Date: Saturday, 14-Apr-18, 0:29 AM | Message # 782
Rip Snorter
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Thanks for the read and pics Smilygirl I have saved them so I can read it later. How are you doing have not heard from you for a bit. I hope you are well.
Extremes and youths bridge one another comfortably. As we grow older, the extremes with which we engage are the ones that we adopted when we were young, the ones that we never jettisoned. Their parameters may have expanded but the extremes themselves are familiar ones. The young have wider opportunity and a looser criteria when it comes to extremes. It’s why coming-of-age stories are almost a genre unto themselves. We can all empathise with the education by experimentation that accompanies adolescence.
Simon Baker’s Breath, based on the Tim Winton novel, is very much about extremes. It is told from the point of view of two young men living in a small community in Western Australia and involves adults who guide them beyond comfort and safety toward their own set of established extremes. The imperfection of adults may be nothing knew when it comes to coming of age films but it is nonetheless a strength of this film.
The central character is Pikelet (Samson Coulter), a nearly-14-year-old boy living in a stable home with his loving mum (Rachael Blake) and dad (Richard Roxburgh). Pikelet’s best friend is Looney (Ben Spence), who’s familial situation is less secure. Looney is as reckless and wild as Pikelet is measured and quiet and we immediately get the impression that this is not a friendship that will last a lifetime, even though it may last until the final reels of the film. Their personalities are too incongruous. What they have in common is adolescence.
“Never had I seen something so beautiful, so pointless and elegant, as if dancing on water was the best thing a man could do,” the adult Pikelet, in a voiceover by Winton himself, recalls. He is talking about surfing, which the boys discover on one of those expeditions that lead nowhere in particular that most of us embarked on when we were younger. They are hooked. They test the waters on cheap styrofoam boards but realise quickly enough that they need something more substantial, saving up enough money to buy a pair of banged-up fiberglass boards. The man who sells the boards describes them as ‘crap’. To Pikelet and Looney, they’re everything.
The two figures around which Pikelet and Looney begin to revolve are Sando (Baker) and Eva (Elizabeth Debicki). Sando notices the boys’ dedication to their pursuit and adopts an informal mentorship role that walks a fine line between learned guidance and irresponsible directing. His extreme is big wave surfing, a particularly dangerous form of the activity. Eva is his wife. She is aloof and unfriendly towards the boys, but entertains extremes of her own.
The performances by Coulter, Spence, Baker and Debicki are all integral to the film’s success but it is Coulter and Spence that make the most resounding impression. Neither have acted previously and both were chosen for their adeptness at surfing because, as Baker recently commented, it is “a lot easier to act than it is to surf.”
His decision to find surfers who might be able to perform was the correct one. The surfing scenes are possibly the best committed to a feature film, outside of documentary filmmaking. That we are able to really see these two characters surf is important to the immersion of place that Baker encourages. That both performances are as faultless is they are is enormously impressive.
Breath is a story of understatement, despite following characters that pursue large sensations. It is the sort of story that does less than you think it will, which is a strength. It also offers, to a degree, a portion of those sensations, and of the vivid Western Australian environment, to its audience. Baker and Winton’s subject may be universal, but the place is specific. Breath is 2D virtual reality.
Water cinematographer Rick Rifici (Otherlife, Drift, Adore) has spent a lot of his career capturing surf for TVCs and commerical clients, where the brief typically involves capturing the waves and athletes in sunny conditions and bright blue water.
However, when Simon Baker asked Rifici to come on board to shoot the surf and the underwater scenes in his debut feature Breath, an adaptation of the Tim Winton novel of the same name, the director had a vision that avoided surfing tropes.
“He wanted to capture what we see as surfers,” Rifici tells IF. “It gave me a really good chance to get creative and shoot a lot of things that you don’t normally get to when you’re shooting for the mainstream surfing media.”
Rifici had the opportunity to shoot out of the box, take underwater shots from abstract perspectives, and to capture a moody, atmospheric aesthetic. “[Baker] didn’t want anything to be bright, sunny and fluffy.”
Breath was shot around Denmark, Western Australia back in 2016. Rifici was on the set for around four weeks, shooting any scenes on, underneath or in the water. He used a RED Dragon in water housing with Cooke S4 lenses. A wireless link sent footage back to the director nearby on a boat or on the mainland. There was also a follow focus system in the water housing, which enabled Rifici to sit at a shallow depth of field, and to be able to throw focus between actors as they delivered dialogue and then to somebody surfing.
The crew were often working in testing conditions, but Rifici says his job was made easier by Baker. The director is a surfer himself, he’s knowledgeable about lenses from his time on sets as an actor, and he cast two professional surfers, Ben Spence and Samson Coulter, as his young leads, rather than using surfing doubles – authenticity was key in what they were trying to capture.
“Having two young surfers in the actors, I was able to get really close and was also able to do dialogue, where they could turn and swing, catch a wave and slip off a wave and deliver their lines.”
Rifici says he enjoys shooting in the water because it of the inherent challenge it entails. He can read a script and plan how he’ll capture a scene in his head, but when he gets out into the conditions, he may need to throw it all out and adapt – heading back to shore to change lenses or filters could wipe out almost an hour from schedule.
“Nothing is easy about it,” he says. “When dealing with mother nature, especially in the water and the ocean, you need to have everything as prepared as you possibly can as far as lenses and ND filters, to be able to predict what is going to happen to a certain extent.”
The variable nature of the surf also means there can often be only one chance to get a take.
Rifici notes a key scene in Breath involves one of the actors catching a big wave and coming down near a boat anchored nearby. They had mapped out a half a day’s schedule to shoot it, but he was nervous – there were a lot of elements that would need to come together for it to work, and he thought they’d definitely need to reshoot.
However, within five minutes of the boat being anchored and the actors being dropped off, there was a 15-20 metre swell.
“I was hoping the focus puller – who was on a boat a couple of hundred metres back – had a picture up and was ready to go, because one the young guys, the lead, he paddled for a wave and actually caught it and delivered his lines as he flicked off near the boat.
“Then the next wave that came through sank the boat. So we had one take at it. It was just perfect, we couldn’t have planned it any better.”
Rick Rifici and Simon Baker participate in a panel tonight at the Gold Coast Film Festival, as part of an ACS & ADG event. ‘Breath’ will receive a national theatrical release May 3 via Roadshow Films.
April 20, 2018 2:39 pm in Entertainment by Carla Tooma
Hundreds of people packed into Event Cinemas at Pacific Fair last night to catch a glimpse of Hollywood star Simon Baker on the red carpet.
The Aussie actor, most famous for his leading role as Patrick Jane in the Mentalist, was attending the Queensland Premiere of his new movie, Breath, as part of the Gold Coast Film Festival.
Not only does Baker star in the film, it is also the first time he has directed a full length feature. “It’s a fantastic opportunity that I never imagined I would have ever had,” he told myGC. Two young surfers, Samson Coulter and Ben Spence, were plucked from obscurity to star alongside Baker in the film.
While the film features the boys riding solid waves, they say the scenes shot on shore were more terrifying. “The waves weren’t the problem, it was just learning how to act,” Bed said. Samson added, “The surf was the relaxing bit. We were just rubbing out hands together when we got to stop acting and go surf.”
They also revealed to myGC that prior to meeting Baker, they didn’t really know who he was. “My mum had heard of him,” Samson said. “And I think I saw him in that ad where he pushes the screen and it lights up.”
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Simon Baker's Directorial Debut Feature film "Breath" screened on the Gold Coast for its Gala Premiere at Events Cinema Myer Centre for GC Film Festival and Hush Hush Biz Entertainment News had the Red Carpet covered and we spoke to Simon and young actors surfers. Filmed & Produced by Jean-Pierre Addinall & Seth LeBrese April 19, 2018
