the audience. Don’t have your actor back into the dark room at the end of the hallway unless your intend to does something fresh with this cliched scenario. Films are quite often shot out of scene order and one of the hardest things to do is make sure your actors and you the filmmaker are able to keep track of these changes. We shot one of the first scenes of MUSCLECAR on day 1 just to get our cast and crew into the swing of things. But within a few days we were leaping about all over the place. this impacts what wardrobe people ware, what hairstyle and makeup they might have on and the type of visual and lighting style you adopt. Finally get good actors. Everyone talks about having a great script but its nothing unless you have people who can deliver the lines well and consistently. Scenes can often be shot multiple times from different angles and having actors who can remember not only what they have to say but what they were doing with their hands, or if they were drinking or picking up an axe. These things need to be repeatable to that when you edit it all makes sense and cuts together in a believable way.
What advice do you have for young filmmakers?
Be brave. Theres no easy way to make a film. Horror films are great ways of introducing yourself as a filmmaker but there are a lot of horror films out there so you need to be confident of your idea. Don’t be obsessed with being original. Remember how many zombie movies are out there. If you have an idea that is a fresh take on something that already exists thats ok. Very few ideas are new or original. Money is always the sticking point. I do get a bit bored with the one location Evil Dead style movies made by first time filmmakers. That said maybe you have a new take on this single location based format. If you don’t have a lot of money then you need to be resourceful. Robert Rodriguez made his first film El Mariachi for $7000 and he used his uncles bar and his family home as two of the major locations for the film. Perhaps weave an idea around what you have access to? If you know someone who owns a beach house make a horror movie on the beach. If you also know someone who owns a boat shoot the boat near the beach house. Perhaps even see if your school or work could be a place to make your horror film? Above all make sure you finish what you start. So many filmmakers quit. Things get hard, life gets in the way. You run out of money. Your girl or boyfriend dumps you.The film isn’t turning out the way you planned, its not gunna win Sundance or make $100,000,000 at the Box Office. I DON’T CARE. Finish your goddam movie if its the last thing you ever do. You will learn so much from that process. Even if you fail learn from that failure. If you’re really a filmmaker then you’re trapped because whatever happens with that first film you're making even if it dies a death and everyone hates it you’ll go out and do it over again because telling stories is what you have to do. If its a hobby or a fad you’ll quit and go and get a job as a barista. Although the world could always do with more baristas. You’ll ware black and you’ll complain about how crap movies are to your friends. Unless you finish that movie! Can I say you you need to make few short films before you leap into the feature film realm. Directing or producing a feature is a tough job. You have to answer hundreds of questions a day and its relentless and daunting. Trust me everyone thinks it cant be that hard until they start doing it.
MUSCLECAR is an original idea by writer director Dwayne Labbé. Dwayne and I met in New York in 2005 at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. I had entered a documentary and Dwayne had entered an animation. Dwayne is an Emmy award winning animator who has worked for companies like Disney, Warner Bros, and Hanna Barbara just to name a few. Dwayne and I have been trying to make films together for years but were never able to raise the money. MUSCLECAR was a very simple idea and was something we realised we could do on a very low budget. Ostensibly it’s a film about a girl called Bambi who loves American muscle cars and when she buys a big red dodge phoenix she hatches a plan to use voodoo, blood and an Ox Heart to try and bring the car to life. films are inherently expensive to make and they are time consuming. We hatched a plan to shoot MUSCLECAR in a touch over two weeks. What we couldn’t do on location Dwayne animated so the style of the film ends up looking like a comic book with live action sequences. Its taken us 8 years from inception to release, which goes without paying is a long time. we encountered numerous hurdles mostly cashflow. Each aspect of the production process required seperate funding models. The shoot cost us around $60,000 and the post production process around the same amount. During this time we changed editors, encountered a lot of technology issues, and spent years tracking down musicians who worked on the songs that we used in the soundtrack. Whatever you do be careful of getting proper music rights and releases or your film wont see the light of day. I certainly know that a comic book style story where a young woman kills people so she can use their blood to run her car is a unique idea for a film.
What are some of the challenges of making a horror feature film?
The challenges that relate to making a horror film can be applied to making any film. Your story has to be believable not in a real world sense but in the logic of the world that you create. If you're a first time horror film maker then often the simplest ideas are the best. You should be a student of horror movies and you should certainly be passionate about your film because if you aren’t don’t expect anyone else to be. Apologies for being a bit technical and boring here but if your making a feature film just be careful not to injure anyone in the process so you may need some form of Public Liability insurance. Certain councils, state or local authorities might require this before you can shoot. Most distributors or sales agents will want proper releases signed before they take your film. That will include releases for all your cast and crew, locations and oh yes music. That means you need to make sure that if you shoot in a public place or even in your own house you need a release to say you had permission to shoot there. Now that some of the boring stuff is out of the way can I just say FEED YOUR CREW. It might sound like a simple thing to say but if people are working for free or deferred payments then the least you can do is feed them. I know you might want to use your mates but wherever you can try to get some professional crew on set. The thing about pros is that they know whats expected. Your friends might not turn up on time and they may not like it when you keep telling them what to do all the time. Scheduling is important so a good 1st AD is a pivotal person on set. They can help you plan your shoot and keep the ball rolling. Try not to yell at people. Being aggressive might be cool in the movies but it aint cool in the real world of movie making. yes it does happen but its not a great way of building trust and confidence. If people aren’t doing what you want, then you need to be a better communicator. Directors that scream and yell are not cool. Everyone needs to treat each other with respect. Sometimes the hardest thing about making a horror film is changing stride midway. If a location falls through or it starts to rain or get dark then you have to go with it. Sometimes modifying your ideas can be the best way forward. Be open to suggestions. If you have limited or no experience why are you the oracle? Horror is often quite scary and violent. Make sure your cast and crew know what they’re in for. Remember the camera is your friend. you may want to shortlist or storyboard your scenes. Particularly the ones where you have to scare the audience. Don’t have your actor back into the dark room at the end of the hallway unless your intend to does something fresh with this cliched scenario. Films are quite often shot out of scene order and one of the hardest things to do is make sure your actors and you the filmmaker are able to keep track of these changes. We shot one of the first scenes of MUSCLECAR on day 1 just to get our cast and crew into the swing of things. But within a few days we were leaping about all over the place. this impacts what wardrobe people ware, what hairstyle and makeup they might have on and the type of visual and lighting style you adopt. Finally get good actors. Everyone talks about having a great script but its nothing unless you have people who can deliver the lines well and consistently. Scenes can often be shot multiple times from different angles and having actors who can remember not only what they have to say but what they were doing with their hands, or if they were drinking or picking up an axe. These things need to be repeatable to that when you edit it all makes sense and cuts together in a believable way.
What advice do you have for young filmmakers?
Be brave. Theres no easy way to make a film. Horror films are great ways of introducing yourself as a filmmaker but there are a lot of horror films out there so you need to be confident of your idea. Don’t be obsessed with being original. Remember how many zombie movies are out there. If you have an idea that is a fresh take on something that already exists thats ok. Very few ideas are new or original. Money is always the sticking point. I do get a bit bored with the one location Evil Dead style movies made by first time filmmakers. That said maybe you have a new take on this single location based format. If you don’t have a lot of money then you need to be resourceful. Robert Rodriguez made his first film El Mariachi for $7000 and he used his uncles bar and his family home as two of the major locations for the film. Perhaps weave an idea around what you have access to? If you know someone who owns a beach house make a horror movie on the beach. If you also know someone who owns a boat shoot the boat near the beach house. Perhaps even see if your school or work could be a place to make your horror film? Above all make sure you finish what you start. So many filmmakers quit. Things get hard, life gets in the way. You run out of money. Your girl or boyfriend dumps you.The film isn’t turning out the way you planned, its not gunna win Sundance or make $100,000,000 at the Box Office. I DON’T CARE. Finish your goddam movie if its the last thing you ever do. You will learn so much from that process. Even if you fail learn from that failure. If you’re really a filmmaker then you’re trapped because whatever happens with that first film you're making even if it dies a death and everyone hates it you’ll go out and do it over again because telling stories is what you have to do. If its a hobby or a fad you’ll quit and go and get a job as a barista. Although the world could always do with more baristas. You’ll ware black and you’ll complain about how crap movies are to your friends. Unless you finish that movie! Can I say you you need to make few short films before you leap into the feature film realm. Directing or producing a feature is a tough job. You have to answer hundreds of questions a day and its relentless and daunting. Trust me everyone thinks it cant be that hard until they start doing it.
Proudest Filmmaking Movement and Achievement?
My proudest moment was completing MUSCLECAR and having our first film festival screening. Our film isn’t going to set the world on fire but considering that we made it ourselves with no external funding or investment. No studio backing or big name stars on board but we made it the way we wanted to make it and its finished and looks great and that sense of achievement and accomplishment considering how long the whole process took is very satisfying.
My proudest moment was completing MUSCLECAR and having our first film festival screening. Our film isn’t going to set the world on fire but considering that we made it ourselves with no external funding or investment. No studio backing or big name stars on board but we made it the way we wanted to make it and its finished and looks great and that sense of achievement and accomplishment considering how long the whole process took is very satisfying.