Conception Day Stew - Do's and Don'ts (from Issue 8)

DO
Drink plenty of water

Now don’t think I’m being a party pooper and encouraging complete sobriety on this glorious day. It would be hypocritical of me to tell you to do something that I myself wouldn’t do… However I will be drinking lots of water because alcohol dehydrates you, the sun dehydrates you and water will also help alleviate some of that pesky hangover many of us will have the day after Conception. Don’t just go up and get a plastic cup (as if they’ll be serving us glass) of water every now and then; get yourself a plastic bottle to tote around and refill at regular intervals.

DON’T
Overindulge

There is always one wanker or wankette who is so completely drunk that they ruin the fun for everyone else. Make sure that person isn’t you. Rolling down a grassy slope so fast you lose your pants is well and good, but passing out and cracking your head on a toilet bowl is not. Drink in moderation and don’t tell yourself that you just have to try every cocktail, liqueur, spirit and beer on offer. Your friends and your aching head certainly won’t thank you for the experience. Don’t roll your eyes at me like that…Oh, what? What’s that? Is that your wankage showing? Put it away.

DO
Take lots of pictures

If you’re anything like me, you won’t remember everything you do or everyone you meet on Conception Day because you’re running around like crazy chocolate eating Chihuahua, so take a camera. Strike a pose. Take a picture with a stranger. Take a picture of a stacks on with the smallest guy of your group on the bottom. Hey, how do I know what shenanigans you’re going to get up to? I’m just saying you should document it in digital imagery. However, be kind when posting on Facebook – if your friend un-tags a picture of themself with squinty eyes, open walrus mouth and some strange hand creeping towards their neither regions, leave it un-tagged.

DON’T
Leave your belongings alone

This may be a no-brainer, but a little bit of alcohol, music and sunshine can make the commonsense go flying straight out of your head. If you bring a bag with you to Conception Day, then make sure it goes everywhere with you otherwise your wallet and new iPhone might decide to party without you. If you don’t think you can be trusted to look after your own stuff, then don’t take it. Just take your ID, some cash and whatever other necessities will fit into your pockets and head on out to party in the knowledge that your goodies are safe at home.

DO
Have fun

Seriously, what’s the point of a day long party with 10,000 of your best friends if you’re not going to enjoy yourself? Live music, DJs, rides, food and friends; our little festival is the highlight of the academic year and has made it onto Sydney’s festival calendar as well – which of course means that there will be non-Mac students basking in our gluttonous glory. But who can blame them? We have a kick ass party in store for 2009 which just happens to be the 40th Anniversary of the very first Conception Day. So to everyone making an appearance at our hallowed event, behave responsibly and have heaps of fun! The Grapeshot Team will see you there!

Up-and-coming filmmakers will be at SPAA Fringe 2009

On 16 and 17 October at FOXTEL Television Centre in North Ryde, SPAA Fringe 2009 will gather Australia’s top film industry professionals and rising talent to share their experiences and expertise, offering insight and creative direction for up-and-coming filmmakers seeking lasting careers in the screen industry.

Already, the line-up is shaping up to be bigger and better than last year and speakers to date include Kath Shelper, Producer of Samson & Delilah; the team behind the first Australian Muslim comedy series Salam Café; Dario Russo, creator of the hilarious viral Italian Spiderman; and filmmaker and new media auteur Nicholas Carlton who created Australia’s first social web series, OzGirl.

SPAA Fringe 2009 is also offering young filmmakers unprecedented access to television executives. Commissioning Editors from Foxtel, ABC and SBS will be in attendance for a series of 1on1’s to receive pitches from delegates for new television projects. This is an amazing opportunity for all emerging producers, directors or writers to get their work in front of the real decision makers, and turn their ideas into reality.

Also new to SPAA Fringe 09 is The Clinic, a cross platform hothouse for redefining distribution strategies. As well, the SDA Pitch returns with fantastic prizes worth over $3,000.

1 ON 1’s
Delivering a unique opportunity for a private 15-minute face to face to pitch your compelling idea, the SPAA Fringe 1 ON 1 is an unprecedented entry point into a career in television production. For all students, graduates and up and comers, this represents an opportunity that may otherwise take years to access.

In 2009, the entire factual team from FOXTEL will be available, ready to receive ideas for the next great documentary to appear on the Crime Investigation Network, The History Channel, National Geographic, BBC Knowledge or Discovery Channel.

Executives from ABC TV attending include Carla De Jong, Head of Commissioning & Development for Children’s TV; Amanda Duthie, Head of Arts Entertainment and Comedy; Alan Erson, Commissioning Editor for Documentaries; Dasha Ross, Executive Producer and Edwina Waddy, Development Producer.

Executives from SBS will include Vincent Beasley, Executive Producer for Factual Entertainment; Caterina De Nave, Executive Producer for Drama and Comedy; Erik Dwyer, Executive Producer for Food & Leisure and John Godfrey and Peter Newman, Executive Producers for Factual Commissioned Content.

THE CLINIC
New to SPAA Fringe in 09, The Clinic will help you define or refine your distribution strategy. Three specialists in distribution, Dr Peter Broderick, Dr Peter Giles and Dr Gary Hayes will be leading intensive sessions to enable filmmakers to individually and collectively analyse their distribution plans. Each clinic will be one hour in duration and between one and three projects will be chosen to be analysed. Delegates must be able to clearly outline their project in a few sentences. Any type of project will be considered

SDA PITCH
If you have an idea for a screen project and are wondering if it has legs, then this session is not to be missed. Finalists from a nationwide search of pitching workshops (held in each state by members of the SDA) will pitch their projects to a panel of television & film executives and be in the running to win prizes valued at more than $3,000.

Entrants may pitch any genre, form and duration from TV series and features to shorts, animation and multi-platform content. A ‘Wild Card’ component to the session will be allowed, time permitting.

Prizes include:
- SPAA Conference 09 registration
- $1800 cash prize from SDA (and $200 for a 'Wild Card')
- Software and post production package from Azure Productions including a full copy of the new Final Draft 8 Scriptwriting Software valued at $329, a copy of your short film project output on DigiBeta tape, 50 DVD copies of your project in DVD cases with full colour printing.

TICKET INFORMATION

From September 12
2 day registration
Non Members $250
SPAA Members $200
Students $200

1 day registration
Non Members $150

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the website www.spaa.org.au/fringe or call (02) 9360 8988.

SPAA Fringe is brought to you by the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) an industry body that represents Australian independent film and television producers on all issues affecting the business and creative aspects of screen production.

SPAA FRINGE COMMUNITY
Start getting connected now. Sign up to Facebook, Twitter and the SPAA newsletter now and stay in the loop with Fringe announcements:

Website: www.spaa.org.au/fringe
Facebook: www.facebook.com/spaa.fringe
Twitter: twitter.com/spaafringe

Looking For Eric - Film Competition

Win one of 5 double passes to the film ' Looking for Eric ' simply email grapeshotmq@gmail.com with your name and email contact for your chance to win!


SYNOPSIS: LOOKING FOR ERIC

Eric the postman is slipping through his own fingers...

His wife has gone, his stepsons are out of control and the house was chaotic even before a cement mixer appeared in the front garden. Life is crazy enough, but it is Eric's own secret that is driving him to the brink. How can he face up to Lily, the woman of his dreams that he once loved and walked out on many years ago? Despite the comical efforts and misplaced goodwill of his mates, Eric continues to sink.

In desperate times it takes a spliff and a special friend to help a lost postman find his way, so Eric turns to his hero: footballing genius, philosopher and poster boy, Eric Cantona.

As a certain Frenchman says "He who is afraid to throw the dice, will never throw a six."


www.iconmovies.com.au/lookingforeric

Only at the movies September 24, 2009

Stone Bros. Review and Competition (from Issue 8)

We’re not black and white, we’re all different shades of green…that’s just one of the messages I took away from the very funny Stone Bros. Australia’s first Aboriginal comedy embraces stereotype, myth and tradition and pretty much sits on them – but in a very light-hearted, good-natured way – before directing you down paths you didn’t know exist.

Eddie, the straight guy of the piece is caught between two worlds. He looks pretty white, so not even the dog that hates black kids would chomp on him as a boy, but he wants to go back home to Kalgoorlie in the mining region of WA and prove he’s a real black fella. He has a special stone, imbued with mystical properties that he has to take with him, but it’s been lost and now Eddie has to find it before it’s gone forever. Always along for the ride (and for a major dose of hilarity) is Charlie, who gets all the girls because he’s as dark as yummy chocolate (my phrasing).

Stranded on the road is the worldly and wise Vincent, who they pick up because Charlie knows “a good looking woman when he sees one”, before coming across another cousin, Reg – now referred to as Regina – who dreams of stardom. I don’t want to give too much away, but the film has some generous moments of laugh-out-loud funniness, great one-liners and weird but wonderful quirks in the plot.

The film is crisp and clean – very Hollywood – and so much better than I was expecting. The play on culture and politics is extremely clever and the cinematography highlights and celebrates the Australian landscape (think Priscilla, Queen of the Desert).

Shall I watch it again? Yes. And I’ll still laugh at all the jokes. They won’t get old for a while. In fact, I can see at least one of those one-liners making a drunken appearance or twenty. I wonder if we can do a poll to see if you can all guess which one?

The movie will be released on September 24, and I highly recommend that you all watch it – not for the ‘post-sorry’ feel good factor, not just because the cast comprises of mainly indigenous people, but because it is genuinely and deadly funny.

By Therese Raft

Win a double pass to the exclusive special preview screening of Stone Bros.
Simply email grapeshotmq@gmail.com with your name and “Stone Bros. Competition” in the subject line to go in the draw for one of 30 double passes to the special preview of Stone Bros. The preview is on 21 September – stars from the movie will be in attendance, and lucky door prizes are up for grabs. Winners will be contacted via email.

Ankle tattoos, lattes, iPhones and Bravo (from Issue 8)

“I want to be divorced someday”, isn’t the line someone wants to hear on a first date. In this golden new age of finding oneself, there is a distraction of falling into the messy pits of desirable flings, trysts, and experiences we all want to taste.

Instead of taking up dance or cooking classes, the bored housewife dates a younger man. Instead of upping his golf swing, the power executive man dons a deep v-neck shirt, frosts his tips and goes hunting in the night clubs that for some reason don’t have age limits. There is an existential pining in the hearts and minds, and libidos, of Americans now in any age range.

It used to just be the college graduate deciding between globe hopping and grad school. Or it was the mid-life crisis victims in the suburbs ending up in a Porsche and a weeklong cruise to Jamaica. Now it is all the more extreme, perhaps because of a world in disarray and ever increasing needs to feel younger.

It was bad enough when the saying a few years ago was “40 is the new 30”. Now it’s “40 is the new do-whatever-the-hell-I-want-because-I-don’t-want-to-grow-old”. This usually ends up in midnight mayhem and ankle tattoos.

I made a list of things I want to try before I hit 30. They include the not too extreme ingredients of sky diving, East Indian cuisine, polo, photography and tap dance classes. And on the back of the café napkin, encircled with the milky-brown coffee stain, I wrote the five things I want to do, just to say I did them.

In no specific order here they are: enter a hot dog eating contest, fight a Guido, vote Democrat, get married and get divorced. Yes, get divorced. The last two are paired up next to each other to show my lack of belief in either of them. They actually correspond with, in that sense, the other three activities.

Constantly surrounded by life goals of wanting kids before 30, two cars and a high five figure income, I felt it was my right to extend opposing wants in my life. If 40 is the new 15, why shouldn’t I hold back on landing a concrete suburban life? That’s if I end up in suburbia.

We live in a society where the perfect creation of a latte is more important than soul searching. We are delineated and defined by those who care more about their makeup than their own children; where people drive on shiny rims and roll right into an apartment complex. It’s such an upside down blueberry pie world we live in and in order to, in so many ways, flip off the social currents and flows I have made it a virtuous objective to be unique.

I fight every day to stay away from the grips of boredom in this desert town, but I can appreciate the fact that I’m on the other side of mostly everyone. It does kind of suck knowing I share some of the same social beliefs as dread lock wearers and potheads, but hey, whatever works. So, maybe one day I’ll get married for the heck of it to shake up social restfulness. But trust me, I will also succumb to the same post-marital fate as 49% of American couples who were supposedly meant to be. Just for the fun of it.

By Nick Esquer

[Nick is an American who will be commencing study at Macquarie in 2010. We feel rather chuffed that he found our editorial guidelines and submitted something to our little publication].

Macquarie Centre Promotions

Macquarie Centre's Summer Fashion Guide
Available now!

Pick up a copy of the catalogue in centre or visit macquariecentre.com.au for the interactive guide, where you can search through the latest looks and trends for Summer. Get carried away with fashion...

Win a Sex and the City Package!*
Package includes: A 42” Panasonic full HD Plasma TV, Panasonic Blu-Ray DVD player, Sex and the City – Blu-Ray movie and complete Series Box Set on DVD.
To enter, simply visit macquariecentre.com.au
Competition closes at 5.00pm, Tuesday 6 October 2009.
*Terms and conditions apply. authorised under NSW Permit No. LTPS/09/07378. For full terms and conditions, please visit macquariecentre.com.au.

DigiSPAA - Australia's Premier Digital Feature Film Competition

Are you an aspiring filmmaker? There is only a couple of weeks until the deadline for all feature films to be submitted to the DigiSPAA digital filmmaking competition. The prize consists of $15,000 cash, $20,000 worth of post-production, a guaranteed screening of their film on the Movie Extra channel, plus a return airfaire and free registration to the prestigious CineMart International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The competition acts as the launching pad for local directors, including Jason Byrne, 2008 winner for Little Deaths, and John L. Simpson, 2007 winner for Men's Group, who are making waves in the local and international film industry.

Four finalists will be screened at this year's SPAA Fringe conference on 16 and 17 October at Foxtel Television Centre, North Ryde, and judged by an expert industry panel including Antony I. Ginnane, President of IFM World Releasing Inc., Geoff Brown, Executive Director SPAA; Daniel Scharf, Producer of Geoffrey Wright's AFR Award-winning Romper Stomper; Colleen Meldrum, Program Director, Movie Network Channels and Stacey Edmonds, Producer/Director of I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer.

Two finalists will then be selected and the winner announced at the annual SPAA Conference 17 - 20 November. All finalists will be made available to prominent international and local delegates, offering applicants ample exposure to the top dogs of the industry.

Applications close at 5pm on Friday 18 September 2009. Eligible films are feature length, with a running time of at least 70mins, digitally produced and completed to advanced post-production stage no earlier than 31 August 2008, and independently funded.

For full details, application form and guidelines go to http://www.spaa.org.au/

DigiSPAA is a creative project of the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) an industry body that represents Australian independent film and television producers on all issues affecting the business and creative aspects of screen production.