Ollie Birt.
Film making really doesn’t get the recognition it deserves, it’s an art form that dominates our world, but how much do we know about it? What about old school filmmaking, where it started, how much do you know about that? Not much I’m guessing! We wanted to figure out what it’s about, the origins of film and the way artists connect with the skills. So we got on to young filmmaker Ollie Birt and had a sit down at our local bowlo. He shed some light on how it all really works, what the process is like on Super 8, his experience in Super 8 film comp, Straight 8, and a load more. It was fascinating, there is so much to it we didn’t realise, shooting a film without actually watching it back in the moment is a pretty specific skill. Ollie’s on to it though, scan the QR code to watch his film after reading this interview to fully appreciate how much effort and talent goes into creating his films.
So, what got you into filmmaking?
I used to steal my parents' camcorder when I was really little, probably eight years-old. [I] made lots of animations and stuff with my younger brother. The stupid thing is, we don't have any of them anymore cause we taped over them. We'd shoot something, and then go away on holidays and that tape would be in the camera, so our parents would record over it. None of them really exist now.
What influenced you to try out Super 8?
I'd see it a lot in skate and surf movies. When I was maybe, twelve, I bought a camera on Gumtree. I didn't think that you could shoot [Super 8] anymore though so we’d use it as a prop, like a gun in videos [cause] it kind of looks like a Ray gun. Then when I was in year 11, I figured out that you could still shoot it. So I mucked around with it and ended up shooting my HSC film on it and just fell in love.
Do you also use Super 16?
Yeah, so I'm mostly shooting Super 16 now which has been a pretty recent thing. Mostly because the price is surprisingly cheaper and the image quality is better. If you've got the budget, you can hire a camera and get lenses and have a bit more creative control over the image. Being able to choose focal lengths and different shaped lenses to create a more distinct look like that is sick. Super 8 is really fun, but it has that home video look to it. Which can be really good if you want to achieve that look, but now I find myself wanting to make something that feels just a little bit more refined. Super 16 is just that little bit cleaner and nicer.
Let's go into the pros and cons of shooting on tape. What do you think? Are there any times where you would go back to digital? Or are you always just strictly shooting film?
It's hard to talk about it without sounding snobby. I've shot a few things digitally and I don’t have anything against it, but as far as why I would choose to do it is just artist's preference. It's where I feel like I'm being the most creative, I guess. What makes me excited to go shoot a film is the experience of actually being able to shoot it on film. Like, if you're a painter you'd want to be using oil paints or acrylics or whatever, I just feel like I’m most in tune with my art when I'm shooting on film. I think shooting film makes you very critical of what you're shooting and why you're shooting it. If you've got only a limited amount that you can shoot, you think cautiously about what you're doing. I think that's really important when you're young and you're trying to discover what your aesthetic is, or what your kind of voice is. It's quality over quantity.
I think it's really valuable when you're learning the craft of a certain art form to try it the traditional way and learn how to do it in the way which it was done for a hundred years before what we're doing now.
I feel like you can just get carried away when you just keep redoing it.
Yeah! It's a planning thing. Cause when it comes to specifically with the music videos, the most valuable asset, is time really. So if you're shooting digital, I find that you just shoot something over and over and over again, and you won't move on. But with film, you might only be able to shoot it twice and then you have to move on. So it definitely keeps you conscious of time as well.
With editing, how do you go about it when you shoot?
With Super 8, I find that I edit inside my head, and I know lots of others do too. Because you’re very limited as to how much footage you've got, you're stitching it together in your head. Then when you get that roll of film back, as opposed to digital where it's all separate clips, it's all there as the one clip, it's all already edited basically. If you've been very conscious of what you're shooting, then when you get it back you're only really taking out the shit shots or the ones that didn't expose roughly. That's what I do with Super 8, I just leave it as it is. I think it's more authentic. But with Super 16, normally I'm shooting something that's more performance based or has dialogue and that would normally be a few takes of each thing. So I'll be pulling it apart and then putting it back together.
So what would be your favourite things to shoot?
Well, I definitely want to get into narrative filmmaking. I'm less about just an aesthetic, or a mood, or a feeling, there has to be some sort of story behind there. I just like to be constantly shooting though. So if I'm on holidays, it's fun to bring a camera and shoot stuff. But I enjoy storytelling the most, or kind of writing and then creating a story.
And how do you go about the creative process?
It depends. With music videos, it's getting sent in a song and then just listening to it over and over and over again. Sitting on a train thinking, ‘I wonder what this music video would be like?’. It's all to service what the song is. The interesting thing about that is, a musician's already done all of the hard work, right? Steve, who I’ve worked with quite a lot, enjoys this when we work together; he's created this one version and then enjoys the idea of what my interpretation is. Like the Warm video that we did. It's a love song, I think he was writing about family in particular. And I wrote it about a love between him and his dog, which is completely not the intention, but that's what I imagined when I listened to the song.
I feel lucky that pretty much every time I've been trusted to come up with the concept myself. Steve always says that if he’s getting me to do the music video, like he’s paying me to do it, then I come up with it. I feel the most creatively charged when I can take control of that.
What was your experience in the Super 8 film competition, Straight 8? How did you find it?
I found it through Edgar Wright, the filmmaker. I went through a stage where I was, and still am, very obsessed with his films. I used go on Vimeo, type in Super 8 and watch every single fucking video, I was completely obsessed. Then I stumbled across [Wright’s entry] and figured out that it was this film comp where you'd shoot all on the one roll of film. You just shoot it all on that one roll, put it in a package and send it to London for them to process and enter. You don’t even see it first, so you're entering this competition blind. It was built upon this idea of the filmmakers that we all look up to, when they were young shooting Super 8 was their way into filmmaking. I’d been rejected from film school, maybe two months before. And I was like, What am I going to do? I just needed to do something. So I entered it.
I spent quite a long time going through and watching every single Straight 8, then I listened to interviews of the guys that run it and just tried to figure out, What way can I do this?
I'd seen a few uploaded that were someone's travel videos or whatever. That's not enough for me, there really has to be a story there and I hadn't done that with Super 8 yet. So I came up with this story that was loosely inspired by Paul Jennings books, they inspired ‘Round the Twist’. I loved that format growing up, the aesthetic and those weird Australian stories like fables and urban myths. I’d been spending more time in my hometown too which was very nostalgic, so I wanted to capture that too.
So, I wrote this story and recorded this narration. Then we used that script to say, we have three minutes and 20 seconds, let's go through and plan how the opening shot needs to be 10 seconds. Then next is five and then three and then whatever, all adding up to three minutes twenty and then that kind of stitches it together. The hardest part is trying to keep it in time and holding on the trigger and counting one, two, three, and then, that's it, that's over, can't repeat it.
I didn't really think anything of it really, we just sent it away. Then I woke up one morning and I had the email saying I got in. [It was] so surreal and scat, Billy [who’s in the film] was heaps pumped too. It was really funny because normally with a film, you can tell people roughly what it's gonna look and feel like. They can watch the film after and conclude the footage that we got looks cool or whatever. But because I'm there looking through the camera, I'm the only person that saw the film. I'm sure everybody else just had no idea what it was going to look like. Then we got to France and watched the film for the first time which was just fucking wack, so weird. Seeing your best friend's face come up on a fucking massive screen in a foreign country with 250 random people, and it's the first time you've ever seen it too. What the hell?
It sounds like there’s a lot of the behind the scenes and organising and planning that goes into creating a film, especially when you’re limited to recording on tape, that other people don’t realise?
Yeah, definitely. But it's really valuable to be in tune with the logistics of it. Just not going crazy and being like, ‘I'm an artist and I can just fucking do whatever I want’. Just being like, ‘How can I reign this in and be smart about it?’. It's so important because people can get so carried away with everything, but figuring out what will work and then figuring out all the logistics behind each scene probably would end up saving you a lot of time with editing anyway. Part of the reason I think I can shoot film regularly is because of the lessons that the Straight 8 competition taught me in the way of shotlisting, audio, planning, and budgeting. Doing the hard work and doing the maths and adding it all up and figuring out. Yeah, there's more letters in business than there is in show.
What's next for you, do have anything in the works at the moment? You were saying you're doing a documentary, can you tell us anymore about that?
I'm feeling kind of protective about it, cause it's not fully ready. I'm just trying not to rush it. I'm currently researching it, but it's centring around a woman who was displaced from government housing in the city and got kicked out. It’s a pretty amazing story but right now it's about trying to do it correctly and not exploit it. I'd like to be shooting it all on Super 16. So I don't want to approach it like a normal documentary where I do face to camera and interviews. It's going to be a narrated story. I'll be spending a lot of time with this woman and listening to her story, and then writing a screenplay with her and getting her to narrate that, then putting the necessary footage with it. I'm really excited for it, it’s a pretty sick story. I’m at film school too.
What would you say to like your younger self about filmmaking? You said that you got rejected from film school a few times, what would you say to that person?
Keep doing the same thing? I don't know, don't listen to people? Like if someone comes up to you and tells you that they know a lot about something or they're going to help you out— they're full of shit. I had conversations with people where they'd be like, ‘Come and do this or come do work experience.’, just don't believe any of it. You're on this journey yourself. It's an uphill battle. Yeah, don’t count on anyone hahaha. Except for your friends and other artists and people that are inspiring. From what I've seen, especially in America, the film industry is very much like no one wants to let you into the parties kind of thing. There's not many people opening the doors for you. I think you gotta open them yourself for sure. That's what I would say to myself.