Paul Komadina is an Australian film-maker based in Perth, a contrast to the traditional creative centre for his fellow countrymen with films often shot in places like Sydney and Melbourne.
His new short ABDUCTION takes a familiar tale of a woman traumatised by a bad personal experience and transposes it with a sci-fi motif.
Film And TV Now spoke with the film-maker, as he reflected on the film’s mix of sci-fi and interpersonal memories.
FILM AND TV NOW: The short seems to straddle two genres – the sci-fi and the social drama. How did the script evolve from concept?
PAUL KOMADINA: Our writer, Frances Elliott, had her drink spiked at a night out in a club. The details of that are probably best left up to her to speak about but one thing she found quite disconcerting was how a lot of her friends either didn’t believe her or felt she was somehow responsible.
We’re very close and it’s something we talked about a lot at that time. A few weeks later she sent me the first draft of Abduction asking me to direct it. I was blown away. She had taken her ordeal and spun it into this beautiful and haunting science fiction story.
The parallels between real life date rape druggings and fictional alien abductions are quite uncanny and scary. It gave us a way to talk about victim blaming in a genre setting. I think it was genius. In the final film, we wanted to portray two competing realities and let the audience take from it what they will.
FTVN: You are based in Perth, which is probably a contrasting community of creativity compared to a hub like Sydney, where a lot of Hollywood productions are based when they are in town. What subtle differences are there in making films there?
PK: Perth is both relatively small and isolated but there is a tonne of talent here. I think the biggest difference here as opposed to somewhere like Sydney is that we find creative ways to solve problems when resources are limited. I regularly find that people from over East are shocked to discover what our budgets are after seeing our work.
Speaking of Hollywood, there are actually several proposals right now to build a studio here to attract big productions. Perth is a beautiful city with great weather (quite similar to LA) and fortuitously almost COVID-19 free. Things could potentially change here quite quickly.
FTVN: Forty years on from the ‘New Wave’ of film-makers from Australia like Fred Schepisi, George Miller and Peter Weir amongst others, how much of an influence do they have today on local film-makers and talent like yourself?
PK: In Australia we have a bit of a “cultural cringe” about our own output. A lot of people look to Hollywood mainly, or Europe and Asia for their inspiration. In film school, you wouldn’t hear Schepisi and Weir, you’d hear Fincher and Tarantino.
I think it’s sad as Australia has such an amazing history of film behind it including what’s considered to be the first feature film ever produced. The 70s especially were a crazy boom time and I love that period of cinema where people were breaking rules left, right and centre. George Miller was (and still is) a renegade and I think Peter Weir is one of the most underrated directors ever.
FTVN: Tell us about your cast.
PK: Our lead, Alexandra Nell, was the only person we ever considered for the role of Mathilda. She’s very well known in Perth and is the kind of actor we’re all just waiting for Hollywood to snap up. She recently had a small role in Zak Hilditch’s Rattlesnake, so hopefully that leads to more US work for her.
She’s incredibly hard-working, dedicated and up for any challenge. She would probably get annoyed at me for saying this but she conveys sadness so well on screen which worked for this story especially.
Kyle Barrett was also first a choice for me. I had met him when he was studying at WAAPA (The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts where Hugh Jackman studied, among others). I cast him in another short and also a commercial which required some intense improvisation in a public space which he revelled in. In person he’s very quiet, almost shy, but in front of a camera he can go anywhere.
Megan Hollier, I had auditioned once for a commercial and really liked her vibe. I wanted to cast her at the time but commercials have a lot of cooks and it wasn’t to be.
When Abduction came around, coincidentally, her and Alex were actually housemates, as they play in the film, a nice bit of art reflecting life. In shorts, anything you can do to deepen a character’s history helps and I believe their real-life relationship seeps into the film. Megan is natural and effortless. A joy to work with.
FTVN: Tell us about your production team.
PK: Cody Greenwood, the producer, and I met on commercials. We clicked really well and created a production company together. Most of our crew were people we had worked with on commercials that were keen to do something interesting in their spare time.
The DOP, Lewis Potts, is one of the chillest people you could ever meet. He’s got a very free and organic way of shooting that helped get us in the mindset of the character. Frances served as editor as well as writer as I had worked with her multiple times in the past in that capacity and it’s also a natural extension of us telling this story together right through to the end.
Frances is probably the only editor I know who can put up with my annoying pedantisms. Sound and Music were handled by Nick Gallagher and Mike Fragomeni, respectively, two guys who own Cue Sound, a sound post house that specialises in commercials but is rapidly expanding. They just did the sound for Roderick MacKay’s The Furnace which premiered at Venice this year. I’ve known those guys for years. They’re both supremely creative and nice people. It’s impossible to highlight everyone but our entire crew were all just really supportive, talented people. We had a really great shoot.
FTVN: Tell us about the locations you shot.
PK: The story is set in a smallish country town. Perth has a population of a little over 2 million but you only have to drive 45 minutes to get into places that look rural. All our exteriors were shot in these outskirt areas on quiet roads and farm properties.
The pub exterior was filmed at Mount Helena Tavern, a great place that’s been around for over a hundred years. We shot while they were open so had to work around some rowdy patrons. Conversely, the interior, was shot right in town at The Mustang Bar, as it has that old time-y wooden feel. It’s actually owned by someone who’s on the board at WAAPA so we got to use it for free. That kind of thing happens all the time in Perth. It’s a fantastic place to shoot.
FTVN: Looking at your filmography, you have directed episodes of shows Castaway and Trapped and the cult film The Devil’s Classroom. We are not as familiar with these. Tell us about them and where can people access the content?
PK: Trapped and Castaway were two children’s adventure series about kids lost in the wilderness. There used to be a lot of kids shows shot here in Western Australia. Those particular ones were filmed up north in a town called Broome. Broome is a stunning place with red cliffs and tides that move the edge of the water literally miles over a few hours.
Trapped was relatively low budget and they hired a lot of first time directors. For me it was the first time I had a full size cast and crew and my first block I believe was six weeks which was the longest shoot I had done at the time. Broome is a hot place, regularly getting up to and over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) so it was quite a challenge but I loved every second of it.
Those shows screened in Australia on a few different stations and I know they travelled to a bunch of countries but I’m not sure if they made it to the States. I believe the episodes are available to purchase online though.
The Devil’s Classroom was a crazy show concocted by a colleague of mine, Dr. Damien Spiccia, for a local station looking for content. They had a backlog of old movies and wanted a way to present them so we created a show that introduced them, putting them in context.
It starred Damien, who knows more about cinema than anyone else I know, and his puppet pal, Pesto. It was all a bit of fun. I’d love to do more one day. You can actually find all 13 episodes on my Vimeo channel.
FTVN: How long did it take to shoot the short and how did you raise finance?
PK: Abduction was self-financed between myself and Cody. We did actually apply for some government money to shoot it. We were shortlisted but ultimately rejected. We felt so strongly about making this film that we decided to back it ourselves.
The shoot itself lasted five days, spread over two weekends, with a couple of pickup shots completed during the edit. We utilised a lot of favours from a lot of people that we know through advertising work to make this happen. Our VFX, for example, were handled by Sandbox who most recently did the VFX work on Rams, starring Sam Neill. This allowed us to get quality work done but it also meant a very long post timeline as it had to happen in the downtime between bigger jobs.
FTVN: You self-financed a micro-budget film The Director’s Cut. Tell us more about this film and what advice would you give people starting out who are looking to go micro-budget on their own work?
PK: The Director’s Cut was born out of my own career frustrations and a need to forge some kind of path for myself. It’s a horror comedy about a group of film-makers who get picked off one by one by a mysterious entity on a farm. I built it around things that were available to me at the time.
Most of the actors were friends I met at WAAPA. The location was my childhood friend’s farm. I shot that thing 13 years ago. It hit some festivals and got distribution but looking back at it, I find it kind of juvenile and embarrassing. We shot it on mini-DV and the image quality is pretty substandard. This was right before the digital SLR and RED boom. I learnt a hell of a lot though.
My advice would be: Make it about something you REALLY care about. Use what you have around you. Surround yourself with people who believe in you. And, most importantly, make a film that only YOU could make.
FTVN: Given the unusual perspective you use in Abduction, what other subjects would you like to explore in future film that straddle genres like we mentioned before?
PK: My next project is a horror set in an outback town stuck in the past. The underlying themes I’m tackling with this one revolve around people who are nostalgic for a simpler time, when really a simpler time was only good for a very select few people.
It feels apt with everything that’s going on right now politically. I don’t think films should be preachy, but I do think they should be ABOUT something. On the other hand, I also believe that they should first and foremost be entertainment.
Despite the themes I mentioned, the film is about a girl looking for her sister who has gone missing. It’s mystery that turns into a thriller that descends into horror. In short, I would say that using genre to tackle social issues is practically my mission statement. A fantastic recent example of film that does that, that I admire is Get Out.
FTVN: How has COVID-19 affected your evolution as a film-maker?
PK: We’ve been very lucky in Perth. We did have a short lock-down but overall life hasn’t changed that much. In between creative projects I direct commercials, which slowed down a little bit but have already picked up again.
I guess what has expanded for me is other roles that I can do remotely such as colour grading. I grade all my own work but have started to grade for other people too. I think it’s a hugely underappreciated part of the film-making process where a lot of the impact and emotion can come from. I find it a very rewarding thing to do.
FTVN: Finally, what are you most proud of about ABDUCTION?
PK: I think what I’m most proud about when it comes to Abduction is that we’re tackling something I believe is important and that people are responding to it. We just screened at our first festival, CinefestOz, here in Western Australia and won the Audience Choice Award. (Atlanta was actually meant to be our world premiere but Covid-19 delayed Atlanta so that changed).
The award was really gratifying as a lot of our colleagues were telling us our film was too confusing or too open to interpretation. We’re film-makers who believe audiences are craving films that they can sink their teeth into and the award felt vindicating.
I think it was Alex Garland who said something like, the creator brings fifty percent to a film’s interpretation and the audience brings the other half. That’s exactly where I’m coming also. I don’t like things spoon fed to me. I was incredibly honoured to begin with when Frances trusted me enough to tell her story, and I’m doubly proud from the response we’ve had already.
